Twitter fails, StumbleUpon succeeds, but just for one day. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Online, they really do go together. The more we use digital technologies, the more we expose ourselves to the potential for failures. It's a topic that keeps coming up amongst the bloggers at Digital. At the same time, our web technologies are equally likely to do exactly as they should and give us a superior performance.
Case in point. Yesterday, I was going to follow the PD Network Summit via twitter, qik (bobbygwald) and ustream without actually attending. Although we got an invitation, my husband declined for us since we had other commitments this week. I knew I could follow along at different random points throughout my day.
Unfortunately, I got the image above in the few slots when I was free. While I was busy trying to find out what was wrong with my twitter feed, my @replies and my archives, I was checking links like these: Is Twitter Down?, Get Satisfaction and others (no, I did not ask FriendFeed what's wrong with twitter?).
But, while I was preoccupied and frustrated, my personal blog was getting awesome traffic that looked something like this from the back end:
Seems one of my faithful co-contributors had StumbledUpon me and it resulted in a good shot of increased traffic. It was a nice long tail of a day.
I'm assuming each of us have had a good amount of personal technology failures and some successes. Since talking about failures can lead to greater transparency, I'd like to ask, what's the most frustrating thing you're experiencing with online technology these days.
And no geek speak please… real life reflections about your current techno troubles…. information overloaders, represent!
FriendFeed, P D Network Summit, Purpose Driven Conference, qik, StumbleUpon, twitter Ustream
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Half of the time I am trying to figure out if I am having a technical problem or if it is a ‘user’error. My ideas far surpass my ability to execute them. I spent half an hour trying to send a twitpic from my palm centro and I am not sure where the breakdown was…but it was time wasted.
The other half of the time I am wishing I had a faster computer (or is Flock just really slow?) I enjoy the idea of Flock…but either my computer is chugging along or Flock is dragging….love it still.
Our blog is two weeks old and I am 3 weeks into all this stuff…so my learning curve is steep…but as I push on…i am realizing that even the techiest ‘code is poetry’ geeks are having the same troubles as myself.
twitter: romans8movement
facebook: sydforest
blog: romans8movement.com
Sydney - is it time wasted or time spent learning? Woke up today with my You Version Bible telling me I don’t have an account. I’ve been a member since it was alpha. I’m with you re: my technical problems, user errors, etc. We press on.
What is becoming frustrating to me is trying to pull together all of the different things I’m involved in online. Somehow, someway, I want and need one singular interface if possible. There are so many different ways to handle different things whether they be status updates, blog entries, online community and group communication. One centralized interface would be ideal. For the most part I do as much as I can from within Facebook but I still think there is a better way. At present I just launch a ton of tabs in Safari and jump around as needed. I’m sure this is coming and I hope to be a part of making it happen.
New to twitter and couldn’t figure out what was going on the other day. I had heard this happens pretty regularly…whatever happened to scalability? (I say snidely as if I figured that one out!) Great article in Collide Mag this month!
But I do wonder too, at what point does all this connectivity lead to non-productivity. As a pastor it’s way to easy to distract yourself with all the online networking because “it’s building relationship” when the truth is I should be digging through the word and praying for the church. That sounds a little overly spiritual, but it is a constant tension in my schedule…what to do…Jesus didn’t have Twitter et al, and thousands of people showed up (Kevin Rose only gets a couple hundred when he sends a ‘meet tweet’)…hmmm, I think I challenged myself with that one, and I’m a little uncomfortable, I better stop!
Ben, glad you saw COLLIDE. Yes, the constant tension is there for all of us. And it makes me think of so many other examples of where and how we spend our time - sports events, hobbies, exercise, tv, etc.
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