@coffsweb - we're on Twitter!

[chrisjacob]

Please follow @coffsweb ( http://twitter.com/coffsweb ) and use the
#coffsweb hash tag when tweeting anything related to this group.

Happy Tweeting.

- Chris

[Matthew Davidson]

Hi Chris,

You know me, so you know I'm going to be difficult. I'd like to
propose that we shift this group onto web services that the group has
control over. There are two reasons for proposing this, or rather one
big bunch of reasons that I find compelling because I'm weird, plus
another one that might persuade normal people:

* The autonomy/freedom/privacy concerns as addressed in the Franklin
Street Statement on Freedom and Network Services (http://autonomo.us/
2008/07/franklin-street-statement/). For more recent insightful
thoughts on this area, I highly recommend Eben Moglen's talk "How We
Can Be the Silver Lining of the Cloud" (http://penta.debconf.org/
dc10_schedule/events/641.en.html).

* I wonder whether it looks very good if a group of professional web
developers can't communicate with each other via the Web without
recourse to services provided by third parties.

It so happens that I have a couple of existing hobby sites that
provide more-or-less equivalent functionality to Google Groups and
Twitter (and you already have accounts on both), but I certainly don't
mind if somebody else sets something else up that might be considered
a better technical fit to the requirements.

I've just given you administrator access to http://groups.ourcoffs.org.au,
so you can create groups/users there to your heart's content, and you
can invite people to http://microblog.ourcoffs.org.au (I had to make
the site invite-only a while back because the spambots were going
crazy.) The latter has a number of advantages over Twitter in that it
has real group functionality (you don't have to rely on hashtags), and
anybody with an existing account on any other site that uses the
OStatus (http://ostatus.org) protocol (like http://identi.ca) can
subscribe to a group or user on this site from there.

The only reason I'm able to post here is because I had to get a Google
account before there was a free software equivalent to Google
Analytics (http://piwik.org/). Because I'm such a zealot, I normally
ignore invites to soul-sucking walled gardens like LinkedIn, Facebook,
etc. If it turns out I'm in a minority of one on this, it's no big
deal; I can always have a bot post from the respective RSS feeds of
Google Groups and Twitter to http://microblog.ourcoffs.org.au in order
to keep up.

Matthew.

[chrisjacob]

Hi Mathew,

Great to hear from you. As always I appreciate your views on privacy
and opinions of the larger "controlled" companies. I think you make
some valid points; however in my experience these tool and services
(Google apps, Twitter, Facebook, Linked in, etc) are vitally
important. If I chose to neglect these services I would be "out of
touch" with my peers. I think it is particularly important for anyone
new to the industry to embrace these tools...they are more important
to someone starting their career then I think you give credit.

+1 for your ideals... But not at the expense of falling behind in an
industry that thrives on constant change. Staying in touch (and better
yet ahead) of the trends is critical. These popular tools are
important to our careers due to the enormous use base they
influence... numbers matter... they particulary matter to clients
(surprise, surprise).

I won't be changing the group over. But I do encourage members to
check out your sites and participate across all discussions.

Viva la Twitter ^_^

On Sep 26, 1:21 pm, Matthew Davidson <m...@almatech.net.au> wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> You know me, so you know I'm going to be difficult. I'd like to
> propose that we shift this group onto web services that the group has
> control over. There are two reasons for proposing this, or rather one
> big bunch of reasons that I find compelling because I'm weird, plus
> another one that might persuade normal people:
>
> * The autonomy/freedom/privacy concerns as addressed in the Franklin
> Street Statement on Freedom and Network Services (http://autonomo.us/
> 2008/07/franklin-street-statement/). For more recent insightful
> thoughts on this area, I highly recommend Eben Moglen's talk "How We
> Can Be the Silver Lining of the Cloud" (http://penta.debconf.org/
> dc10_schedule/events/641.en.html).
>
> * I wonder whether it looks very good if a group of professional web
> developers can't communicate with each other via the Web without
> recourse to services provided by third parties.
>
> It so happens that I have a couple of existing hobby sites that
> provide more-or-less equivalent functionality to Google Groups and
> Twitter (and you already have accounts on both), but I certainly don't
> mind if somebody else sets something else up that might be considered
> a better technical fit to the requirements.
>

> I've just given you administrator access tohttp://groups.ourcoffs.org.au,

> so you can create groups/users there to your heart's content, and you

> can invite people tohttp://microblog.ourcoffs.org.au(I had to make

> the site invite-only a while back because the spambots were going
> crazy.) The latter has a number of advantages over Twitter in that it
> has real group functionality (you don't have to rely on hashtags), and
> anybody with an existing account on any other site that uses the

> OStatus (http://ostatus.org) protocol (likehttp://identi.ca) can

> subscribe to a group or user on this site from there.
>
> The only reason I'm able to post here is because I had to get a Google
> account before there was a free software equivalent to Google
> Analytics (http://piwik.org/). Because I'm such a zealot, I normally
> ignore invites to soul-sucking walled gardens like LinkedIn, Facebook,
> etc. If it turns out I'm in a minority of one on this, it's no big
> deal; I can always have a bot post from the respective RSS feeds of

> Google Groups and Twitter tohttp://microblog.ourcoffs.org.auin order
> to keep up.
>
> Matthew.

[Matthew Davidson]

The main reason I worry about those tools (and few would argue that
there's a bigger tool on the Internet than Mark Zuckerberg ☺
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/14/damning-zuckerberg-i.html) is
precisely because they pose a threat to constant change. A debate for
another time perhaps. In the meantime, I recommend watching this video
of a talk by Jonathan Zittrain:

http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/vision-videos/jonathan-zittrain

It's discussing a lot of the themes in his new book The Future of the
Internet and How to Stop it, which you can download from here:

http://futureoftheinternet.org

Viva la World Wide Web! The only "app" you need!

[cdbragg]

I'm partly with Matthew on this... but for reasons different to his.

I'm not morally opposed to corporates and their tools... they do what
they do and appeal to different folks, so can be important in terms of
marketing and connections. Use whatever you like, etc...

But seriously, I find the Google Groups interface to be reasonably
crappy.

[Ruben]

Hi Coffs Web Designers,

Apologies in advance for having a little rant...
Matthew, That'd be great if you could set up the bot to suck down the
posts to read on microblog.ourcoffs.org.au
As a longtime webdev and casual ASP/PHPcoder the closed systems of
Twitter, Facebook and all the squillions of other services frustrate
me as well as inspire me.
- They inspire me because they attract so many of us suckers to
surrender our data (myself included). Twingly bells and whistles get
me (almost) everytime.
- They frustrate me because...
> I cannot fix the broken or frustrating bits.
> I have to create yet another user account.
> I have to trust them for the future with my data - but I don't.
> They make me lazy (that's why I let Matthew host my account on
microblog.ourcoffs.org.au)

I think it is healthy for people like us to get our hands dirty under
the bonnet of the web. This means building services to emulate the
stuff we are impressed by. That's the only way we can learn how to
improve it, or hack it, or use it in novel ways. We need to stop being
lazy. If we work with the tech supplied by the big web services what
is there to differentiate us from your average 14 year old kid? Not a
lot.

anyhow... blah blah

cheers,
Ruben

[Matthew Davidson]

Your wish is my command, Ruben. Users of social networking systems
that support OStatus can subscribe to:

http://microblog.ourcoffs.org.au/webdev

... to be notified when there's new stuff from the RSS feed for here,
the Twitter user account, and the Twitter hashtag (via http://twemes.com/coffsweb.rss
- Twitter doesn't appear to have feeds for hashtags).

But easy on the ranting; you're muscling in on my territory.

[chrisjacob]

Hi cdbragg and Ruban, thank you for joining in on the conversation.

@cdbragg At the end of the day I feel most (new) people will be
comfortable using Google Groups relatively quickly. Basic/Intuitive
UI... as a tool for simple communication it works... and the Email
subscription/notifications work well.

@Ruban I disagree with your point re: Google Groups putting us in the
same category as 14yo kids. Google Groups is a service used by many
professionals. I personally enjoy tinkering with API's more then 're-
inventing the wheel' by building my own... respect tho for trying and
keeping things open source. I don't feel this group would benefit from
sandboxing ourselves into a less "standard" service as proposed by
Matthew.

When it comes to Twitter I simply like the service... there are some
brilliant dev's that I really enjoy following like @drnic, @wycats,
@paul_irish, @simurai, etc... I get countless good quality suggestions
and insights from the people I follow.

- Chris

On Sep 27, 1:48 pm, Matthew Davidson <m...@almatech.net.au> wrote:
> Your wish is my command, Ruben. Users of social networking systems
> that support OStatus can subscribe to:
>
> http://microblog.ourcoffs.org.au/webdev
>
> ... to be notified when there's new stuff from the RSS feed for here,

> the Twitter user account, and the Twitter hashtag (viahttp://twemes.com/coffsweb.rss