Controlling your words
We need to use the Internet itself as social media. Then you won’t have to worry about Facebook putting their finger on the scale.: “Last night I was watching football on one of the big networks. It was a boring game so my mind drifted. I noticed that when they show the name of someone speaking on camera they also show their Twitter handle. I wondered if their lawyers had reviewed this decision. Had they read Twitter’s user agreement? Had they advised their client on how one-sided it is? That made me wonder if Twitter does special deals with big media conglomerates? I wonder what they look like? I follow Twitter pretty closely and I have no idea.”
(Via Scripting News.)
This is what I was talking about a few posts ago where I mentioned that having a personal blog is the only way to own your own words on the internet. You can take your data somewhere else. You’re in control.
You’re not in control of the experience you get on twitter or Facebook, and Dave Winer is exactly right in highlighting this. It is a little weird the twitter handle has become the de facto method of connecting with someone you see on TV.
I don’t know if app.net is going to be any better, (probably not — it’s not “free”) or if we simply need some sort of distributed system abstracted from an individuals’ blog or twitter-like feed that one can view from the web.