Interesting Links for 05-12-2013

[andrewducker]

• 100 years of dog "improvement" has caused terrible damage
  (tags: dogs genetics fail )
• If your mobile phone contract is with 3 then you can use your minutes/data in the USA.
  (tags: mobile_phones )
• Valve's Gabe Newell and Linus Torvalds on Linux and Gaming (Valve just joined the Linux Foundation)
  Games are really the only thing keeping me on Windows

Comments

[xenophanean]

Has the internet killed Have I Got News For You? Nope.

It's getting a little long in the tooth from natural aging but Twitter satire is only for journalists themselves.

[andrewducker]

I don't have any journalists friended on Twitter - but I do have 805 people following me.

The idea that Twitter is just a bunch of London journalists is pretty silly.

[xenophanean]

It's hardly mass-appeal. I'm not saying no-one's on Twitter, but just about everyone I know is:

- Into satire
- On Facebook
- Not on Twitter

Like, I know a few people who are, but it's not many, so claiming that it's a real alternative is a bit rich, thus the sarcastic response.

[andrewducker]

15m people in the UK. Or 25% of the population:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/10291360/Twitter-claims-15m-active-users-in-the-UK.html

Not as high as Facebook's 24m, I'll give you:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a506593/facebooks-uk-users-top-24-million.html

But still more than a niche.

[xenophanean]

Fair enough, I think that Twitter is assumed to have more exposure than it does, by celebrities and media. It's an extremely light and easy way of expressing stuff to the world, so anyone with anything to publicise will be on there. This is everyone in celebrity and media, so they erroneously assume absolutely everyone uses it, because it's what all of their social circle do. I assume very few people use it, for exactly the same reason.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes - it's very much more a declarative medium than Facebook. I find it really frustrating to have any kind of difference of opinion on there, so I tend to avoid even trying to. Great for people broadcasting information though.

[chess]

'People who use Twitter' and 'people who use Twitter for their satire needs' are different.

I use Twitter to contact people who use twitter, and to get general impressions of breaking news events of the kind that are likely to be extensively covered by Twitter users, and occasionally to route around protest-related roadblocks. I hate reading it as a general input mechanism and I certainly wouldn't use it for the same satire/entertainment purposes as HIGNIFY (although it's possible I might get some of that content from people's Storify links to originally-tweeted content, having been pruned and put in a comprehensible format).

[octopoid_horror]

Most of the people in the early 20s at work, and the teenage sons/daughters of co-workes use twitter a lot apparently.