Paying $44 billion to literally break a popular website, strip it of any recognizable brand, and drive all the users away. Remarkable.

What else to add? And do all that in less than a year? 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻

After seeing this post by Chris Hannah: It’s incredible to see the effect of the various recent changes on how the “blue checkmarks” are given out and what they seemingly represent to different demographics of people. Here’s my take on this. It’s straightforward: you don’t need to be verified by Twitter (or any of these centralizing platforms) to feel that you exist, are relevant and be fabulous! Just be. If you’re uncomfortable with recently introduced changes at Twitter, move on elsewhere. Continue reading →

If Twitter is broken, it might be a fix here and there, actually. Just saying.

If I had enough time on hand, I would build a one-pager website comparing all Mastodon clients. Then, I would update it as new app releases come out. I can see the feature-by-feature comparison table with an overall score at the bottom. I think it could be helpful for new Mastodon users and developers to better understand their app’s position in the client landscape.

I’m no longer spreading Twitter content. Today is a cleanup day in my bookmarks collection, acting as a repository for future editions of my monthly newsletter: Numeric Citizen Introspection. Each bookmark is stored in one of the six “buckets” in Craft, as shown in this screenshot. What is noteworthy today is the fact that many of those bookmarks were links to tweets. They were all deleted. Quitting Twitter also means stopping spreading references to the platform’s content.

So, the only way to set a profile image in IFTTT is to use one of the following services?? Not possible to upload a picture. My profile image is now blank because I deleted my connection to Twitter. Weird.

Gruber is whining about and calling out Twitter. Fine. I did too. I still do. And probably keeping doing it for a little while. But I left. I moved on. My actions followed my words. Will he do the same? 🧐

It’s a matter of credibility somehow.

There’s no sense in clinging to the personal whims of a clown leading a shit show. Especially when his circus will end up being a $44 billion version of MySpace. Source: The Shit Show • furbo.org

Priceless.

🇺🇦 There is one thing that I’m finding hard to replace from Twitter: all Twitter accounts I was following reporting about the war in Ukraine, from people on the front or close to it. This is critical information that goes beyond what the general media is saying. But things are starting to move in the right direction, as I have found many tweeps who are now on Mastodon. Yeah! 🙂

While on Twitter, I was a fan of Tweetbot. Now that I'm on Mastodon (I have an account but don't plan to be very active for now), I feel at home with Ivory, their new client, still in beta. I wish they were doing a Micro.blog client. I would pay more to get it than I paid for Tweetbot.

cc ivory@tapbots.social

👉🏻 Well, that was fast: @numericcitizen@techhub.social 😎

Reasons why I joined this Mastodon instance. 1) I like the name “techhub.social”. 2) It’s operated by a Canadian. 3) He speaks french and has a Ukrainian flag on his profile.. 4) I’ll be able to see the interaction between Micro.blog and a Mastodon instance.

Micro.blog will stay my home, but I’ll experiment with Mastodon, even though I said and wrote that I would focus this year. Damn.

And now Twitter suspends third-party app? Really? Another good reason to GTF of this platform. I’m so happy to be Twitter free now. Even though I find Tapbots a bit lazy in updating its apps (the macOS app hasn’t been updated for quite a while the last time I checked), they are great ones.

Today is the day I turned my Twitter accounts (apple_observer & numericcitizen) into private mode. It’s the last step before disabling them altogether.

It’s funny how I’m rediscovering people on Mastodon (via MB) who I first met on Twitter in 2009, 2010 or 2011. People moved away from one platform to go elsewhere.

Any Mastodon experts in the room? One quick question: how do I proceed to “reserve” my content creator name “numericcitizen” in the Mastodon world? I understand that I need to select a Mastondon server first where the account would be created, am I right? Then, what else?

When I read articles like this one from The Washington Post about Elon Musk’s current tenure at Twitter, I think about Steve Jobs's tenure at Pixar. Both are quite different leaders, but I think Steve Jobs had a much more positive impact on Pixar than Musk on Twitter. My comparison comes from the belief that Steve could be seen as a jerk or be very hard on people. Elon is certainly seen and behaves like a real jerk. Continue reading →

Just posted on my Twitter account.

"This account is being phased out. I no longer believe in Twitter as a viable and valuable social platform. I don’t share any values with Twitter’s owner. Hence my decision to leave soon. You’ll be able to find me elsewhere as documented here: https://www.craft.do/s/9ILVvNnwHVAmJk"

As you can see, my plan to exit Twitter is well underway. I think I could turn this shit off by January 1, 2023. It was much faster than I initially thought. This to-do list gives you an idea of how deeply Twitter was embedded in my digital life. Well, no more.

This morning, I visited IFTTT and Zapier to turn off ten applets which were using Twitter. My About page was updated to remove references to my Twitter accounts. While at it, I removed all references to Medium and GetRevue since they are no longer used. I still have to figure out how I will follow people on Twitter who are valuable (there are a few) but refuse to move elsewhere. I might use News Explorer to follow them, cutting the noise because I refrain from using a Twitter client. Continue reading →

If you don’t have a website, a blog or a newsletter and only exist on Twitter, then I give up. You’re not worth it. Thought of the night.