Making Twitter a Better Home for Writers: From Users to (Sense)Makers

Making Twitter a Better Home for Writers: From Users to (Sense)Makers

Twitter recently announced its acquisition of Revue, a service that enables anyone to start and publish editorial newsletters for free. This move is aimed at not only helping people stay informed about their interests but also providing writers with a platform to monetize their audience. With Revue, writers can connect with their subscribers easily, while readers can discover new writers and their content. This acquisition marks a significant step in making Twitter a better home for writers.

In addition to this, there is a growing need for collective sensemaking in the digital space. In a research paper titled "From Users to (Sense)Makers: On the Pivotal Role of Stigmergic Social Annotation in the Quest for Collective Sensemaking," the authors propose Open Source Attention (OSA) as a socio-technical framework to liberate human attention from platform control. OSA aims to create a decentralized ecosystem for creating, storing, and querying stigmergic markers, which are digital traces of human attention.

Currently, user annotations on platforms like Twitter, such as likes and retweets, are locked within data silos that serve the platform's growth. OSA seeks to empower maker-centric ecologies by employing distributed content creation and storage technology. This approach allows for the emergence of novel system-level behavior through cybernetic feedback from modifications made by others. Stigmergic markers, which include annotations, likes, and hyperlinking of text, play a crucial role in indicating epistemic value, making them valuable resources for both extractive and constructive purposes.

The concept of OSA draws inspiration from the open source software movement, which aims to "free" software. Similarly, OSA aims to "free" stigmergic markers by starting with basic hypertext primitives such as emotional valence (likes), bi-directional links, span highlighting, semantic categorization (tags), and textual annotation. By introducing interoperable protocols and storage for stigmergic primitives, OSA can leverage existing personal knowledge management (PKM) apps and contribute to collective sensemaking efforts.

One of the key challenges in implementing OSA is competing with established platforms that have a massive user base. However, the "protocols, not platforms" approach offers a promising solution. Instead of directly competing with PKMs, OSA can bootstrap CKM (collective knowledge management) by introducing interoperable protocols and storage for stigmergic primitives. This would enable data sharing across diverse PKM apps and contribute to collective sensemaking at a global scale.

In conclusion, Twitter's acquisition of Revue and the proposal of Open Source Attention (OSA) highlight the efforts being made to create a better environment for writers and foster collective sensemaking. By providing writers with the tools to connect with their subscribers and monetize their audience, Twitter aims to become a more welcoming platform for writers. Meanwhile, OSA offers a decentralized approach to liberate human attention from platform control and facilitate collective sensemaking. These initiatives open up new possibilities for writers and knowledge creators in the digital landscape.

Actionable Advice:

1. Utilize Revue: If you're a writer, take advantage of Revue to start and publish your own editorial newsletters. This allows you to connect with your audience and monetize your content.
2. Explore Open Source Attention (OSA): Familiarize yourself with the concept of OSA and its potential for collective sensemaking. Look for opportunities to contribute to and leverage decentralized ecosystems for knowledge creation and sharing.
3. Embrace interoperability: Consider the benefits of interoperable protocols and storage for stigmergic primitives. Look for ways to integrate and share data across different personal knowledge management apps to facilitate collective sensemaking efforts.

In the quest for a better digital landscape for writers and collective sensemaking, these actions can help individuals and communities make the most of the opportunities presented by platforms like Twitter and initiatives like OSA.