a brief trace of an online presence or all my sites from tumblr to medium
*archived from medium, published on 12th June 2015
What is writing on the internet? What are the places content is located? & What are the requirements which are specific to the publishing space?
Content publishing on the internet is roughly classified into two generations based on platforms. The first is proposed on Blogger, WordPress or Live Journal. These are early adopters, wherein it’s noted an individual using either one of the three are ideally loyal to the one they are on. Mostly a result of habit, these individuals, continues on with the task of disseminating ideas on their adopted platform. The pre-Facebook generation is all here. Social media brought in almost a void in how these services are imagined. Alongside Facebook, there is Twitter as the other ubiquitous product of the time. If a second-generation to blogging is proposed it will squarely lie with Tumblr, Medium and Svbtle. In all “beautifully” designed working environments, care taken is to make writings, and publishing enjoyable. A core distinction between the two generations is the second requires multiple engagements. Say a content creator on WordPress would continue to keep producing material on the platform and not be necessarily available on the other two. The second-generation blogger is required, by design to exist on more than one from the list. Ease of use is a definitive go-to pointer.
content dissemination framework 2012-’20
colours.machimach.com (mothercolours.tumblr) _ finding colours in wikipedia [or any possible other image silo, may be 4chan in the future] art
shapes.machimach.com (machimach.tumblr) _ an exploration of euclidean geometry, study of compositions in black and white
photos.machimach.com (isaacmathew.tumblr) _ personal photo book
museumofdesign.in (museumofdesign.tumblr) _ review on the culture of Indian design landscape as observed by documenting its art, architecture, products and photography
mumbaiopendata.org (mumbaiopendata.tumblr) _ a city archive in its first edition, dismantled repository of personal Mumbai projects
twitter.com/@mumbaiopendata _ #mumbai news updates
twitter.com/@machimachinc _ personal updates masked sometimes as distorted ramblings
blog.machimach.com (isaacmathew.svbtle) _ repository of working ideas
medium.com/@isaacmathew _ ideas compiler under architecture, curation and urbanism as posted on blog.machimach.com
The multiplicity of distribution in ideas is the main reason the number of sites has increased. More eyeballs for your content. If this exercise was conducted at the first generation stage all these would locate on only one of the services, with a tag cloud displaying the topics of interest. Fewer folks online and more personal expression. With every post then come with needs to distribute over social networks, Twitter thus is a requirement of that. Time invested may not see this state evolving at least on a personal level. This is where the similarity with the first exists. The third iteration of blogging can be identified emerging on knowledge-based or professional networking platforms such as Quora and LinkedIn. Culture of content works in parallel with the level of influence one already has, which is further capitalised with blogging as an act here. A mash-up of sorts, likely, between the long scrolled content and the curated locations from the second. What all the stages are reminiscent of is the evolving politics of content dissemination and to a degree, it’s almost considered mandatory to part of the proceedings if one has to retain relevance in time.
#edit 19/04/2016 _ content and data streams promoted as virtual properties are where you sell or disseminate your ideas. It’s no longer about platforms like social networking but a stage for your opinions and designs, which can be consumed in some form or the other. As in with the increasing number of organisations locating themselves among services you use, there is direct competition across demography of creators and producers of material. Engagement thus on these boards are among prosumers creating a content type and while informing consumption. Taking on from the previous stance on generations, information streams are broadly slotted into analogue and digital. Traditional news, radio, television and books form the analogue strain. Parameters on digital networks tend to be amorphous where services don’t have hard edges. Podcasts on Soundcloud/ iTunes/ Spotify, Vine, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Quora, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Personal Websites, Kindle Author Page — all are now content channels where your ideas may or may not succeed. Either due to this improbability of guaranteed success on a particular platform or directing views to a specific source, there lies a tendency to have some kind of presence in more than one material arena. Ideal conditions or states in the first generation dedicated singular stage would suffice as there is an investment to construct it. With no or minimal operational costs and allure of instant fame, its seeming advantages aren’t necessarily beneficial if there is no substantial traction of content. That said consolidation within and across networks is key if time investment on content development instead of dissemination requests prioritisation. #goals online strive to move traffic to your site and facilitate engagement to further concepts traction.