With the risk of sounding extremely outdated, I suppose I long for the days of just a few years ago in the South Florida blogosphere when breaking news would be discussed on blogs and people actually had the motivation and desire to use more than 140 characters to express their opinions. Instead, today's reactions on Twitter vary from "Cool" to "LOL!" to "That sucks!" to simply nothing more than RT. I hate it when I see the URL from one of my posts being retweeted and the comments of the post remain empty. Are we really that short on time? Have we lost the means to write out complete entire sentences in a comment block? Are we that lazy?
Anyway. Just some thoughts that swirled around my head this evening as I sifted and looked through the blogosphere for some pretty significant stories that I had seen mentioned on Twitter. But no luck. Only Eater Miami took the time to mention them and Beached Miami had the other one covered with just a few comments. And with that rather long-winded and frustrated introduction, here's your evening Sift. Enjoy.
A- Coral Gables Watch is all over the Coral Gables elections with a look at the positions of the mayoral candidates and those running for commissioner.
B- Because most things too good to be true don't last very long in South Florida, the City in Miami has decided to shut down the acclaimed Roots in the City Farmer's Market and Beached Miami is the only South Florida blog to cover the story. There are some comments, too, including a couple that claim that they're still open.
That the city would shut it down over a legal technicality is condemnable and further proof that Miami remains woefully far from joining the ranks of the world’s great cities, all of which accommodate, cultivate, and celebrate outdoor markets. Not Miami though. No, Miami brings down the hammer just a month before the market was to close for the season.C- Blogging Black Miami tells us about a school Walk In that's being conducted at schools in South Florida to protest the cuts in education.
While the folks in the Florida Legislature continue to turn back the clock and strip us of our rights while blatantly destroying public education and preparing to hand over the business of Florida to their friends, we must send the message that enough is enough. Let’s join in the UTD sponsored WALK-IN tomorrow, March 31, 2011, 4PM-6PM at your closest public school.D- In two interesting cases of South Florida bloggers electing to tweet major foodie stories rather than write about them, Eater Miami picks up the slack and covers an interesting situation at the Miami New Times where a food critic allegedly didn't visit a restaurant he reviewed and also takes a look at the real reason Miss Yip vacated their Lincoln Road venue. Thanks, Eater Miami!
E- Random Pixels maintains there's someone even less qualified than Luther Campbell running for Miami-Dade Mayor.
F- Liam Crotty Photography shares some photos of the unique Mikesell family.
G- The Heat Lightning gives readers the quick and dirty on Virginia Key and posts a map as a bonus.
The park, despite not having swimming, still has its charms. It’s the quietest beach I’ve ever been on and is probably the best place to pick up shells and driftwood in Miami. However for swimming, the actual beach section can’t be beat for one simple reason: it’s practically deserted.H- Another World War II veteran is gone and this time it's personal for Searching For Normalcy.
I’m not talking about the north end, with the volleyball courts and whatnot. I’m talking about the south end with all the breakers and inlets. Here there is no lifeguard and most days you can claim an inlet entirely for yourself. The water is nice and deep enough to swim in and the sand is nice. For the most part it’s the perfect place for a beach party. Then when you’re done, you can always nurse your sunburn up at Jimbo’s. What more could you ask for?
I- Check out Lebron's locker at The305.Com.
J- Wow. A former U.S. Attorney is making some serious allegations against Jeffrey Epstein's defense team including Miami attorney Roy Black. Southern District of Florida Blog has the story.
K- Eye on Miami says that FPL is raising their rates $1 billion [with a B] over next 5 years, but the legislators who are approving these hikes can still say with a smirk that they're not raising your taxes.
Looks like FPL will get the nod to raise rates by 1 billion over 5 years. Their cost: They hired 30 State lobbyists and doled out campaign contributions to State legislators and Governor candidates of $4 million. The bills say they don't need approval of State regulators.L- The Wisconsin governor is defying a judge's order for the second time, according to The Reid Report, and I just wish he would be treated like anyone else who exhibits a contempt of court.
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10 comments:
agree with your comments. I was watching twitter feeds during Obama's speech Monday and there was very little discussion. Mostly people saying "watching speech" or worse a retwitter of "watching speech."
I (usually) only read tweets for lulz and only follow people who I think are funny. That's the last place I would go for news or commentary. Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem to be working that way.
It's all about communities. The online communities keep shifting and merging.
But yeah, you do sound dated. Not much different than mainstream media journalists in how they reacted to the blogs in the beginning.
Now you're talking as if blog communities are old-school and admittedly finding it hard to adjust to the new social media communities.
If there is anything the mainstream media has taught us, you either have to go with it or be left behind.
You're right, of course.
The days of people actually writing something substantial when they have something to say seem to be disappearing.
It's like we're devolving, if that is such a thing. Soon when we see something we like, we'll point and say "Ug."
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Re: Miss Yip - it may be a blessing and a curse that Judge Schumacher is presiding -- A blessing because he's a really nice guy; a curse, because he's also a really good judge and come April 5, it looks like he'll be determining the amount of rent to be paid into the Court Registry, which Order will have some teeth to it if the rent don't git paid...
I'm glad Judge Schumacher is back from his stints away from Civil. I wish they'd stop rotating him out.
I have a lot of good discussions on Facebook.
Twitter is not really designed for in-depth discussion.
I don't see it as a comments vs. Twitter thing. The fact is, a RT on Twitter puts my post in front of a potentially large set of new readers. A comment reaches only those who already know about Beached Miami. On average, the first is more powerful, the second more meaningful.
You won't get any argument from me, Jordan, on how Twitter can build blog traffic. But it's not about that.
It's about sustained exchanges like this one that can be retrieved or revisited days, months or years later. It's the difference between running through an apartment building and yelling on a bullhorn and sitting at a conference table with those same apartment residents and talking for a few hours.
You don't get that with, "Hey, I liked this New Times story tinyurl.com"
Those stories this afternoon deserved more than an Eater Miami mention and maybe there will be more in the future....but based on how I see things devolving, I seriously doubt it.
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C - What is a walk in going to prove? The only way to catalyze change is in the voters booth, but in Florida we elect Republicans and Tea Baggers whose mission is to cut services and reduce the size of government. Unless you have MASSIVE walkins like Wisconsin they are better served to getting out the vote in 2012.
At Carlos Miller: Good discussions on Facebook? You have to be kidding me. Spam fests resembling chat forums are not good discussions, especially when you have to "click to see more" and can't embed multiple links without pasting the entire URL.
E - If I still lived in Miami I would vote for Uncle Luke. Why would an educated effete liberal elite like myself do that? Because we've already hit rock bottom in local politics and if someone can come in and shake things up and flip a middle finger with a big FU to other local politicos then why the hell not.
B.A.C.
I speak for myself regarding FB and the updates, articles, videos and photos I post. I have a very diverse mix of FB friends - much more diverse than I have on PINAC - so I generate great discussions.
Sure, you might have to lift your finger to click more to see the whole discussion, but have we gotten so lazy where that little nanosecond is going to deter us from jumping into a heated conversation?
Before Twitter, there weren't many blogs that generated good discussion anyway. There was Critical Miami and Stuck on the Palmetto and maybe Miami Nights, but for the most part, blogs received only a handful of comments, if that.
And not one of those blogs I mentioned were able to continue posting on a consistent basis despite their strong following.
So imagine the blogs that didn't get a strong following. It's only natural for those bloggers to turn to Twitter to post their thoughts where they are suddenly engaging in a larger community.
With Twitter and FB, we have been able to expand our reach, but that also means we are going against many other bloggers trying to do the same.
If you want to stand out as a blogger, you have to be dedicated, talented, engaging and original.
If you can't do that, then stick to posting links on Twitter because that is what many bloggers were doing anyway.
Posting links is all blogging was in the very beginning: a web log of visited sites worth nothing, with occasional commentary.
Site comments have an odd curve in usefulness. When there aren't many comments they don't inspire discussion, but as a site's popularity increases the signal to noise ratio usually degenerates into useless static, particularly in an unmoderated and/or anonymous forum.
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