disassociated

Image courtesy of Igor Ovsyannykov.

The number of people using Threads, Meta’s micro-blogging app, together with the amount of time they are spending there, has continued to decline, according to Israeli web analytics company, Similarweb. It’s certainly not what a lot of people would have expected, given Threads’ awe inspiring debut in early July. Meta however maintain they are not surprised by the latest numbers, and perhaps for good reason.

While Threads signed on a record one-hundred million members in a matter of days, that could be largely attributed to the ease of joining. If you had an Instagram (IG) account, as do some two billion people, joining Threads was almost as simple as pressing a button. A person’s IG profile information was copied straight over to their Threads page, as were their followers, who had the option to follow back if and when they joined.

Aside from early adopters scrambling to score a low Threads badge number, numerous people already established on IG were keen to carry over their IG username and brand to Threads, lest someone else get in first. Threads also appealed to those disillusioned with the shenanigans of the micro-blogging platform formerly known as Twitter, who further were enticed by Threads’ ease of use, compared to alternatives such as Mastodon.

But once set up and ready to go on Threads, many Threaders were left wondering: what next? On looking more closely at Threads, members found a platform lacking not only in user options, but also a significant proportion of their friends and followers from other social networks. In addition, some users, particularly those with smaller followings, had expressed frustration at the low levels of engagement they were experiencing on Threads.

Many of these new users also had the existing social networks they were part of to consider.

Yet none of these problems are, I think, insurmountable. So long as Meta doesn’t overly Facebook-ernise Threads in the way they have IG, that is. Do we want Facebook and IG like “suggestions”, and other content we didn’t expressly opt-in for, clogging up our timelines and feeds? Not me. I’m not saying Meta shouldn’t be able to generate revenue from Threads through advertising in some form, but surely they can do so in a measured way.

What Meta needs to do is make Threads more useful. They could start by making topics of interest searchable. This was one of the highlights of Twitter/X. Finding out what’s happening elsewhere in my hometown, or why there’s a delay on the train line, was as simple as entering a phrase into the search box. Another urgently needed feature is making hashtags live. Being able to see what others are saying about the same topic was another feature that gave Twitter great value.

A list of trending topics would also be useful. As would desktop/laptop computer access to Threads. The current app-only access means I need to email posts I’ve written for other platforms to my smartphone, just to make the cross-post to Threads. And on the subject of cross-posting, how about the option to post photos and videos from IG — as we can to other Meta properties, such as Facebook — to Threads at the same time.

When it comes to boosting engagement on Threads, perhaps selected posts from users with public profiles, who are not influencers, nor have large following counts, could have more prominence in the “For you” column. At present the “For you” column seems to be the domain of the Threads rock stars, whom maybe I could refer to as the threaderati, were I to riff on that celebrated neologism from the blogosphere, bloggerati.

Threaders with modest profiles though might feel less disinclined to interact with someone closer to their level, rather than respond to an influencer who may not even see their comment. If nothing else, it might garner more interaction at grass roots level. But let’s see what eventuates. Meta have said new features are forthcoming. Now it’s a matter of waiting for them, and seeing what impact they have on the platform.

Partners and participants of this year’s abruptly cancelled Asian American Literature Festival (AALF) are staging a smaller version of the event from Friday 4 August 2023, through to Sunday 6 August. Like the original event, which was meant to take place in August, Ghosted World will be held in Washington D.C., the United States capital.

AALF partners and participants, some of whom have banded together as the Asian American LitFest Collective (AALC), remain upset by the sudden decision of the Smithsonian, producers and hosts of the biennial AALF festival, to cancel the 2023 event. Although the institution later apologised, AALC members say the apology failed to answer questions they had about the decision, while still suggesting it was their alleged lack of planning that resulted in the festival’s cancellation.

Ghosted World is clearly a scaled back form of the original AALF, but hopefully will be of some consolation to those who had been looking forward to attending the event. A program for Ghosted World can be seen here.

Heatwaves, which have been experienced in a number of regions in the northern hemisphere in recent weeks, are being aggravated by increased levels of humidity, which is being precipitated by climate change. While it might be thought higher temperatures would cause moisture to evaporate, warmer air is capable of holding more water vapour than cooler air.

Sea surface temperatures have been steadily climbing globally, as the oceans absorb something like 90 percent of the excess heat that humans are adding to the atmosphere. But since March, global sea surface temperatures have been skyrocketing above the norm. The North Atlantic, in particular, remains super hot, loading Europe’s air with extra humidity.

Parts of the east coast of Australia saw higher levels of humidity last week, which had the effect of “taking the bite” out of otherwise relatively cooler temperatures. That’s about the only instance when high humidity has an upside. Those sorts of humidity levels will be far from welcome come summer.

The best way to understand the universe — to whatever extent that is possible — may be to see the cosmos as an animal. A fascinating, yet somewhat unpredictable animal, says Andrew Pontzen, a professor of cosmology at University College London, writing for The Guardian:

It once seemed that, for all its immensity, the cosmos could be understood through the application of a small number of rigid physical laws. Newton encapsulated this idea, showing how apples falling from trees and planetary orbits around our sun arise from the same force, gravity.

J. B. S. Haldane, a Scottish mathematical biologist, said it best, in an essay he wrote almost one-hundred years ago, in 1927, titled Possible Worlds: “Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” Words of wisdom, them.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about two authors, Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay, who had filed a law suit against OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. Awad and Tremblay were claiming books they had written were being used to help “train” the AI powered chatbot. They say this had happened without their prior knowledge or permission.

It now looks like there may be a solution to this problem, but not perhaps the one writers have been seeking. According to a tweet by the Australian Society of Authors (ASA), some book publishers in the United States are adding clauses to their publishing contracts, allowing the works of authors to be used to train generative chatbots:

We know that some terms of service in publishing have already included clauses allowing the use of authors’ work to train AI and we are now hearing that authors in the US are being asked by publishers to agree to clauses which allow their work to be used to train generative AI.

That’s sure as hell one way to “solve” the problem. But I wonder if authors agreeing to their works being used in this fashion are being offered additional remuneration? And what of writers who disagree with such a proviso? Do their works go unpublished?

Organisers of the annual Emmy Awards have postponed the 2023 ceremony, originally scheduled for Monday 18 September, until January 2024, citing the on-going WGA and SAG-AFTRA screenwriters’ strikes, according to a Variety report:

Vendors for the 75th Primetime Emmys have been told that the ceremony will not air on September 18 — the first time that there has been official word that the date has been pushed, Variety has learned exclusively.

The 2023 Write It Fellowship shortlist was announced earlier this month, and is made up of eleven Australian writers with works of fiction spanning historical, autobiographical, crime, psychological horror, fantasy, memoir, and poetry genres.

The Write It Fellowship was established by book publisher Penguin Random House Australia in 2018. The Fellowship is intended to support unpublished writers from under-represented sections of the community, including those with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ and First Nations backgrounds.

The winner of the Fellowship will be named on Monday 9 October 2023.

The world has sweated through its hottest three weeks on record, as heatwaves continue to ravage parts of the northern hemisphere. Possibly the last time temperatures were this warm was one hundred thousand years ago.

Typically these records, which track the average air temperature across the entire world, are broken by hundredths of a degree. But the temperature for the first 23 days of July averaged 16.95 degrees Celsius (62.51 Fahrenheit), well above the previous record of 16.63 degrees Celsius (61.93 Fahrenheit) set in July 2019, according to the report.

I’m dreading the upcoming Australian summer. As I type, the forecast high today is 23° Celsius, in this part of the world the July (middle of winter) average is meant to be closer to about 16° Celsius.

Mary Winter, semiotics specialist at Australian branding agency Principals, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, about the symbolism behind X, the new logo of Twitter, now known as X. The move possibly says a lot about what is going through the mind of Elon Musk, owner of Twitter/X.

Semiotics analysis tells us X is highly symbolic, triggering intense feelings and emotions. There are clear patterns around X in our culture signalling physical or moral danger. Case in point, X often turns up in pornography in the form of X-rated content. As something that signals moral boundaries, our minds are alert to it.

Semiotics, in case the term is new to you, is the study of the use of symbolic communication.

A man has apologised to Australian author Yumi Stynes after making threats against her through social media last week. Stynes has been subjected to a barrage of online hostility recently, amid a backlash against Welcome to Sex, a sex education book she co-authored with Melissa Kang. Some people have been angered by a selection of illustrations in the book that they perceive to be pornographic in nature.

A twenty-three year old man, Eli Engwicht, was arrested by police after being identified as one of the people making the threats, and appeared in court in Sydney yesterday. After his appearance, he issued an apology to Stynes:

“I apologise to Yumi Stynes and her direct family members for the inconvenience and the trouble and the threats that I have sent,” Mr Engwicht said outside court. “I’m sorry. This is a public and sincere apology (for) … my wrongdoing.”

The matter is expected to return to court in September, after Engwicht indicated he would plead guilty to the charges against him.