TeochewThunder: Year Nine (Part 2/2)

Much of this blogging year's content was strong. Few made it to extreme highs in terms of readership, or broke existing records. On the other hand, plenty of them garnered a respectable amount of views.

Red hot

Those posts in this category simply reinforce my point that it is my views about politics and the workplace, rather than my tech, that get the most attention.

Damn, that's hot.

Quiet Quitting: Do Or Do Not? examined the phenomenon of Quiet Quitting in the workplace.

Film Review: Black Mirror Series Three was a surprise - I didn't know people were that interested in a series that isn't even all that recent. It definitely overperformed.

The Real Reason Behind Political Resignation rode upon the wave of awareness generated by the recent (at the time) scandals in the Singapore Government.

Remote Work Is A Moral Issue For Elon Musk was basically me roasting the world's douchiest techbro millionaire. I don't know why, but people seem to pay more attention to these. That's sad.

Decent

These got a fair amount of attention - some of which was expected, and some which weren't.

Well done!

That Sinking Feeling At Twitter was a post talking about Elon Musk and Twitter (now X) and this always gets attention.

Film Review: M3GAN, Film Review: Missing, Film Review: Black Mirror Series Two and Film Review: Black Mirror Series Three, Redux were film reviews and these usually do well. No real surprise here.

Five New Workplace Buzzwords, Does Skin Art Affect Your Career Prospects?, What we think we deserve, does not matter, On job applicants who want work-life balance, Didn't get that promotion? Blame The Peter Principle and It's Not Personal were some of my views on the workplace. Could have done better, but I'm not complaining.

ChatGPT's capabilities and their implications in Software Development, Big Tech Layoffs in Progress!, From Twitter to X? and  TikTok Congressional Hearing: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly were about recent tech developments. I honestly expected these to do better, especially the last one. I mean, I worked really hard on the TikTok Congressional Hearing. Oh, well.

The How And Why Of One-Hot Encoding and Let's Unpack The CSS Box got a surprising amount of attention. I've never labored under the delusion that people bother about my more technical posts.

A Software Developer's Vacation in Kuala Lumpur was a WTF moment for me when I saw it had gotten this many views. I really wasn't under the impression that people care about my vacations, or about Kuala Lumpur. 

Meh

These were the underperformers. The ones that I expected a better reader reception for, and just didn't get it. Thankfully, there's not that many of them.

What a letdown.

Meta's new platform: Threads or Threat? now this one definitely underperformed. I don't know why.

Five Java Exceptions Personified was a fun listicle that bombed. I had higher hopes for this one.

Here's to Year Nine!

The blog has survived. It's often on life support, but it's there. I haven't been a huge success, but that was never the goal. The goal was to build muscle memory, keep me sharp, help me stay current and relevant. And on that front, it's worked wonders.

On cloud nine,
T___T

From Twitter To X?

It appears that Elon Musk has come up with yet another bizarre decision. Sometime last week, Twitter underwent a name and logo change. Now, name changes aren't anything new in the world we inhabit. Facebook became Meta. Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn Jenner. In 1993, Prince became... well, you get the idea. Nothing to blink at.

Bye bye, birdy.

What's surprising, at least to me, is the what. From an internationally known moniker, the app has changed to a relatively generic X. The cute and tasteful blue bird that has served as the app's logo for more than a decade, is now a stylized and, dare I say, uninteresting "X". Now, not being a tech billionaire and all, nobody really cares about my opinion, and nor should they. I assume Elon Musk knows what he's doing... because I really don't. And I'm not entirely sure anyone else does either. Of all changes to take place, this stands out as a strange choice.

They call it a rebranding, but it really feels more like a debranding.

While I've never been a Twitter user, Twitter was such a mainstay of cyberspace that it was impossible for it to not be on my radar in some fashion. That's how strong its branding was. To throw that all away for a new but not altogether exciting image, seems counter-intuitive.

Burning questions!

Elon Musk has stated his desire to evolve Twitter into some kind of "Everthing App", just like WeChat. Something like that would require strong brand recognition as a foundation. Unfortunately, we live in a world where many things already share the name "X". And some of these things are distinctively pornographic in nature. Is that the kind of recognition that Elon Musk is going for? Somehow I doubt it.

Twitter's presence in not just cyberspace, but also Internet culture at large, has resulted in certain words being added to the lexicon. "Tweeting" is a verb which essentially means posting a message on Twitter. Now with the name change, what other changes could we see? Will Tweeting now be known as X-ing? Sounds uncomfortably violent.

Let me just do some X-ing...

Finally, of all the icons that Elon Musk could have gone with, why this one? I called it "relatively generic" earlier. I was being kind. It's boring. It's tepid. It says nothing about what the platform does. This could be deliberate. Musk could have some big plans for the app, and perhaps this generic quality is meant to avoid painting the app into a corner.

In Conclusion

With Meta's Threads encountering a bit of a downturn in recent weeks, this looked like a good time for Twitter to recover. Looks like it's not to be.

Still, it's going to be interesting seeing the two platforms taking turns to flounder. Definitely way more interesting than seeing one platform dominate. Let's hope that this does not lead to Elon Musk going from X owner to ex-owner. (hur hur)

Kick some X, Elon Musk!
T___T

Meta's new platform: Threads or Threat?

I've never wanted a Twitter account. Back in the day, the thought of maintaining yet another extension of my online identity held little appeal, especially when all I could seemingly expect in return was yet another platform of celebrities airing opinions that they seemed to think I should care about, or non-celebs making those proclamations as though they were celebs. And, of course, thread after thread of shmucks with too much time on their hands people trying desperately to sound cleverer than the next guy, or just outright hurling verbal abuse when they thought they could get away with it.

Heck, if that was what I was after, I already had Facebook for that.

Thus, last week, when I saw an Instagram notification that told me some of my friends had already started posting on Meta's spanking brand new Social Media platform Threads, I was momentarily tempted to just hop on the bandwagon. Momentarily. Until I did a little homework and it turned out that Threads was basically a spiritual clone of Twitter less a few features.

Now, if I already had zero desire to have a Twitter account whether or not Elon Musk was in charge, why would I want Threads?

The case for Threads

The ad-free experience? Come on, now. We all know that once Threads hits a certain critical mass in terms of user base, Mark Zuckerberg is going to monetize the hell out of it. It's just business.

More moderation, less toxicity? Sure, right now Threads is a nice friendly place with content moderation. However, once enough users join this platform, the same thing is going to happen that happens everywhere - the name-calling, the endless virtue-signalling, the constant pseudo-intellectual bullshit. People are trash, and they don't stop being trash even if you intend to implement a level of censorship that would cause China to sigh with approval.

Censored!

It's also tempting to sign up for Threads just to spite Elon Musk, though in all honesty, a lot of that is his own fault. This techbro billionaire basically paints a target on himself every time he gets online to spout some outrageously trollish bullshit. He's a billionaire and the average Keyboard Warrior can't even begin to touch him... but they can affect his bottom line and dent his ego by going over to his competitor now that he has one. I like to think I'm above these levels of pettiness, though the simple fact is that my laziness precludes me from it.

Competition is good for the market, generally. Threads represents just that. Some might say we already have way too many Social Media platforms. I say that's only the case if one intends to sign up for all of them. As someone whose fortunes aren't being intrinsically tied to public recognition - such as, say, actors and artistes and influencers - I have the privilege of not giving a shit, one which I intend to exercise with extreme prejudice.

But back to the issue of competition. It's important to keep these guys in check. And if the world's governments can't, perhaps these competing platforms will keep each other in check. Think about it - even without a monopoly, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and the like were abusing data confidentiality and unevenly applying moderation policies. How much bolder would they get if they had a monopoly? That, my friends, is entirely unthinkable.

The case against Threads

I don't actually have anything against Threads specifically. At least, not any more than I have against Twitter and all the platforms that attempt to imitate it. It just doesn't offer me any value that would entice me to partake; I have no ambitions to become an influencer of any sort, and I certainly don't think my opinions require a Twitter-like soapbox to air them from.

Why, Zuck?!

But sure, let's take a look at the data that Threads wants to collect. That's quite a list: location, personal, health financial, web browsing... check out the screenshot, or check it out yourself on your App Store. Even by the standards of Social Media, this seems excessive. Now, being a complete nobody, I'm personally not all that concerned about data privacy. People who feel differently about the issue may beg the question: why in the ever-loving Zuck do you need all that data, Mark? Sure, these are mostly optional. But still, it's a little concerning.

There's also the issue of your Instagram account being tied to your Threads account. Apparently, once you install Threads, you can't delete your Threads account without also deleting your Instagram account, which just feels really tyrannical. I expect them to fix this at some point, though.

Lastly, there's the buzz that Threads lacks certain features that Twitter has, such as Trends and Spaces. But let's not kid ourselves, all people really need is a platform to air their opinions, exchange news of dubious veracity and argue with complete strangers. You don't need those extra features for that.

So... Threads or Threat?

Whatever one may think of Meta or Mark Zuckerberg, the move to create Threads and attract the Instagram user base was nothing short of brilliant. Already, Threads has unsurpassed rapidity of user growth and avoided (sort of) the growing pains of most other Social Media platforms. It came at an crucial time when Elon Musk seems to be struggling as Twitter's owner, and his increasingly unpopular decisions have left Twitter's user base crying out for an alternative.

Will Threads be Twitter's death blow? I sure hope not. Not that I'm a fan of either Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, but the last thing we need in the Social Media arena is a monopoly. The existence of a flailing Twitter has given rise to the creation of Threads, and the existence of Threads should in turn hold Musk's feet to the fire. Already, we have news of an impending lawsuit. Good times!

Thread carefully, Elon Musk!
T___T