If you don’t like algorithmic filters, you’re probably not going to like the future of Twitter – So it looks like Twitter is, indeed, starting to model itself a bit more after Facebook, at least with its anticipated move to algorithmically filtered timelines. Ironically, this change seems to privilege intermittent users more than frequent users, which seems somewhat counterintuitive, although the change will apparently allow new users to adapt more quickly to the service. Personally, I don’t like or use Facebook, so anything Facebook-ish is not appealing at all to me,
The company is doing its best to make it sound like this is not a big deal, and that the reverse-chronological timeline will remain intact. But the reality is that for many users, the ability to curate their own experience on Twitter is a crucial feature — just take a look at the survey we did in September, which was 87-percent negative on the idea of an algorithmically-curated feed. The idea of someone else deciding what’s important in their stream appears to be anathema to many users.
Of course, for Twitter this probably feels like just another enhancement that they think will make the feed better for some — primarily new users and those who don’t log in very much, which is a key market for the kind of future growth Wall Street wants to see. And the stream has already been disturbed by things like promoted tweets and other forms of advertising, which show up out of sync with the timeline. What’s the big deal about one more disruption? –Gigaom
After controversial tweet, Adobe says it’s ‘never been aligned with Gamergate’ – Another day, another company caught up in the ugliness that is Gamergate. Adobe has now attempted to clarify its non-support of Gamergate and it’s non-sponsorship by descrying bullying after having its logo removed from Gawker so as not to suggest they were “sponsoring” Gawker. I understand that some people think all of these corporations are firmly in opposition to Gamergate, but I am so not convinced of that.
Last week, though, Gamergate condemned Gawker Media specifically because of facetious tweets from current writer and former Valleywag editor Sam Biddle, who called to “bring back bullying” in response to the movement. Adobe has further confirmed what it had said in its tweet: it wasn’t actually a sponsor of Gawker, but after Gamergate supporters repeatedly asked it to drop ads, it requested that the site remove its logo in order to avoid confusion. “As a result of our logo having appeared on the Gawker website, we received tweets that accused us of condoning bullying,” it says. “One of our employees innocently responded to one of these tweets.” –The Verge
Book News: 2 Popular Books May Be Coming To TV – Although Ann Leckie is quick to point out that having a book be optioned for film or television is not the same as having the project in production, it looks, at least, like Ancillary Justice might be coming to television via Fox and Fabrik. Details on the second option deal are below:
Joining Ancillary Justice on the roster of TV options — at least, according to The Hollywood Reporter — is Karen Russell’s St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. The former MacArthur fellow’s debut story collection reportedly will be adapted for ABC by some of the minds behind Sex and the City and The Walking Dead. A word of warning from personal experience, though: Try not to think too long about what a mash-up of those two series might look like. –NPR
Have You Ever Had a Relationship End Because of a Book? – An interesting exchange between Zoë Heller and Anna Holmes about whether a book negatively affected a relationship. While Heller takes the position that “[t]he value of agreeing with one’s friends about books has always seemed to me overrated,” Holmes documents some pretty strong reactions that men in her life have had very strong reactions to her reading habits and preferences.
The contours of a more recently failed relationship were also defined, in part, by how much I read, both for work and for pleasure. The times, of course, had changed: Instead of college textbooks or physical copies of Harper’s Magazine or 1,000-page sci-fi novels, I lost myself in the illuminated screens of, in no particular order, my laptop, iPad and iPhone. But the effect my love of reading had on the relationship was the same — a resentment so vicious and ultimately intolerable that it prompted me to flee ever deeper into that which was supposedly creating much of the conflict: my love affair with the written word. (It may also say something that I refused to mingle my books with his, preferring to keep mine on a bookshelf in a room that he rarely entered.) –New York Times