The Application Development Experiences of an Enterprise Engineer

Social Media

Posted by bsstahl on 2022-11-11 and Filed Under: general 

The implosion of Twitter and my subsequent move to the Fediverse has me reviewing all of my social media activity.

A few of the things I've looked at, and continue to investigate, include:

• How and why I use each platform
• How has my activity changed over time
• What previous statements I've made should be corrected, amended, or otherwise revisited

The revisiting of previous statements will likely happen either on the platform where they originated, or via microblog commentary @bsstahl@cognitiveinheritance.com. The rest of the analysis can be found here for everyone's benefit and comment. Of course, all comments, as indicated below, should be directed to my microblog @bsstahl@cognitiveinheritance.com.

My platforms:

• My Blog:
  • How I use it: Long form posts, usually technical in nature, that describe a concept or methodology.
  • Future Plans: I hope to continue to use this platform for a long time and would like to be more active. However, I have said that many times and never been able to keep-up a good cadence.
• Microblogging @bsstahl@fosstodon.org but previously on Twitter:
  • How I use it:
    • Real-time communication about events such as tech conferences with other attendees
    • Keeping in-touch with friends I met at events, usually without even having to directly interact
    • Asking for input on concepts or ideas on how to do/use a tool or technology
    • Asking for comments on my blog posts or presentations
    • Promoting my or other speakers/writers posts or talks, especially when I attend a talk at a conference
    • Publishing links to the code and slide-decks for my conference talks
    • Publicly whining about problems with commercial products or services
    • Making the occasional bad joke or snarky remark, usually at the expense of some celebrity, athlete or business
    • Posting individual photos of people I know or places I go
  • Future Plans: With the move to the Fediverse, I may try to focus more completely on technology on this platform. Perhaps sports-related stuff should go elsewhere, maybe a photo-blog site like PixelFed
• Facebook:
  • How I use it:
    • Private to only family members or friends I actually know
    • Posting Photos of family and friends to a limited audience
    • Check-ins to places I'm at for future reference, especially restaurants
    • Posting political commentary and social memes
  • Future Plans: I want a place for this that is not a walled-garden like Facebook. I feel like private communities could be run on Mastodon or other Fediverse servers like PixelFed. There are a few possibilities I'm exploring.
• Flickr:
  • How I use it:
    • Paid "professional" account where I keep my off-site backup of every digital photo I've ever taken, plus some scanned photos that were "born analog", in full-size
    • A public photostream of my favorite photos that are not family or friends
    • A restricted (to family and friends) photostream of photos of family or friends
    • Hosting of photos for my photoblog sites including GiveEmHellDevils.com
  • Future Plans: Most of this will remain though I may syphon-off specific elements to other, more federated communities. For example, the restricted photostream could move to a PixelFed server.
• LinkedIn:
  • How I use it: A professional network of people I actually know in the technology space. I don't accept requests from people I have never met, including (especially?) recruiters. If I ever need to find a job again, it will be through referrals from people I know.
  • Future Plans: I'd like to do a better job of posting my appropriate content here, perhaps as links from my blog. Of course, that would require more posts on my blog (see above). Other than that, I don't expect any changes here.
• YouTube:
  • How I use it:
    • In the past, I used it to post videos of family and friends, though now those are usually posted privately via Flickr or Facebook
    • Most of the time, I post videos of my technical presentations, or other presentations to the local user groups
  • Future Plans: Continue to share videos of technical content
• Instagram
  • How I use it: To publish photos from my GiveEmHellDevils.com photoblog.
  • Future Plans: I would prefer to move this to a Fediverse service like PixelFed that is not a walled-garden. I may start by adding a second stream using the Fediverse, and see what happens. If things go in the right direction, I may be able to eliminate Instagram.
• GitHub:
  • How I use it:
    • A public repository of my Open-Source (FOSS) projects and code samples.
    • A public repository of those FOSS projects that I contribute to via Pull-Request (PR)
    • The hosting platform for my Blog Site and my GiveEmHellDevils.com photoblog.
  • Future Plans: No changes expected
• Azure DevOps
  • How I use it:
    • A private repository of my private code projects
    • A private repository of the source material for my presentation slides
    • A private repository of my many random experiments with code
  • Future Plans: No changes expected
• Azure Websites
  • How I use it:
    • To publish the individual slide-decks for my presentations as listed on my blog site
  • Future Plans: No changes expected
• TikTok
  • How I use it: I don't
  • Future Plans: None

Tags: social-media mastodon fediverse