Vimoh's Blog

Good fun was had on Twitter this evening. @flyyoufools (author of the popular webcomic FlyYouFools) was pulling @chetan_bhagat’s (author of books like Five Point Someone, One Night at a Call Centre, and most recently, Two States) accomplished leg and allegedly went too far. The book writer warned the comic writer against making “smart ones” and then promptly blocked him (full series of tweets here). I think it started with piracy and ended with royalty cheques.

Someone found the episode amusing and created the hashtag #chetanblocks which was soon swarming with all manner of online creatures and their opinions on the right and wrong of it. Then people started cracking jokes (and a good many excellent ones were cracked too). Then people began feeling the pain of the seemingly wronged book writer. Now, a few hours after the whole ruckus, all is silent in Twitterland.

Here is what I think of it. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with blocking someone on Twitter. It’s a feature, and it can be used by anyone against anyone they think deserves it. I am not going to debate the ethics of it – there are none.

Instead, I want to rant about a tendency I have noticed on the social web. On Twitter, more than anywhere else, the talk is very commonplace. The sort one would expect at a very large and noisy gathering. People share inanities, call each other names, laugh at utterly stupid things, carry out coffee table debates… you get the idea. This is a big reason behind Twitter’s charm, and this is what makes it such a powerful marketing platform.

And then one day, a celeb-type, perhaps prompted by all the hype about it in the mainstream media, trots in and is shocked at the plainspeak. I have seen this happening more than once. Perhaps they expect to be treated the way they are treated on their TV channels, their newspapers, their book signings etc? I don’t know.

One thing I have learnt about Twitter is that it is not the place for people who take themselves too seriously. If you are joining a social network, keep the social in mind. If you want to be in the midst of people, act like people. Don’t expect celebrity high-speak to work. Idhar sab log waise bhi celebrity hai — every single one of them. I am not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing, just that that’s the way things are on Twitter – that is how things work here.

While the block button is always there, clicking it at every disagreement isn’t good policy if your fundamental reason for being on Twitter is to socialise with your readership, and as a result, sell books.

For the record, I am a big fan of Chetan Bhagat’s work. I think he can be called an ambassador for popular Indian writing (as opposed to the high-brow shit many others insist on limiting the definition of literature to). I also thinks he tells good stories.

This blog of mine underwent a redesign recently. That doesn’t mean a lot by itself, seeing as how I change themes as often as I bathe (Damn it! I did NOT say that). But this last design change was something a lot of thought went into. I like to think that it marks the beginning of a new path for vmohanty.com.

I wanted to do a post on what has changed and my reasons behind making those changes. Also, Patrix asked for it (see his post on the same topic).

Till now my blog has been like an article repository. One that got updated with essays and stories whenever I wrote something worth sharing. To this end, the blog has had a look more suited to a content-powered website. I have traditionally gone for a solid, full, and well-organised look. To cut a long story short, vmohanty.com has been more a site than a blog.

Add to that situation the fact that social media has grown in prominence in recent months. My own presence on Twitter and Facebook has a decent following (I’m just saying!) and I post tons of content there in the form of short text updates, photos, and comments. In the olden days, people did all this on their blogs.

But times have changed and the amount of interaction people used to have on blogs has dropped very noticeably. I share my photos in controlled environments inside social networks and they are viewed by people who care. My blog posts get more comments when they show up as notes on my Facebook profile. I have more followers on Twitter than I have feed subscribers on my blog. I actually get more feedback on my blog posts via twitter than I do in the comments section! Who would have thought of all this a few years ago?

I figured therefore, that I should “plug” my blog into my social media profile, because it sure as hell is not going to be able to stand on its own in the middle of all the other places that define my “presence” on the web nowadays. The blog must become a part of my small extended empire (as opposed to the centre of it).

Much of the new plan didn’t need any work at all. My blog URL is on my Twitter profile, and my posts get pushed to Facebook and Friendfeed via RSS. But what I needed was a way for the blog to share in the feel of the social web.

To this end, I tried to make my blog look more real-time. I let go of the need to categorise my posts into one of my ten clean categories and went for the more fluid convention of tags. My sidebar consists of nothing but a tag list now. This serves many purposes. Firstly, the list is a clear indication of what the blog is ‘about’. Secondly, the list is never static and keeps changing as I make new posts, with old tags coming up as and when I revisit those topics. What’s more? The tags also make for a great gateway into the deeper recesses of my blog.

Next, I implemented the Backtype Connect plugin on my Wordpress installation. It finds mentions of my blog posts on Twitter (and elsewhere) and plugs them into the specific post’s comments area. I found a plugin to do the same with facebook too, but it doesn’t seem to work too well. I have also installed a new Twitter-based microforum app called Tweetboard that shows threaded Twitter conversations right on this page. You can acces it by clicking on “tweets” on the left.

The theme I am using is called Prologue and it is a Wordpress theme to mimic Twitter. I made some minor adjustments to it (added a horizontal top navbar, changed some labels, implemented the post title function, etc). I chose it because it is simple, minimal, and easy to read. In addition, it lets me have a Twitter style display picture near the beginning of my posts.

This is more important than it might seem because a lot of my readership (most of it in fact) comes from Twitter and the display picture makes for a useful comfort element when that happens. I know this because I find display pictures very comforting on Twitter myself. They are like faces of people I know.

I have also changed the default URL structure on my blog so that it is very short and simple now. Only the base URL followed by a 3-digit post ID. This makes the links easy to remember and easy to post on Twitter etc. Yes, I know about URL shorteners, but you and I both know that we all hate them. I want postings on Twitter to look like they came from my blog, not a spam nest. Update: Changed the URLs to a fuller form. Pho Freak made a good point in the comments.

In the long run, I intend to keep posting all manner of stuff here. Articles and stories will continue to show up as before, but unlike the past there will also be a lot of opinion (politics, culture, life in general) just like on my Twitter stream.

I have rambled enough. Feel free to let me know what you think of the redesign and of the blog. If I have missed something, ask away.

An article I wrote on Twitter was published in this month’s issue of AND magazine. Here’s the original unedited version of it.

About a week ago, I was sitting in the company of a few random journalists. They were talking about Twitter, a hot little web service that allows members to post 140 character updates to the internet and receive similar updates from other members. These updates, technically speaking, are status updates (the sort you post on Google Talk or on your Facebook profile), but they can vary in nature. People use Twitter to break news, do political commentary, share interesting links, and even write micro-fiction (stories 140 characters or less in length).

However, as is common practice among people from mainstream media, nobody in the gathering saw Twitter as much more than an uppity little pastime. Why anyone would feel the need to broadcast the most frivolous bits of their daily lives to the whole world was beyond what they could imagine.

I joined Twitter over two years ago. I was there before Barack Obama got on it and made it a crucial tool in his campaign to be the President of the United States of America (and won!). I was there before some of the world’s largest corporations started using Twitter as a direct line to their consumer base. I was there before news of some of the most devastating natural disasters in recent times spread across the world through Twitter.

I have seen it all unfold, in a manner of speaking, before my very eyes. As you might imagine, every time Twitter is called ‘frivolous’ (or some such thing) in my presence, my heart rages in righteous indignation. Why must something as time-tested as Twitter suffer judgment by those who only came to know about it five minutes ago?

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Twitter has been quietly and steadily adding new features to its web interface, making it a richer place to log in to, without compromising on the simplicity that has become Twitter’s trademark.

Today morning, I woke up to find my replies tab replaced with a new “mentions” function. While seemingly inconsequential, this makes things a whole lot easier for users. I constantly have Twitter Search tab open in Firefox to track retweets or to see if someone tagged me in a tweet. Now I don’t have to.

The current web interface has integrated search, trending topics, username tracking and all major Twitter features enabled. Here are some other things I would love to see them add to it.

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Facebook is high on functionality but rather low on accessibility. The recent redesign opens up a lot of possibilities for the service to make sure some of its best features come to the fore, thereby enhancing the whole Facebook experience.

I will try to list a few things they might want to do to make this happen.

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Some time ago, I was faced with the task of explaining Twitter to someone who hadn’t, till then, heard of it. I told her to imagine Facebook minus all features except the status bar. She instantly got it. What do you think this means?

If I had to define Twitter in one word, I would simply say that it is an interface. Think about it.

Apart from the interface, there really is nothing that keeps Facebook and Twitter from turning into each other. Of course, an interface is never just an interface.

It is the interface which ends up deciding what kind of conversations a platform will encourage. It is the interface which allows or disallows users to do things that they want to do.

Facebook has been called a walled garden for long. And not without reason either. Apart from being a platform closed to the external web, it also had solid walls within the garden. I for one, found the place very nearly impossible to navigate in the beginning.

Twitter on the other hand, was a simple and solid idea. It did one thing, and did it well. There was little to learn and the experience was so smooth that people were at a loss for words when asked to explain it.

Twitter users, by and large, eagerly await news features (as do users of Friendfeed). Facebook however, with every redesign, ends up displeasing a great many of its users. Why do you think that is?

I think Facebook is growing faster than its users are. The Twitter crowd is the Twitter crowd, a breed that came into being because of Twitter and continues to thrive because of the sphere called microblogging that Twitter has spawned.

The Facebook junta, on the other hand, is the social networking crowd. They came from various Internet places and took to Facebook mostly because their friends were already on it. In other words, they lack the early-adopter style enthusiasm for change that marks the average Twitter user.

My personal sphere on Facebook comprises mostly of people who log in anywhere between once a day to once a week to check if anyone has uploaded photos. That’s about it.

The new Twitter-like design of Facebook scores because it alters the basic way Facebook communicates with its users. It encourages (some might say forces) users to stay logged in for longer periods of time and participate more actively in the many live and ongoing discussions that are sprouting all over their Facebook sphere.

I have seen my Facebook come to life in these past few days. I have seen scores of comments on simple status updates and shared links. This never happened earlier. The new-look Facebook has finally put Facebook in a position where it can allow its gazillion odd features to be of use. The thousands of photos, quizzes, book and movie review apps can now enable and enhance conversation instead of being pretty little ornaments.

Of course, the current look is not as streamlined as I would like it to be, but I do believe it is a huge step in the right direction.

Ajith D (19), a young blogger from Kerala had started a community against the Shiv Sena on Orkut. The community was critical of what it considered the Sena’s attempts to “divide the country on region and caste basis”. The Shiv Sena’s youth wing state secretary filed a case against Ajith at Thane police station in August 2008. Ajith moved the Supreme Court after getting anticipatory bail from the Kerala High Court.

…Ajith moved the Supreme Court through counsel Jogy Scaria seeking quashing of the criminal complaint on the ground that the blog contents were restricted to communication within the community and did not have defamation value. He also pleaded that there was threat to his life if he appeared in a Maharashtra court.

A computer science student, Ajith pleaded that the comments made on the blog were mere exercise of their fundamental right to freedom of expression and speech and could not be treated as an offence by police.

Unimpressed, the Bench said, "We cannot quash criminal proceedings. You are a computer student and you know how many people access internet portals. Hence, if someone files a criminal action on the basis of the content, then you will have to face the case. You have to go before the court and explain your conduct."

I for one, am happy that the Sena is actually seeking legal recourse instead of vandalising cyber cafes or getting them to ban Orkut. As for the decision of the court, I agree completely. As Prem Panicker explained in an email, it is no big deal.

The SC only said that it cannot, suo moto, quash a criminal prosecution.

It did not say the case is well-founded — that is for the court to decide on the basis of existing law.

Ajith incidentally cannot say he is in fear of his life and hence the case should be quashed — what he *can* do is ask that the case be transferred to a Kerala court, on the grounds the alleged offense was committed there, the alleged culprit is based there, and not in Thane.

My friend Gopal Sathe mailed in explaining why this is a good thing. The blurry lines between the mainstream and the lawless realm of the web needs to be given a shape.

I’m not talking about the specifics here. But I think that some guidelines for notability need to be laid down – within the framework of these guidelines it would be easier to dismiss the Sena case, but at the same time would prevent people from misusing the freedoms granted by the internet.

The medium is inherently public. Cloaked in anonymity people say things they might not in any other situation. In some… no in many cases, this is a good thing. But a blog dedicated to chronicling, in unrestrained detail, the love life of the people working with the blogger? Regardless of the veracity of the information. Particularly if the identity of the blogger, or any of his subjects becomes known. Think about it for a second.

Now consider. If instead of a blog post, this 19 year old had made a short film, and got it screened in public. We might still disapprove the Sena suing him, but wouldn’t find it fundamentally wrong of them. Norms need to be established. To protect our rights, to individual dignity and privacy, and also our right to free speech. After all, if we can cry foul when a blogger’s work is copied without permission, then why can’t a blogger be sued? Even if the other side of the argument is the Shiv Sena? Because to condemn their case without hearing it first is to become a fundamentalist oneself.

I hope, in the long run, such cases come up more and more, urging creation of laws that would help govern the Indian Internet. The web has far too long been known as home to the unsocial and the anti-social.