What was using blogs like compared to twitter?

[oali24]

After seeing the recent news about Elon Musk and Twitter and how he claims that he wants to increase its ability to give "free speech", I just thought to ask the people on this forum whether they used the internet and experienced internet culture before modern social media services took over the internet what that experience was like, because from my impression as someone who didn't experience that era of the internet it seems like it gave more freedom to users, as an example of what I mean before Twitter people used Blogs that they could even host themselves and you could do anything you wanted when you made one with layouts and content and the visitors could control what they saw through things like rss feeds, its wasn't a machine shovelling content down your throat and trying to make you "engage", Blogs didn't force people who posted on them to have arbitrary character limits which restrict how you want to express yourself, its interesting to me that so much of the world's political discourse happens on Twitter when it straight up limits how nuanced the arguments and analyses can be. Sorry if it seems like I am rambling or if this isn't in the right section of the forum I was just wondering if people could share their experiences of the previous era of the internet and if it had advantages for the user compared to what we have now.

[Levent]

Blogs are significantly different than twitter. They don't compare. Consider blogs more like personal websites.

[oali24]

Just now, Levent said:

Blogs are significantly different than twitter. They don't compare.

but on wikipedia it say that twitter is a microblogging and social media service.

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, oali24 said:

I just thought to ask the people on this forum whether they used the internet and experienced internet culture before modern social media services took over the internet what that experience was like

Forums existed possibly even before blogs , so what you see here now , is very much how lates 90's to mid 2000s internet was like.  Chat clients however were possibly the  CLOSEST thing to a back and forth social interaction people had. Chat rooms and pm's being the quickest way to socialize.

Blogs at the time were more like diaries and there was a possibility of emailing or commenting but it was a lot more detached than forums or chat programs

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, oali24 said:

but on wikipedia it say that twitter is a microblogging and social media service.

wikipedia isn't a be all end all source of information. Under that logic facebook and tumblr are microblogs

 

[oali24]

Just now, emosun said:

Forums existed possibly even before blogs , so what you see here now , is very much how lates 90's to mid 2000s internet was like.  Chat clients however were possibly the  CLOSEST thing to a back and forth social interaction people had. Chat rooms and pm's being the quickest way to socialize.

Blogs at the time were more like diaries and there was a possibility of emailing or commenting but it was a lot more detached than forums or chat programs

Yeah, I'm really weird for someone in my generation because I don't use social media and I prefer things like forums. I've had way more interesting discussions here than on any sort of social media.

[emosun]

Just now, oali24 said:

Yeah, I'm really weird for someone in my generation because I don't use social media and I prefer things like forums. I've had way more interesting discussions here than on any sort of social media.

A forum is a topic specific format so it will be far easier to engage with others about computer on this forum vs a general use social media.

there's also subreddits that can achieve this but they need to be highly moderated to get good interactions.

[oali24]

Just now, emosun said:

A forum is a topic specific format so it will be far easier to engage with others about computer on this forum vs a general use social media.

there's also subreddits that can achieve this but they need to be highly moderated to get good interactions.

yeah there are decent subreddits but especially with the bigger it just feels like you're shouting into the void and hoping more than 5 people notice.

[manikyath]

19 minutes ago, oali24 said:

but on wikipedia it say that twitter is a microblogging and social media service.

microblogging isnt blogging though.

 

it's like comparing fast food to a 4-course dinner.

 

which actually... may be a very good comparison between twitter and 'classic' blogs.

[TetraSky]

Whichever service that hosted your blog could still kick you out if they didn't want your content on their server.
It's not about freedom of speech, they are private companies, they can do whatever they want on their properties/website/servers. There's no such thing as stiffling free speech when it comes to a private company not wanting you on their site.

 

I remember this happening frequently to blogs for piracy back in the day. They would exist for a while and suddenly they would have a banner that said "our hosters are kicking us out, find us at this new address..." and such.

 

Why? Because the webhosts could be held liable for whatever content they hosted on their servers.

So you can blame the MPAA and others like them, for going after the hosters instead of the individuals, for companies being scared of being sued for keeping illegal/dangerous content up when they could've deleted it. Can't get sued for deleting an account(since it's their service and they can stop servicing you at their own whim, you're not entitled to their services), but can certainly be sued for keeping it up, even if you don't agree with it.
While we can cry about "censorship" all day long, but there are still arguments to be made that some speeches can affect the lives of others, whether you agree or not depends on your personal views.

[oali24]

3 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Why? Because the webhosts could be held liable for whatever content they hosted on their servers.

So you can blame the MPAA and others like them, for going after the hosters instead of the individuals, for companies being scared of being sued for keeping illegal/dangerous content up when they could've deleted it. Can't get sued for deleting an account(since it's their service and they can stop servicing you at their own whim, you're not entitled to their services), but can certainly be sued for keeping it up, even if you don't agree with it.
While we can cry about "censorship" all day long, but there are still arguments to be made that some speeches can affect the lives of others, whether you agree or not depends on your personal views.

yeah I agree with you on that. I'm just pointing out that they ecosystem the web used to be built around was much more flexible than this soical media dominated ecosystem we now have, you could of course be kicked out by your web provider but you could just go to another one and you wouldn't lose as much as if your social media account was taken down.

[Mark Kaine]

I have barely ever used any blogs actively... generally i stuck to forums... even for news its usually good, since you typically have people with similar interests, it can be discussed "civilised" usually...

 

The weird thing about "blogs" was i never found one that seemed popular, or interesting,  so i guess i cant really answer your question. 

 

"GamerGirl" was a good one, i guess, but i only found that years after the fact lol...

 

Things were more personal back then, funnier, and sometimes more helpful (you actually got good advise occasionally) 

example of how things actually went: (even if this seems exaggerated lol)

lol

 

(from bash.org)

 

i guess, overall back then, people were more direct, and more upright in a way, and maybe even more personal -- "drama" always existed but most people tried to avoid it -- nowadays,  generally many seem to seek it , hence facebook, et al is popular.

 

Although twitter seemed to have found a niche recently and seems less.. well, toxic than others... but as always good things dont last forever, and theres always someone or something going against it , even if it costs them "45bln" !

 

 

Tldr, everything was less regulated back then, and that made people friendlier, and indeed more truthful,  you didn't always have the feeling someone would hold the things you say against you later.

 

 

 

On 4/25/2022 at 9:25 PM, oali24 said:

Blogs didn't force people who posted on them to have arbitrary character limits which restrict how you want to express yourself, its interesting to me that so much of the world's political discourse happens on Twitter when it straight up limits how nuanced the arguments and analyses can be

actually heavily disagree,  the limit is what makes twitter good, people actually have to put thought into their ramblings, and well, you can still have very in depth analysis, but its not easy, definitely needs a good writer... but then its also not what twitter was made for - its a compromise,  with benefits (to me) 

 

I always feel like ppl who complain about the limit are just too lazy to scroll or something??

but tbf, that part could be done better, *technically* twitter isnt very good... too slow for how its designed,  ie scrolling is really a pain on it lol. 

 

 

[This_guy1998]

Essentally it is a longer form tweet. Kinda like a news article or a paper. I used to blog sometimes in recent years (and when I was younger) but kinda stopped and took posts down (mostly due to professional and personal reasons even though the posts weren't "bad").

[rrats]

It's way harder to get blog subscribers as opposed to Twitter followers. Interaction is also a bit limited when it comes to blogs. But we all know that the best blogging service is LTT profile status feature

[Mark Kaine]

This is my fav blog, top notch work.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20170214140024/http://www.27bslash6.com:80/blockbuster.html

 

sadly its down afaik...

 

3 hours ago, rrats said:

It's way harder to get blog subscribers as opposed to Twitter followers. Interaction is also a bit limited when it comes to blogs. But we all know that the best blogging service is LTT profile status feature

what i really don't like about all this is the unpersistent nature of all these things (much worse on twitter obviously) 

wayback machine is a thing, but even that isnt persistent,  or even reliable...

 

 

21 hours ago, lizzeswellness said:

A blog is the creation and upkeep of an article log on a website. Twitter is a social media platform that allows users to share short texts known as tweets.

what i wanna know, how do people post 10+ tweets in a row aka "threads" without someone else replying in the meantime?  is it a feature or...  (really often wonder with threads that are 15 tweets or something in a row, with lots of pictures,  well researched,  etc)

[Matt_in_NE]

On 4/25/2022 at 3:32 PM, emosun said:

Forums existed possibly even before blogs , so what you see here now , is very much how lates 90's to mid 2000s internet was like.  Chat clients however were possibly the  CLOSEST thing to a back and forth social interaction people had. Chat rooms and pm's being the quickest way to socialize.

Blogs at the time were more like diaries and there was a possibility of emailing or commenting but it was a lot more detached than forums or chat programs

TBF, a lot of forums and chat rooms are kind of infamous for poor, non-existant or biased moderation resulting in group-thinking, brigading, flaming and extreme hostility people are hating Twitter and other sites for promoting. As I recall, that killed LiveJournal, to say nothing of numerous IRC chatrooms.   

[RejZoR]

It seems people already forgot about IRC. We were hanging there way before forums, blogs and other "instant messengers".

[Mark Kaine]

Btw i agree, blogs = twitter is a wrong comparison. 

Forums = twitter is more apt, even if still not quite the same.

IRC is probably the closest...

 

 

8 hours ago, Matt_in_NE said:

TBF, a lot of forums and chat rooms are kind of infamous for poor, non-existant or biased moderation resulting in group-thinking,

That may be, but in my experience the more focused on one subject a forum is/was the better... the downside is you theoretically need to join a *lot* of forums lol. 

 

Btw discord has the same "issue" , lots of specific "servers" all with often wildly different rules and "group-thinking" its difficult to keep track... reddit same thing basically...

 

The weird part is,  this is all relatively easy to solve , but for the most part we're still stuck in this 90s style chatroom style interaction thing in all of these... and Im not quite sure why.