Online services convergence

Abstract

In which I post a brief update on the various services I use, and why.

Table of Contents

1. In view of the present situation

1.1. In brief, what you need to know

I’m blogging here still, and the rest of my stuff which has been scattered over various sites is now unified in one spot, the Foreshortened mini-log. That’s where I’ll be sharing links, tweets, and other things I come across. They won’t be going up on Facebook, because it’s a faff and because it’s not open access; also, they won’t be going up on Twitter, because it’s just too short for meaningful interraction, and I won’t spread myself too tiresomely across the web.

1.2. Spuriously detailed instructions

Friend me on Facebook if you want to see my comments there and tag me in photos; subscribe to my blog in your feed reader1 if you want to follow the things most important to me; subscribe to my Foreshortened micro-blog if you want the more day-to-day detail as well.

I should also point out that for users of Twitter and Facebook, although I don’t plan to post statuses or tweets there, I will mirror my stream there. It’s too much, but, tough. You’ve joined a system for amplifying trivialities, so put up with it. If you do want to follow me, look for @nicholaswilson on Twitter and @Nicholas Wilson on Facebook.

2. More than you want to know

A summary of the services I currently do and don’t use

Clearly, I blog. The Tumblr micro-blog Foreshortened has the rest of my content, including the stuff other people would share using link-sharing services, bookmarking services, tweeting platforms, social networking sites, and more (or less, as I cut out a tiny bit of junk when I see the full impact of what I am splurging brought together in one place).

I also use various domain-specific sites: I catalogue and review my books on my LibraryThing. I occaisonally post code at my GitHub, though I rarely have the patience to work anything up into a form usable by others, and there is nothing up at the time of writing. I rarely take photos, but do have a dormant Flickr account (not worth following). My music tastes are shared at my last.fm. Finally, in a remarkable act of openness, my calendar is actually public, should you want to find out what I’m doing at any moment.


1As a reminder for certain family members: A feed reader helpfully gathers internet content together in one place. If you’ve ever found yourself going back to a site every now and then, like a new site, blog, or magazine, to check for new articles, you probably would find a feed reader helpful. I suggest you use Google Reader, which I have converted some members of my family to. To add feeds to your reader, in Firefox, go to your bookmarks menu, then ‘Subscribe to this page’. In Chrome, until they add support in the next version, you can quickly enable this extension and use the orange feed icon in the address bar at the top. Most sites have feeds, so if you would enjoy an article on some site and would like to follow more, look for the orange icon.