Engaged Reading Digest: 17th Birthday Edition

Today is the 17th — 17th — birthday of One Man & His Blog. In 2003 I sat in my tiny study in Lewisham, and wrote the first post on my new, Blogger-powered blog. You'll find that first post linked right at the end of this digest, but it's astonishing to me that this site has been a consistent thread in my life for the best part of two decades.

That first post has existed on four different publishing platforms, five different web hosts, yet is still there, for anyone to read, when the majority of the journalism I've done over the years either never made it online, or is locked behind paywalls. This blog is truly my biggest single piece of work. And that's just astonishing.

Thanks for reading, be you a new reader or someone who has been with me for years.

I have no plans for stopping…

We truly live in the age of the Stories format, pioneered by Snapchat, and cloned by everybody else. Or so it appears with two new platforms joining the Stories sisterhood:

Twitter Is Finally Doing Stories

Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn — yes, LinkedIn — beat it to the punch.

BuzzFeed NewsAlex Kantrowitz

Testing a new conversational format for LinkedIn: Stories

Conversations are at the heart of so much that happens on LinkedIn. Need help with how to manage work life balance? Someone in your community can help share their experience.

Pete Davies

It'll be interesting to see what people do with these — and to see if they get any traction. The format has been a huge success for Instagram, but notably less so for Facebook.

One thing it's worth bearing in mind: this format is more akin to conversation than publishing. It's about sharing things quickly with people, in a non-permanent way. Think of it as a stream of disposable updates about what's happening in your life, work or businesses.

Twitter under siege

Talking of Twitter, this is a good summary of the investor activity around the platform, and its threat to current CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey:

Opinion | Brace Yourself for What’s Coming at Twitter

Will the company’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, lose his job?

NYTimesKara Swisher

Twitter CEOs have a habit of getting pushed out. Is history about to repeat itself?

Pinterest acts on Coronavirus

More evidence that Pinterest is the social platform that has its act together on misinformation:

Pinterest now showing custom search results for coronavirus to combat misinformation

Pinterest is introducing a “custom search experience” when you search for information about the coronavirus on the platform. The company also pledges that it will remove misleading and false information about the outbreak.

The VergeJay Peters

Social Media and politics

Some stories worth reading about the fraught intersection of platforms and governments:

The Problems With Germany’s New Social Media Hate Speech Bill

The Government wants to force social networks to report hate speech to the police. But critics warn that this could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

ForbesFederico Guerrini

The Man Behind Trump’s Facebook Juggernaut

Andrew Marantz on how Brad Parscale used social media to sway the 2016 election and is poised to do it again.

The New YorkerAndrew Marantz

How the internet shutdown in Kashmir is splintering India’s democracy

For nearly seven months, Kashmir has weathered the longest-running internet shutdown in any democracy—the culmination of a troubling trend in India that has cost the country’s economy billions.

Fast CompanyPavithra Mohan

And finally: how it all began

17 years ago, this is what I wrote.

Hopefully, I've improved a little since then…

And so it begins...

The first post on my new blog — One Man & His Blog

One Man & His BlogAdam Tinworth

Thanks for reading. Feedback (and blog birthday congratulations) to the usual address.