Bob Wertz

Last day of vacation. Caught a Columbia Fireflies minor league baseball game. Had a great time and my son chased down two foul balls.

Back to work tomorrow.

I’ve worn contacts since 10th grade, but for some reason a few months ago, I decided to just wear glasses and see if I wanted to switch back. I gave it a few months, but I missed my contacts. Had my eye doctor appointment his morning and I’m back to contacts.

I’ve been preparing for Twitter’s demise for seven years, but I didn’t see ‘X’ coming.

I’ve been preparing for the end of Twitter since 2016, when Twitter was struggling with some financial issues and the future was uncertain. I pondered what would happen of Twitter went away suddenly.

2016: Twitterless:

Which got me thinking, what if we woke up one morning and Twitter was gone. Or more likely, what if Twitter changed so radically, that it was unusable?

I’m more concerned that Twitter, or a company that buys Twitter, will change it so completely, that it becomes useless.

Fast forward a little over a year later. Twitter’s financial issues were less dire, but they were struggling with flat user growth, coupled with a rise in abuse and hate on the platform.

2018: Twitterless, Part II:¹

As...

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Road-trip to Charleston and saw a bunch of cool EVs. One Rivian, a Mercedes EQS, a BMW iX and a car carrier with (6!) Cadillac Lyriq SUVs heading to a dealership somewhere.

Beach day today at Isle of Palms. Found a couple of nice shells, too.

Back in 2018, I wrote a second blog post about preparing for the sudden demise of Twitter. The illustration I did for the post seems appropriate to reshare today.

My academic research is typically focused on logos and branding. When I look at the Twitter-to-X rebranding, all I see is future citations and research questions.

New social media outlets prove the viability of indie social.

The invention of the printing press made mass media possible. Printing houses produced popular books and bibles, but they also spread the writing that powered the Reformation. Major newspapers became was the dominant media for decades, but there have always been community and independent newspapers. Self-publishing, indie music, art house films and college radio are all forms of independent media.

Economy of scale¹ pushes these systems toward consolidation. But as these media outlets consolidate into a few major players, there is always a market for an alternative. Why should social media be any different?

When the internet became popular, personal sites and blogs were the ultimate form of independent media. Economy of scale kicked in like it always does. Large news sites dominate and Google Search drives the traffic to the largest most well established sites. ^{Continue Reading →}