A social media site called Path is out of closed beta. Different to twitter, which is all about sharing in public, this is about putting minimal text (and location and friend details) on a photo or a video, and sharing it with a closed list of people.
What prompted me to write a blog post was an article that I read on Gavin’s blog about creating remarkable content – it’s a checklist of nine different things to consider, including a carefully considered understanding of who you’re talking to, where they are on the path to doing what you want, and including a “tweetable moment” – a soundbite that people will want to share with their network.
On the one hand, this is great advice for people who are learning how to write content. Always think about the person to whom you’re writing – what will best speak to them?
But on the other hand, this takes away from the rough-and-ready nature of social media. The more these pieces of content are crafted, targeted and honed, the more we lose what made them great in the first place.
The longer I spend blogging (and it’s been over ten years now), the more I feel the constraints of the medium. Don’t write for too long. Keep the paragraphs just so. Think about where you link, and how it will work.
I’ve only rarely been blogging in a way that shared a great deal of personal information, but I think those moments are the most satisfying. I’m liking Path for its focus on the bare essentials of sharing what’s happening.
Do you read anything that is slick to the point of being impersonal? What do you like about reading it?
Do I read slick to the point of impersonal?
All of the time.
What do I like about it?
I like knowing I’m not the author 🙂