Comments on: The Fire Hose vs. The Stream

By: Blue Oxen Associates » Twitter and Being Human

Blue Oxen Associates » Twitter and Being Human — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:43:08 +0000

[...] good tools. Contrast Kawasaki’s atrocious advice with Kevin Cheng’s outstanding post on why he used Twitter: To me, Twitter and Facebook updates represent the mundane, everyday conversations that I [...]

By: Twitter Theory Chapter 1 at Venix Flytrap’s Anticlimax

Twitter Theory Chapter 1 at Venix Flytrap’s Anticlimax — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:28:01 +0000

[...] thanks to Kevin Cheng’s brilliant Twitter manifesto, from whom I wantonly stole the firehose / stream thing.) #arkayne { background: transparent; [...]

By: tiara.org » Link roundup for February 3, 2009

tiara.org » Link roundup for February 3, 2009 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:56:42 +0000

[...] roundup for February 3, 2009 February 3, 2009 on 1:05 am | In delicious | kev/null – The Fire Hose vs. The Stream On social network overload (tags: lifestreaming twitter socialnetworking [...]

By: matt

matt — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:58:53 +0000

I've found that there are a very select few people who I need to keep up with completely (like my GF and a few of my closest friends), but for most people the feet in the stream is plenty. Good analogy!

By: karen

karen — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:22:51 +0000

This is a very thoughtful analysis of online interactions. I really like the analogy.

By: Robert K

Robert K — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:40:07 +0000

Interesting that you set this up with some personal history, which really helps me--literally--see where you're coming from on this. Without going into how I relate to or disagree with your perspective on the subject, what I see you doing that I think is universally important is to use technology to satisfy your needs without letting the technology lead you to new unintended behaviors.

Everyone needs to ask the questions you've asked (or some form of) to be clear about what they want from technology, and essentially about who they are and want to be--grandiose as that may sound.

This becomes increasingly difficult with social networking media because not only has a need been created by companies with interesting, cool-looking, fun new tools & gadgets, but social pressure is funneled through these tools. So product marketing PLUS people we personally care about and respect are encouraging us to try these things; and the process of learning to use them, before we even know if we like or want them, is enmeshed with personal, professional, sometimes emotional ties.

So anyway, to go back to your metaphor, I think a lot of people are paralyzed by the over-stimulation of standing in the fire hose stream when what they really need is a drink of water, 6-8 glasses a day, and the first move is to step away from the hose!

By: joshuakaufman

joshuakaufman — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:37:56 +0000

Some good points here that I've been thinking about for a while. Your answer to the second question alludes to another important question: how can we keep from trying to read everything? Well there are several answers to that, but the good news is that, as designers, we can control the experience to a large degree and make feet dipping easier. One of the simple ways to do that is to remove read/unread status from items.

I use EventBox as my desktop feed/Twitter app and I've been working with the developers to do just that:
http://getsatisfaction.com/thecosmicmachine/top...

Coincidentally, I used the exact same metaphor of the "stream." Great minds think alike, eh?

(For a more conversationally focused look at streams, take a look at Stowe Boyd's writings on the topic: http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/03/beyond... )

By: telene

telene — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:16:32 +0000

yup yup you put into words the way i use this whole intarweb/smartphone/socialnetworking thing.

yey kev!

By: Louise

Louise — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:54:46 +0000

Totally agree with #1. Usually, when I go jogging after work, I don't ever call up the BF or IM him telling him I'm out jogging. If I did, he'd say, “Uh…so?” But when he does come home and I'm not around, he checks my twitter and sees that I'm jogging and doesn't have to wonder where I went.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:45:09 +0000

Totally agree. I found the same things: apparent difficulty to pick up conversations with the same kind of intimacy after long periods apart, and just using quick status updates when I _want_ to be updated on statuses.