Twitter and FriendFeed Leave No Chance for a Balanced News Consumption to a Technology Blogger

Svetlana Gladkova,

on July 30, 2008,

Only yesterday morning, minutes before the earthquake in California, I talked to a blogging friend of mine on Skype and shared my concerns about a huge imbalance in my news consumption. The thing is that I have realized that I follow all (even minor) news related to everything in technology and web 2.0 - because of Profy, obviously. This results in my every moment online spent on some technology site or blog or some social network discussing the same technology news.

And since I rarely watch TV, I happen to miss lots of important things that happen in the world, including earthquakes (irony is that I actually used earthquakes in the yesterday's chat), catastrophes, or major political events (which is twice depressing since politics was what I studied in university and was supposed to do for a living). Moreover, my immersion in technology news that are mostly Silicon Valley focused often makes me feel that San Francisco news are more local to me than what I am actually supposed to consider to be local news here in Russia.

And this thought has found itself another proof yesterday - after finishing the Skype chat I went to check FriendFeed one last time before disconnecting for the night and noticed dozens of Twitter messages from various friends of mine in California about the earthquake and about how Twitter was the only thing that they could use for communication since the phone calls did not go through.

And again I was reminded that if an earthquake happens, say, in the Altay Mountains that are mere 500 kilometers away from here, I will probably not notice it at all since I have no friends from that region on Twitter or on FriendFeed (this is not exactly the most connected place on Earth). So my professional interests and the people I communicate with because of them interfere with anything that could be important to me personally as a citizen of another country across the ocean.

This seems to be a sad imbalance and this is not what it is supposed to be - after all, there are many things that matter to people on Earth and they are not necessary related to technology and web 2.0. I have come up with some kind of solution - I will create a virtual friend on FriendFeed and will feed myself some local news using it not to keep myself totally disconnected from reality. And if you are a tech blogger yourself, share your thoughts in the comments please: do you feel this kind of imbalance in your news consumption as well and if so are you concerned about it?

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37 Comments (Subscribe to rss)

Derek Ralston - July 30, 2008 at 12:37 am PDT

Hi- I think you do raise a valid point, but I have tried adding regular news in Twitter (using news feed bot friends from WSJ, etc), and find it annoying to have all those news articles mixing with notes from friends and bloggers. It’s really distracting and sometimes you might go too far that way and miss important tweets! I like to be able to visit the news sites independently, I don’t know if it’s the best idea to mix news in with your Twitter and Friendfeed.
gregorylent - July 30, 2008 at 12:41 am PDT

in the christian (i am not one) bible is a phrase, “to them that have, all will be given, to them that have not, all will be taken away”. (it has a deep mystical meaning and is very empowering, but that is not important here) …. and of course we all know the phrases “digital divide”, “early adopter”, “leading edge” … so what you are addressing seems normal.

but the tech world, like science, like politics, like business, like any niche, has very little of what is globally important in it, and is very much a self-referential world. perhaps the language of art criticism is an example, they are only talking to each other, not even to the artists!

but this is not a problem. when we first put dye into water, it is still concentrated for awhile, until we stir it. then all is evenly colored.

we need a new job description, we can call it “stirrer”. something to aim for,

enjoy, gregory lent
Duncan - July 30, 2008 at 12:52 am PDT

Svetlana
let me first say that I get what you are saying as someone who doesn’t live in the Valley, let alone the United States. The fact that the center of the universe in tech is the United States, and by extension California is a given, and that focus is definitely reflected in a failure to care about most things outside the border of the United States. Further proof can always be found in reading American newspapers. Unlike in my native Australia, where the mainstream media dedicate ample space to news of the world, the American media cares little for it, and usually it’s a sub-page and only includes news where it is relevant to American interests, for example where American troops are placed, or where American foreign policy is at stake.

However, don’t confuse the introspective obsessions of Americans with a complete failure of people outside those borders to communicate online. I know that the only reason today I remain on Twitter and reading Twitter is that a sizable portion of my Twitter follow list (and unlike FF, I don’t reciprocate on Twitter because I’d rather it remained small…that and it’s too hard to reciprocate) is in Australia, and via those friends and contacts I get a lot of my important local news. Obviously you face a lack of people you can connect to in Russia (you’re in Novosibirsk? east of the Urals, and traditionally sparse) that makes things difficult, but I’d be surprised if you operated in a complete vacuum of online news. Surely there must be someone within a 1000 km radius that is talking local. I know when I lived in country Western Australia that I was surprised to find people in my vicinity talking about local news, on their blogs and on Twitter. Not a lot mind you, indeed less than I can count on one hand, but I wasn’t alone.

Take the lack of local news as a challenge to find others online where you live, or better still, to encourage others to use the tools you use, so that you can collectively share.
gregorylent - July 30, 2008 at 01:24 am PDT

and the other side …. losing the global for the sake of the local

i hate it when international publications drop global news for the sake of pandering to the locals.. i.e. here in india, the financial times … i already get all the local i need, thanks.
Svetlana Gladkova - July 30, 2008 at 01:31 am PDT

@Derek: Right, I have practiced this on Twitter as well and found it to be annoying similarly. But I think FriendFeed has better potential since I actually use it more for news consumption than communication-only tool – so if I simply add some local news feed at least I will see the headlines.

@Gregory: Thanks for this metaphoric comment, I do think that we actually get what we ask for. We asked for constant information flows in tech news and we received just that. And it must be similar in other niches as well, obviously, I just don’t follow any other niches as I’ve mentioned in the post itself But a stirrer does sound like a good potential job to get the colors even – at least to a certain extent.

@Duncan: Absolutely valid point, I have noticed it a lot that for a regular US citizen the world is very US-centric, nothing else actually seems to matter at all. You know, I had a big laugh a while back when I was asked some time in April by a friend of mine in the US if we had Autumn or Winter already here in Russia and I had to explain to him that we are actually in the same Northern hemisphere (by the way, I really think Russia is not all that difficult to spot on any map, right?). And this focus on the US is even more visible in tech news, of course.

But the problem with trying to communicate more to the local people who are on FF or Twitter is that they are the same early adopters (who are not as numerous here in Russia in general – let alone in Siberia) because no one else is really aware Twitter or FriendFeed exist. And these early adopters tend to talk about the same things that I already discuss on FriendFeed – the only difference is that they do it in Russian. And while I admit I am forgetting Russian language (or at least typing in Russian), I don’t think it is the reason enough to engage in the same tech news discussions in Russian to add to my English-language ones. This is the problem – while in the US such services at least have some chances for mainstream usage, here we are definitely under-connected (while Russia is growing very fast, the rate is simply explained by the low penetration we have now).

And this is exactly why I’m thinking about creating a virtual friends for local news, not trying to persuade real-life friends to adopt these tools themselves – I don’t think that the people that only connect to check their emails and maybe chat on ICQ will see the advantages of Twitter. I just don’t feel enough power in myself to evangelize Twitter here
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira - July 30, 2008 at 03:48 am PDT

@Duncan Please don’t lump us all together. I swear we have global news coverage and many of us do read and consume other news. The first news I read for the day is the BBC, and my feed reader doesn’t just have tech news feeds. I have one section for environmental issues (that includes clean tech, but not only) and another for legal issues (which ends up being a lot of notations about the U.S. Constitution crumbling bit by bit) and still another for global issues. I have a FriendFeed room for the folks I’ve met on Twitter and the like from here, and we also still use Twitter to keep up with local stuff. There are tons of us outside the Valley and even more outside the echo chamber who don’t even know the names Scoble and Arrington, and have never even set eyes on an iPhone. I promise.
gregorylent - July 30, 2008 at 05:40 am PDT

i am in bangalore, a reasonably wired city, india’s silicon valley if you believe the promotional stuff … but even visiting a half-dozen webdesigners to get some sites designed, i have yet to find anybody who knows about friendfeed or twitter …

we are very very early in this game, and innovation is not a cultural concept in all parts of the world, let alone thinking it advantageous to expose oneself to innovation …

and when most people do connect with this, it will be in evolved formats, so lucky for them!
gregorylent - July 30, 2008 at 05:44 am PDT

virtual friends for local news is a great idea ./.. http://www.outside.in is doing this i think, though i don’t know if this is what you mean
konstantink - July 30, 2008 at 09:24 am PDT

Svetlana, do try http://www.ngs.ru. The site is bursting with local Novosibirsk news
Rick Powell - July 30, 2008 at 06:07 am PDT

Every a-lister should read this post.
Svetlana Gladkova - July 30, 2008 at 10:29 pm PDT

Gregory, I actually believe the promotional staff often so I have an impression that Bangalore really is a very wired city. But it is no surprise that even the early adopters there are not aware of the latest toys that Silicon Valley is crazy about.
As for the virtual friends for local news, I guess in almost every area there is a reasonable site reporting on local news on a good level and it just depends on personal interests what to choose for your local staff not to fall out of real life completely.

Konstantin, I am certainly aware of ngs (after all, I am not actually in a complete vacuum, I often spot ngs on my husband’s screen) and this is exactly the site I am going to base my virtual friend on. The problem is that unlike many other people I simply often fail to visit some sites (including this one) unless they are related to my job - that is the problem.
Rob Diana - July 31, 2008 at 03:09 am PDT

I think the problem is more obvious on FriendFeed for one good reason, the number of users. Twitter has all sorts of users because it has moved past the really early adopters. This gives us news on earthquakes, the bombings in India last week and other breaking news that is completely non tech. FriendFeed is still entrenched in the early adopter space. This obviously has a very high technical bias. However, I have seen 3 additional groups gaining activity, social users (like Mona), librarians (who thought that many would be active) and musicians. This is a very good sign as these people will broaden the perspectives available.

As I said in my most recent post, we cannot be too quick to judge a site like friendfeed. It has been in the wild for not even 6 months. Sites take years to get mass adoption. Let’s wait and see what happens.
Svetlana Gladkova - July 30, 2008 at 11:07 pm PDT

Rick, why do you think it is only valid for a-listers? I actually think that any blogger who chooses a specific niche can get into the same situation and share my concerns.
Steven Hodson - July 30, 2008 at 11:07 pm PDT

I tend to agree with Svetlana on this one
Svetlana Gladkova - July 31, 2008 at 04:46 am PDT

@Rob: Right on spot with the number of users - this is definitely the major difference between Twitter and FriendFeed. But you know, I don’t even remember when I last checked the public timeline on Twitter - I only check on my friends and my replies. And on Twitter I actually follow the same tech people. So I only get a chance of getting some mainstream news when they are discussed by the people I follow - like earthquake in California that I began with. So it is great to see Twitter growing and getting some following among the mainstream users and FriendFeed enrolling some non-tech users as well. But everything still depends on who you follow - and the people you follow determine the type of new you will see.
gregorylent - July 31, 2008 at 05:15 am PDT

summize makes twitter useful for me, allows a selection my friends don’t offer … could be used for local news, too …. like a lot of things in this world, just needs that critical mass …
Mathew Koeneker - July 31, 2008 at 05:27 am PDT

Excellent post. What I did was try a few experiments. Try looking for and adding people that are near you even if you don’t know them in the RW. Active participation in FF has also helped with this. And as always go out there and experience life.
Rob Diana - July 31, 2008 at 05:40 am PDT

@Svetlana
I never check the public timeline on twitter. What ends up happening is that you follow enough people that someone hears about something new, like the Bangalore and Ahmedabad bombings. I do not remember how I saw my first tweet about it, but the degrees of separation on twitter seem to be less than the standard 6. Words travel very fast on twitter regardless of who your “friends” are. FriendFeed is just starting to see this kind of thing, see the bacon and lettuce dork threads. My tech “friends” are definitely not the ones starting that, but eventually the “friend of a friend” gets followed because they have good content for you. That is what makes friendfeed so powerful is that you don’t even need to subscribe to the people to see their content.
Rick Powell - July 31, 2008 at 02:07 am PDT

I didn’t say “only” a-listers should read it, I just think they suffer from tunnel vision more than most of us. I read it and wondered why someone hadn’t written it before now. I see the results of such myopia every day on every social network I participate in.
James Ferguson - July 31, 2008 at 05:07 am PDT

Great read. I sent the link to some co-workers. We were just talking about stuff like this earlier.
Mathew A. Koeneker - July 31, 2008 at 05:07 am PDT

Valid for all. Excellent point about tunnel vision or target fixation as my Dad likes to say. Try adding new folks in your area. Enable the FOAF’s posts. Stop hiding tweets. Open yourself up to some more “noise” or flow and then tighten it back down again when you reach a more healthy equilibrium.
David Knight - July 31, 2008 at 05:07 am PDT

The web can certainly make geographical boundaries disappear and in general that is a wonderful and amazing thing! But like with so many things in life, the key is moderation. I noticed a similar problem a few weeks back and asked people to recommend non-techie friendfeeders and then started hunting down some local bloggers to add to my RSS subscriptions. I’m still not 100% happy with the balance, but it’s been very rewarding and I need to keep looking - thanks for the reminder!
Svetlana Gladkova - July 31, 2008 at 05:07 am PDT

@Rick: Thanks for the clarification and it is the best compliment I could get, I think. And I think the reason for this myopia is pretty clear - you just get the type of information you subscribe to (or depending on the people you follow). But it is increasingly hard to get out of the coterie where you follow the same people everywhere and get the same information everywhere as well.
Derick Valadao - July 31, 2008 at 06:07 am PDT

It’s really hard for people who are involved in the industry to spend too much time away from their bread and butter to engage in a broader range of interests (I’m not one of these people). Furthermore, other industries are (obviously) not as well represented in the social media circle. I’ve tried to find many blogs on natural science and psychology and was rather disappointed. The content is great, but the community is terrible. It will take some serious work to get balance if social networks are your only source for news. Considering how wonderful and efficient the system is, we should get working on it. @David Knight let me know what solid RSS feeds you’ve found
David Knight - July 31, 2008 at 06:07 am PDT

@Derick Unless you’re in the Upstate region of South Carolina I don’t know if you’ll care about the feeds I found so far, but here’s the thread where I found some good non-tech friendfeeders to follow - http://friendfeed.com/e/b8fbc8a2-5473-4b87-95ec-c28f9b1541bf/Dear-Masses-Looking-to-add-a-little-variety-to-my/
Alexander Kohlhofer - July 31, 2008 at 06:07 am PDT

This got me thinking.. Maybe I should get a newspaper subscription again.
Derrick Burns - July 31, 2008 at 07:07 am PDT

@David Knight: Supposing one was in the Upstate region of SC, and was looking for a little local color via the Tubes?
girlatastartup - July 31, 2008 at 01:51 pm PDT

Svetlana,

I completely agree. When you’re submerged in niche worlds, you tend to just know what’s going on in that world to such an extreme degree. I usually have to pry myself off of certain news sites and remind myself that there are OTHER things happening. This is something I have to remind myself of everyday. Good post.
Svetlana Gladkova - July 31, 2008 at 09:07 am PDT

@Derick: Excellent summary, this is exactly the problem for the tech blogosphere - we just focus on certain things and don’t have either time nor often desire to venture elsewhere for diversity. Great it’s not like this in other niches but they certainly may have other problems as well.
Svetlana Gladkova - July 31, 2008 at 09:07 am PDT

@Mathew: This could have been a great advice for many people but unfortunately not me since in my area I don’t personally know anyone (but my husband) who heard about Twitter at all - let alone FriendFeed. And I don’t hide Tweets - I actually like the noise it brings. The problem is that all the noise I can get is technology-related mostly, this is the main reason for my concerns.
Svetlana Gladkova - July 31, 2008 at 09:07 am PDT

@David: Glad I’ve reminded you about an important thing and even more glad I’m not alone with this feeling
Svetlana Gladkova - July 31, 2008 at 09:11 pm PDT

@Mathew: Thank you, glad you like the post! The problem with adding people in my area is that they are virtually non-existent on FriendFeed (see Gregory’s comments above - he is in Bangalore in India but here it is very similar). And I’m actually quite fine with my life offline - whenever I find time to be offline, I am only talking about news consumption here.

@Rob: True, I also feel that the degrees of separation are less than 6 on Twitter and if it to a certain extent easier to get news there - I just mean that the news you get still depend heavily on who you follow. On FriendFeed it is getting better due to friends recommending some odd content from their friends but FriendFeed still needs a much larger base of users to become a place to consume all the types of information casually.

@girlatastartup: Good you share my feelings about this, I think I’ll have to put a sticker somewhere on my display to remind myself that every day I need to browse a few pages on a regular news site as well (though chances are I will still be distracted anyway).
Cesar H Castro Jr - August 01, 2008 at 10:09 am PDT

This if precisely the reason why all tech bloggers should “unplug” for a couple of hours during each day. Get back to realization and away from “online research”. Read an actual newspaper, magazine hell even a book in the mornings before jumping online.

Try starting a daily routine/ritual before jumping online maybe start by reading a newspaper skimming the headlines, reading the funnies/comics Or listening to the radio Or watch a little TV news while your making morning coffee and breakfast. Take 15 minutes to absorb it all. Then turn to the Internet.

It works for me.
Svetlana Gladkova - August 01, 2008 at 12:00 pm PDT

Cesar: Thanks for the advice, it does sound reasonable if it only takes 15 minutes daily In fact, I do try to watch TV already in the morning when having breakfast - right now it seems to be the easiest way to start my day with some portion of real life. And I actually make myself not to read my feeds drinking my morning coffee - and if I manage that, I’m sure I will succeed
Terry - September 08, 2008 at 06:38 am PDT

Well it seems to me that most people don’t bother to look at the current news at all. Even the technology ones. That is because most of the news out there is on the depressing side. I personally read local news as part of my tech reading, the major sites like NY Times and CNN. You need to be well diverse in todays ever changing world. I don’t think the ‘unplug’ factor maters today, yes its good but with more and more content both work and play being delivered through the Internet everything comes down to the simple word; Balance.
Svetlana Gladkova - September 08, 2008 at 11:11 pm PDT

Unfortunately the simple word “balance” is hard to find, especially in the tech world. And while it is good that you can find any information you may need online, it still matters a lot to be able to reach a diversity of information you need while technology news presented from different points of view by numerous media outlets already form a pile big enough to consume - let alone add any non-tech news on top of that.
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