It was March 2007 when Jeff Pulver raved about a new website that allowed for the broadcast of short messages. At some point, Viodi signed up and secured the @Viodi handle. Still, there wasn’t much reason to Tweet until there was a network effect. @MattPPens encouragement from the podium at the 2011 Independent Show was the network effect that spurred @Viodi’s use of Twitter.
Relying on a 3rd-party platform to host content is always fraught with risks, as evidenced by the previous link to the 2011 Independent Show. The link to the WordPress-powered, ViodiTV website still works. Unfortunately, the video interview with Matt embedded on that particular page no longer works as the associated video host went out of business a decade ago.
Despite the risk of relying on a 3rd party, Twitter became a sort of bookmarking site for Viodi. It also became a way to promote @Viodi’s content from its Viodi View, ViodiTV, and YouTube sites. The Tweets most relevant to the Viodi View were memorialized on the Viodi website and newsletter.
Even though we took care not to depend upon Twitter as a content host, Twitter’s timeline and interactive nature created content beyond what could be captured on Viodi-controlled websites. Will substack serve as a substitute going forward? Is the decentralized Mastadon a better site for short thoughts? Who knows?
Still, I have to question my first Tweet, which no longer seems to be available (the current Twitter timeline stops in 2018). It was from the noted philosopher Phineas (or was it Ferb?),
“Fame is fleeting, but the Internet is forever.”
To my cartoon friends, their saying should be amended to read that the Internet might be forever, but the technology and private platforms that ride on it fail like any other human-made construct.