Category: Connecting

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Jeneane writes about lazy aggregator people, and the loss of community because of RSS aggregators. Her solution is for everyone to bring back the blogroll. Ralph agrees, stating that feed aggregators reduce every site to a dull grey lowest common denominator…. Both talk about the disruption in conversation that reading feeds in aggregators can cause, and consequently the loss of community.

I don’t think community can withstand the vagaries of this environment. Differing experiences and interests over time will surely drive a wedge between both community and conversation much more quickly than the use of any technology. Consider a recent experience: Ralph and Jeneane had a chance to meet and chat at SxSW. This is an experience they shared others of us have not; there is now a virtual line through their community; there are now those who have physically met and those who have not.

Communities grow…apart as often as not.

I have resisted the full feed for long because it was important to me at one time to know people were out there and I was actually being read. I still believe that fullfeeds adversely impact on the discussions you have at your site.

I also put much effort into the design of my site, all of which is lost to an aggregator. I like my site design. I think it’s soothing and elegant, but has enough interesting bits to it to make it stand out. The photo changes every time you visit, though you won’t see this if you’re using IE. I worked very hard for this effect — that and the new shadow and the perfect choice of color. You won’t see any of this through an aggregator.

Now, it’s not as important to me if people visit the site or read my writing through an aggregator. Oh, I do mind my photos being republished in a feed because of the bandwidth; or my syndication feed being re-published at another site, especially one that features ads. For this reason, you’ll have to send me an email requesting access to the full feed I’m creating, as I’m password protecting it.

I’m also thinking of putting a line at the bottom of each post in the Atom feed, saying:

“Created especially for my friends. Does this mean you’re my friend? Good. I need a place to sleep, then. I’m no bother. Really. Well, aside from the insomnia. Oh, and I have 8 cats. Well, my boyfriend’s kind of scary, but the meds seem to help.”

Communities, friendships, a sense of companionship and sharing can’t be made or broken through the use of tools. If anything, when we become friends through our online associations, we have done something extraordinary–we have reached beyond the limits of technology and created something human, and real.

But it’s a fragile reality–like the shadow of a pale moon.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I’m still importing my music CDs into my iTunes. I am now up to 1358 songs, and currently importing the Beatles White Album.

Handling CDs over an extended period, I’ve noticed how the CD packaging and CDs, themselves, have changed over time. Some of my older CDs, such as White Album, have thick, heavy plastic cases; the newer ones are thin, light, or even made of paper. The older CDs are thicker, and seem more durable; the newer are so thin they seem to be made of dragonfly wings.

I can’t remember buying my first CD player, or my first CD. According to this page at Philips, the first CD pressings for commercial sale happened in August of 1982. By the following January, half a million CDs had been sold.

1982. That was one year later than when DOS was invented, and one year before the release of Apple’s Lisa personal computer. That was 23, almost 24 years ago–older than some of you reading this. This means that many of you have never played a record in a record player; or tapes that used to get hung up in the cassette players, and turn into the same curly mess as our afros.

My ex-husband and I had a CD player our second Christmas together, I remember that. Or was it a cassette player? It was one or the other, I remember that. What I can’t remember is the year we got married. For the life of me, I can’t remember when we got married. Was in 1983? I can remember the stereo (it could play albums, still, so it must have been a cassette player); the place we lived (an apartment, with an artificial stream that attracted ducks in the winter); the city (Phoenix); even what I wore Christmas day (a light pink satin nighty with a darker rose satin robe with delicate lace down the front).

We had adopted a pregnant cat who had given birth to three kittens about 2 months before. I can remember them tearing at the Christmas tree and sleeping as a bundle on my lap. I had a perm, and my hair was a thick mass of curls.

I can remember the year we divorced: 2002, in Boston. (Actually it was in 2001: the year the dot-com I worked at closed, started my first weblog, took my one and only trip to London, and then moved to San Francisco because it seemed like a cool place to live.) We still lived together; something the judge commented on–perplexed at our friendliness after session after session of couples loathing one another. When we moved apart, I can remember splitting up the CD collection: his and hers. But I can’t remember the year we were married, or the first CD we bought. It’s in the pile I’m digitalizing right now. Somewhere.