Tag: twitter

Microblogging About Anime

Posted by Ryan A - May 20, 09

In light of getting thoughts out quickly, microblogging anime series [or any media] is quite the handy thing. More than anything it resembles what we now call scrobbling. The difference is, that scrobbling is a miniature instance of experience logging, with no thoughts attached.

When we scrobble-blog (micro-updating on media titles) we can and do include our thoughts as well as the instance of experience (whether it is logged depends on the platform). Oh what a nice combination. Here’s a view of what it looks like on twitter (I added the highlighting and labels, to make it more apparent).

Previously, reflections were my main destination of media updates, but I’ve hardly posted anything of length in recent months. No, it has been mostly this scrobble-blogging. But, is this a good solution? Let’s see….

Evaluation

  • When we scrobble-blog, does the system mark the given title as experienced in some way, or add it to a list?
  • Are updates organized by media-category and title?
  • Are titles standardized, readable, unabbreviated, and relevant in these updates?
  • Can we avoid including the title or abbreviation in the content of the message?
  • Is there a way in which we can see what we post the most updates on, whether it be for a specific title or a type of media in general?
  • Is there a way in which we can see what our friends post the most updates on?
  • Can we hide some updates while making others available for everyone, such as having all media updates be available to everyone, while personal updates are available only to friends?
  • Can we be expressive in our updates (bold/italic/strike, bigger or smaller font)?

So, where does your microblog stand?

Notes

My cat is asleep on the futon D: I like having my own micro-scrobblings organized by blog reading, anime, music, or other media. I like using bold and italics. I like having the full message available without considering the length of the title I’m posting about. I also like being able to hide events from other’s streams, but still have it visible when they look at my updates. Etc, etc, etc.

When @ Fails

Posted by Ryan A - May 14, 09

Recently, twitter changed something in their @ operator handling. Though it was news to me, there was previously an option which allowed users to view their friends’ updates which were replies to non-mutual friends. Since around July of 2008, my account had automatically hidden replies of this nature, but I have realized a flaw in the new changes. Something painful.

Before I get into that, I’ll just say that some users are irritated by this modification, but from a developer’s point-of-view, twitter’s reasoning is rather sound on the grand scale. Naturally, if I were to implement it I would do it a bit differently, allowing those who follow a reasonable number of users an option to see these replies, while limiting this feature for those who either follow 3-5000+ users or the followers of those with 3-5000+ followers. In essence, it’s more efficient if new-twitter was a place where everyone was following and being followed by 10k people (god, the whole following bla bla is so geh… SUBSCRIPTIONS). That’s off the topic.

Today, once these things were in order, I realized something in my replies, or rather what was in the list of replies and not in the home view. Previously, I would see replies for all @nuclearsurprise, which still stands, but I cannot recall any time where someone I was following included @nuclearsurprise and it did not turn up in my home view. Do we see where this is going?

This happened today, when owen_s, a user I follow, mentioned @nuclearsurpise in one of his updates, a non-mutual reply to omomomo. Now why on earth did this not show up in my view? And still these updates will not show up in my follower stream, which leads me to believe either something is off in this new implementation or this is the way it is supposed to work (I’m covering all feasible grounds here, as I don’t expect a group with millions in backing to fuck up… but then again).

So given that users cannot see these non-mutual replies is whatever, but why, oh why, does this happen on non-mutual replies which include a follower’s nick?

I don’t think it was supposed to happen that way.

Micro-Blogging Revisited

Posted by Ryan A - June 2, 08

I took the time and signed up for Twitter, after learning about it sometime in Autumn 2006. I’ll just say, MAL “microblogging” is not, even melative “reflections” are not (though pushing towards the lightweight implementation and availability). These lack the interfacing and simplicity, and that thing of time-saving. Truthfully, “Notepadding” is closer to microblogging, but it isn’t social.

Here is a presentation by Jyri Engestrom, and I ask where do anime blogs stand in this social currency market, because blogs are quite the slow and time-consuming bag. Mind you, this is not new stuff, but Jyri makes a good point about “value” and while the steam of the otakusphere is “the current, the hot, the seasonal”, a couple months later it just doesn’t matter (editorials rule the time! glad to see more of these in recent months!!).

So what we have are blogs that just don’t stand, are continually “hot” and updated, but it’s being done in a very tedious way. It’s gotta be the mobile ease, and probably my stimulation here is my lack of leisure computer-time in the past few weeks to realize that the mobile connection works even being away from “home” half the time (adventure always calls, usually nature).

Efficiency and effectiveness will find a way :) and I’ve found sitting on a computer looking at the RSS feeds just isn’t that effective, because eventually time explodes and I just won’t be on the computer very often.

Ryan A

btw: relevant film reflection, Cafe Lumiere, see it. [reflection]

melative reflects the thoughts

Posted by Ryan A - April 24, 08

Today I didn’t do a weekly adventure post, though I plan on doing one for code Friday. Rather, while reading some of the blog list this week, I noticed a couple bloggers mention the use of MyAnimeList for twittering “micro-blogging.” It isn’t difficult to see why I am putting this post out there, but I think melative reflections need some light.

Credentials

One of the first mentions of melative here on AloeDream, was this post, but the concept of “reflections” came somewhere about month after Maestro gave me this blog, and I asked myself, “Is there a better way?” I got into blogging wanting to bring my cluttered notebook of small ramblings to the world web, but this *stares at WP* was just overkill for what I wanted.

I had been planning a web-app at the time, but I grew this unrelated idea of “short notes” in the mix of things. A previous 2004 application I coded did a small version of tracking my anime experience and notes as I went along (all in AJAX), but I gave that up when I went S.A Hikari-mode with school. Funny thing… melative reflections weren’t stimulated by that project, they were stimulated by episodic blogging.

When I started to blog, I did the episode to episode thing, but it was tiring. The snapshots were tiring, the summary was tiring, layout was tiring, and the only enjoyable part was writing what I felt about it ( the reflection ). It is a different time. If the short list on the right doesn’t do justice, here is an example of extremely undemanding reflecting…

rss

I want to repeat that extremely undemanding part. I’ll say it, I’m lazy, I can’t spend 2 hours on a post about ONE episode, or ONE volume of a manga. Still, why reflections? why melative? Even though the site is in rubble (SRSLY ごめんなさい), some things work, reflections I made sure of since I use them. *smacks himself for dancing around the questions*

Answers and Rambling

melative reflections are “directed at specific pieces of media“. So what’s the difference between MAL’s ‘related’ posts, or better yet, Last.fm’s journal connections (I respect that thing). Well, the words have different meanings (directed, connected, related). This isn’t so say a reflection is unable to connect or relate, because that is already built into melative with bbcode links (ie. [anime]Kanokon[/anime] or [creator]Katsumi Nishino[/creator] or [actor]Miyū Takeuchi[/actor] … don’ ask me why I used Kanokon references, because I entireli don’t know :P).

Why not Twitter or Pownce?

It’s feasible, but these sites are more about “events” in the life of a person. How many users post about the experience. melative aims to display the experience. I could Twitter, “I just watched episode 12 of True Tears, the chicken should have died” or I could reflect … “the chicken should have died” (directly at True Tears, on an episode, no.12). Very similar approaches, but it’s about organization of thought vs a stream of events, the latter being Twitter.

Lastly, one of the greater purposes of melative is the fact that MAL and Last.fm are different sites, but still toying with media. melative encompasses all media (or 13-14 areas planned). So a reflection doesn’t have to relate to another anime or manga, it can just as well be connected to an album, game, poem whatever. And just as important, reflections and melative do not eliminate the need for a blog; it is a tool, the informaiton is meant to be portable and accessible (code code and more code).

Anyway, the melative story doesn’t end with reflective micro-blogging, which it is a very small, almost unintended piece of the pie. It is a personal tool which fits precisely into the scheme of this animeblogging. Hence, the reason I use it.

Ryan A