Socialmedia on ¬ just serendipity 🍀

↗ Reply to: the Threads algorithm loves rage bait

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 10:59:22 +0100

♠ This is an exemplary situation illustrating why running a personal blog is simply much nicer than jumping the social media bandwagon.

Comments received via email tend to be much higher-quality than social media replies.

And I am not even calling out any particular companies. It’s just the inherent atmosphere of these platforms.

That said I am still debating whether to create a public Mastodon profile associated with my public web persona.

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Record Club

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 11:30:05 +0100

♠ Record Club:

A {new,fun,better} way to discover and share music with friends.

Record Club is a social music network that makes it easy to track, rate, review and compile lists of your favorite releases with a community of other music fans.

I stumbled upon Record Club last week via a blog that I follow¹. It is a blend of last.fm, goodreads and (old) twitter.

So far I am really enjoying it! It is a great way to discover new indie² albums and artists.

Then you’ll ask: what’s wrong with Spotify or YouTube recommendations? Don’t they have a great algorithm, supposedly tailored to your great musical taste?

I’ll leave the answer up to you, but the issue to me is that they trap you in a bubble. It is difficult to discover non-mainstream records in these platforms.

Browsing Record Club feels local, personal, and intimate.

Give it a try :)

If you end up discovering interesting song tracks, artists or albums there, feel free to share them with me.

Not sure if I will maintain an active (or public) account there though.

Unfortunately I can no longer remember which one :/ ↩︎
“Less popular” ↩︎

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Instagram: unfollow non-followers

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:13:11 +0200

♠ Sometimes connections simply fade away. Life happens. Privacy prevails. Then why don’t people remove them both ways (follower + following)? If you don’t want to stay connected with someone any longer, it is good courtesy to do so symmetrically. If you just unfollow someone, without removing them from your follower list, then you tacitly demonstrate that you care to a great extent about invisible internet karma points /shrug.

Instagram doesn’t make it easy to find those who do not follow you back. However, it is possible to obtain this information with a little bit of scripting.

Go to Go to Instagram → Settings → Privacy and security → Download your information.
Choose JSON (not HTML).
Select “Connections” only and, for the period, choose from the beginning of time¹.
Confirm the prompt.
Instagram will email you a ZIP file. That should take a couple of minutes.
Download the ZIP (instagram-{username}-YYYY-MM-DD-{id}.zip) and unpack it. Structure:

% tree connections
connections
└── followers_and_following
    ├── blocked_profiles.json
    ├── close_friends.json
    ├── follow_requests_you've_received.json
    ├── followers_1.json
    ├── following.json
    ├── hide_story_from.json
    ├── pending_follow_requests.json
    ├── profiles_you've_favorited.json
    ├── recent_follow_requests.json
    ├── recently_unfollowed_profiles.json
    └── removed_suggestions.json

(Yes, one of these files has a ' in the name. It was not a typo.)

We’re interested in followers_N.json and following.json.

From this point on, vibe code and chill. A single, well-crafted prompted is enough. For example:

You are a world-class software developer.

I exported all my Instagram data.

Write a python script to parse all people I follow that do not follow me back.

Output username + profile URLs in each line.

I am a fan of this one-shot prompt structure / style²:

you are a superb ${FOO}
this is some context for you
do this for me
output in the desired format

The resulting script:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import json
import csv
from pathlib import Path

# Base path where your JSON files are
base = Path("connections/followers_and_following")

def extract_usernames(file_path):
    """Extract Instagram usernames from a followers/following JSON file."""
    with open(file_path) as f:
        data = json.load(f)

    # Handle both old and new formats
    if isinstance(data, dict):
        for v in data.values():
            if isinstance(v, list):
                data = v
                break

    if not isinstance(data, list):
        raise ValueError(f"Unexpected format in {file_path}")

    usernames = set()
    for item in data:
        try:
            entry = item.get("string_list_data", [])[0]
            username = (
                entry.get("value")
                or entry.get("href", "").rstrip("/").split("/")[-1]
                or entry.get("username")
            )
            if username:
                usernames.add(username)
        except Exception:
            continue

    return usernames


# --- Load followers (handles multiple files) ---
followers = set()
for path in base.glob("followers_*.json"):
    followers |= extract_usernames(path)

# --- Load following ---
following = extract_usernames(base / "following.json")

# --- Compute differences ---
not_following_back = sorted(following - followers)
you_dont_follow_back = sorted(followers - following)
mutuals = sorted(followers & following)

def write_csv(filename, users):
    with open(filename, "w", newline="", encoding="utf-8") as f:
        writer = csv.writer(f)
        writer.writerow(["username", "profile_url"])
        for user in users:
            writer.writerow([user, f"https://www.instagram.com/{user}/"])
    print(f"✅ Saved {len(users)} entries to {filename}")

# --- Write results ---
write_csv("not_following_back.csv", not_following_back)
write_csv("you_dont_follow_back.csv", you_dont_follow_back)
write_csv("mutuals.csv", mutuals)

The script was tested in a real account, and I’m pleased to state that it works as intended.

If you use it for the sake of unfollowing people³ then it’s advisable not to automate the unfollowing process, as Instagram could potentially block you. Instead, do it manually.

May the reduced noise increase your serenity.

Or else it won’t work. ↩︎
I am not here to claim what prompt is the best. Just keep it simple and carry on. ↩︎
Why would you run it otherwise? ↩︎

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★ 'It's never a good time'

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 11:55:44 +0200

♠ When is the best time…

to move countries?
to have a baby?
to switch jobs?
to find a new apartment?
to start a new hobby?
to try out a new sport?
to get promoted?
to call your loved ones?
to catch up with a long-time friend?
to travel?
to bootstrap a company?
to join an open source community?
to attend a beloved conference?
to pray?
to smile?
to delete your social media accounts?
to declutter and tidy up?
to get that new haircut?

It turns out, it’s never a good time.

There’s always something happening in the world.

There’s always an inconvenience.

An excuse.

An obstacle.

An inertia field exerting its effect in the entire environment.

When is a good time?

If you wait for it for too long, suddenly it may end up being too late.

The future starts with you.

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Daily log

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:02:03 +0200

♠ It’s easy to get distracted when using computers connected to the internet. Like, errhmm, when you are doing your job.

I tend to minimize some distractions by reducing notifications and by turning on do not disturb on my phone. Having / using less social media also helps.

What about Internet distractions in my work laptop though?

Lately I’ve been trying out a new habit that appears to keep me more focused throughout the day.

First, I open my note-taking / second brain app (LogSeq).

Next, create a new journal page for it (Aug 13th, 2025 or 2025-08-13).

One reason I like LogSeq is that it does it automatically for me, every day.

Then I create a heading called “Daily log”¹.

I think about what to work on next, typically based on ticket prioritization or sprint planning or dealing with whatever fire is going on at the moment or a “20%” project to improve overall code health.

Then I type in /time<ENTER>. LogSeq helpfully inserts the current time e.g. 13:14. Afterwards, I write a single sentence about what I’m going to do. For example:

14:18 Sync docker images for bitnamilegacy
14:45 Experiment with pruning in Argo

This is not intended to be a meticulous report, as it doesn’t impact me in any way (e.g. for performance reviews).

I merely observed that jotting one slice of idea down makes my intent concrete, clear(er), and helps me stay focused on it, instead of thinking on the next procrastination browser tab to open to get distracted with.

There’s also a psychological effect wherein observing my accomplishments at the end of the day simply feels good.

And last but not least, it becomes easier for me to remember what I worked on during the day, making my stand-up meetings more comprehensive.

Or “Daily”. The name is not important. ↩︎

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★ Silence unknown callers

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 18:11:39 +0200

♠ I absolutely never get any spam calls. This has been true for many and many years now.

What is the formula to do so? Just be an uninteresting, boring person. Be invisible. !next

Sure, this is one way, but let’s get more practical and realistic. I have only three guidelines, assuming you do not want to live as an hermit¹:

1) Silence unknown callers #

Apple, Block or avoid unwanted calls on iPhone:

You can avoid unwanted calls by identifying callers, blocking certain people, and sending unknown and spam callers directly to voicemail.

Turn on Call Identification

iPhone can help identify incoming calls using information from Apple Business Connect, supported carriers, and supported call identification apps.

Go to Settings > Apps > Phone, then tap “Silence Unknown Callers”.

A must-have. There’s absolutely no reason to let strangers be able to interrupt you on a whim.

This can only work effectively if you do not feel FOMO. My philosophy is: if there is a pressing matter, people or institutions will make an effort to reach out, whether by multiple attempts or by employing alternate means (e.g. email? WhatsApp?) to do so.

Exception: If you are waiting for a phone call but do not know the origin number (e.g. from a pharmacy, medical doctor, job interview, prospective landlord). In this case, turn this setting off temporarily.

2) Disable most app notifications #

There’s no reason to let your phone disturb you. It should be a tool that you control, not the other way around. Disable notifications for most apps, especially social media.

Alternatively: Enable “Do Not Disturb” most of the time. These days most phones can be configured to enable it on a configurable schedule, or based on location (e.g. when you’re home, or at work).

Exception: Let your loved ones be able to reach you. iOS has settings to allow certain apps and/or contacts to bypass DNS. Being reachable by loved ones doesn’t need to entail emergencies only. Note that this only works if this is a small list. If you decide that you love everyone (noble!), then you’ll need a two-tier love system to decide who you love the most.

3) Protect your Crown Jewels #

Tate Jarrow, Protect your Crown Jewels!:

[…] you can reduce the majority of your risk by protecting the handful of your most important assets – I call these your crown jewels. These are probably only a fraction of your digital assets, and can be done much more easily and quickly — so start there.

I rarely hand out my main phone number when signing up for various online accounts. I don’t want to be reachable in the first place (see guideline 1)), so why expose my number to third parties?

I have a second phone number that I use only for chat apps (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc), so that there is no need to leak my main phone number to acquaintances. And I have a third phone number that I use whenever signup forms make it mandatory to provide a number and when “0000000000” or “+12131234567” or similar do not work.

— -

is the most important. There was a point in my life when I would use my main phone number for everything. Then I kept getting spam phone calls (and texts). I would still ignore them anyway (1)) – it feels that I’ve been doing so since forever – but it was annoying to get spammed.

It’s never too late to do 3): you can always get a new phone number and start over.

Hermit: One of my favorite monospace fonts, mind you. ↩︎

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Blog directories

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Sat, 17 May 2025 01:16:22 +0200

♠ Without social media algorithms, how can you discover new blogs to follow?

Enter blog directories:

There are two ways to find information on the Web: by searching or browsing. Web directories provide links in a structured list to make browsing easier. Many web directories combine searching and browsing by providing a search engine to search the directory. Unlike search engines, which base results on a database of entries gathered automatically by web crawler, most web directories are built manually by human editors. Many web directories allow site owners to submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness.

A few directories I like¹:

✪ https://250kb.club/ / https://256kb.club/
✪ https://512kb.club/ (Kev)
✪ https://blogosphere.app/
✪ https://blogroll.org/ (Manu)
✪ https://bubbles.town/
✪ https://clew.se/
✪ https://darktheme.club/
✪ https://diff.blog/
✪ https://feedle.world/
✪ https://indieblog.page/
✪ https://kagi.com/smallweb
✪ https://marginalia-search.com/
✪ https://powrss.com/
✪ https://rss.social/
✪ https://scour.ing/
✪ https://static.quest
✪ https://xn--sr8hvo.ws/dashboard (an indieweb webring)
https://ooh.directory/
https://www.blogsareback.com/
✗ https://baccyflap.com/noai/?slug=njs#links

I tend to visit them occasionally, whenever I crave for new content, perhaps like doomscrolling in social media.

Most new blogs I subscribe to come from indirect referrals. I read a blog post I like that links to another blog post, I visit it to find out more and realize that it’s interesting, then I subscribe to it.

More rarely there’s also the direct referral way, for example, when I become aware that a friend or a coworker has started a blog recently.

The combination of referrals + directories is quite sustainable.

See also: How I discover new blogs by Nelson Figueroa.

Previously.

My blog is indexed in the ones marked with a ✪ star. Not qualified in the ones marked with a ✗. ↩︎

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LinkedIn: chronological view

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:53:22 +0100

♠ How to Replace Linkedin’s Algorithmic Timeline by Preslav Rachev:

Here is a quick tip on bringing back your sanity when using LinkedIn. Whether you are familiar with algorithmic timelines work or not, it has certainly come to your attention that your home feed page is not chronologically organized. Instead, you see posts from people and organizations that LinkedIn’s content-matching algorithms thought you might be interested in. Those are so good that you’d often catch yourself scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling, often, forgetting why you were there in the first place. Not only that but even if you found something actually worth your attention, LinkedIn will likely rearrange your feed completely the next time you open the page.

This is a phenomenon called doomscrolling and is something that most social media applications make good use of. However, LinkedIn has turned that into perfection. The goal is no longer to deliver valuable updates from your professional contacts (which was its original purpose), but just to keep you engaged and coming back for more.

It turns out it’s possible to set the preferred feed / timeline view to “Most recent”, instead of the default “Most relevant posts (Recommended)”. Change the setting in your LinkedIn preferences. The link works at the time of the publication of this post.

A bit of fresh air, and less enshittification, I would say.

I don’t use LinkedIn often. Especially for news, I don’t think it’s a good place to become informed…however, while we’re here, if you work in Tech, feel free to connect with me (my profile is LinkedIn¹ the footer of this site). A cool “trick” I learned from a speaker at FOSDEM: if you write an avocado emoji in your intro message then I’ll (very likely) instantly accept you the next time I log in (which is not often).

Could not resist the pun. ↩︎

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Instagram: get rid of all posts

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:29:20 +0100

♠ Following the footsteps of enacting 2025 as a year of Tech Independence, I got rid of all my Instagram posts¹.

There were some 250+ posts spawning 10+ years.

Why? #

In no particular order:

new acquaintances don’t need to know about my whole timeline / history / past, whether it’s employment, locations I lived in, locations I travelled to, activities, hobbies, etc
reduce dependence on Big Tech™ (even further)
effectively eliminate my attachment to the platform. No data, no regrets
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier. I read this book 5 years ago (2020) and it always stayed in my head. I wrote the following review on Goodreads at the time:

Decent read for this century overall, but the book is quite repetitive. The author repeats the BUMMER acronym a lot, it’s quite annoying. But his arguments are relevant and decent to some extent. One thing that misses the point is that the author treats social media as a blackbox, you’re either in or out. There’s no middle ground. There are some gray zone use cases that are useful and aren’t necessarily manipulative. Marketplace and community-based Discussion Groups are two of them. Still, if you consume personalized newsfeeds or stories on a daily basis then you should definitely read it.

I don’t believe you need to be that much radical or strict to the point of completely getting rid of them, nonetheless it’s not particularly difficult to achieve a healthy balance either. Personally, I deactivate my account for weeks or months at a time ephemerally, and this tends to work well for me.

focus more on the present. I don’t need to keep looking back at my social media posts if there are no posts to look back to in the first place. This fosters a healthy feedback loop wherein incentives to live in the present are continuously rewarded
privacy!
more incentive to direct resources towards platforms I care more about (e.g. this blog!) – opportunity cost
intentionally eliminate most of the friction I had to share my private account with new acquaintances

As a side effect, I added a link to my profile at the footer of this site.

Not 100% correct as I left only one post, which doubles down as (i) nostalgia / melancholy for the good ol’ times and (ii) verification / creditworthiness i.e. makes my account appear more authentic as it has at least one post from a long time ago; otherwise it could appear that I created it very recently. ↩︎

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↗ Reply to: I Hate the News

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 01:44:16 -0300

♠ Link to the original article from 2006 from the late Aaron Swartz:

Some people start their day by reading The New York Times. Others end it by watching the nightly news. Some get it from The Daily Show. Others download it from a variety weblogs. Some keep up-to-the-minute by following CNN. Others have instant news updates automatically text messaged to their phone. But everybody seems to agree: it’s a citizen’s responsibility to keep up with the news. Everybody except me.

I think following the news is a waste of time.

[…]

None of these stories have relevance to my life. Reading them may be enjoyable, but it’s an enjoyable waste of time. They will have no impact on my actions one way or another.

[…]

My life does not seem to be impoverished for it; indeed, I think it has been greatly enhanced. But I haven’t found many other people who are willing to take the plunge.

How relevant these words of wisdom still are!

I haven’t been closely following the news ever since the great pandemic™. This includes social media, apple / google news, and portals from news organizations. I go out of my way to prevent the constant barrage of unnecessary anxiety and fearmongering from affecting me.

There are other ways to stay up-to-date with relevant topics.

My primary sources are:

the excellent miniflux, my beloved RSS reader. As of the time of this publication, I am following 350+ feeds. Quantity is not an important metric here, especially as most of these feeds do not publish daily
local news. These are the most impactful ones, as they affect the environment where I live and could thus influence or change my short or medium-term planning
friends & family, mostly via chat apps through individual conversations or group chats

There is rarely a need for immediate action. Furthermore the news that are truly important or relevant end up spreading like fire, to the point where it’s impossible not to have heard of them.

Corollary: Life is short, make a better use of your time. There are plenty of ways to do so¹!

citation needed, you do you ↩︎

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No analytics

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:48:27 +0200

♠ There are many analytics and tracking offerings for blogs. I don’t want any of them.

In this umpteenth iteration of my personal blog, I realized from the start that I would be much happier by not having any anxiety related to trying to figure out how many visitors I have.

It’s such a peace of mind to write just for the sake of writing.

A public blog is not a journal, yet it plays its own role in the grand scheme of things.

The world would be a happier place if we cared less about numbers; or, at least, certain numbers, such as Instagram / Twitter / TikTok followers, or story views, or blog post impressions.

The obvious and most sensible exception is when(ever) you have a business or a brand. Then it is important to stay in the know, when your revenue depends on it.

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RSS: bridging the gap

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

♠ Not everything is available via RSS. However, there are some decent workarounds in a few situations. For my RSS reader setup, see Miniflux.

Why This Matters #

The shift away from RSS and open standards represents a broader trend of enshittification on the web—where platforms prioritize lock-in and data collection over user freedom. RSS embodies the original spirit of the open web: user control, interoperability, and freedom from algorithmic manipulation.

By using RSS bridges and alternatives, we push back against this trend and reclaim control over how we consume content online.

Newsletters #

Some blogs and authors refuse to provide RSS feeds to their websites. Instead, they will only provide newsletters. This is very hostile to the open web, and the main reason why it’s done is so that these authors can own a direct channel to reach out to their audience directly, which is better for (their) business, making it easier for them to push sponsored and promoted content and measure engagement metrics and analytics.

Kill the Newsletter is a service that proxies those newsletters, publishing them as RSS feeds.

You can either self-host it or use its official hosted version at https://kill-the-newsletter.com/.

Twitter #

Use Nitter:

Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy. The source is available on GitHub at https://github.com/zedeus/nitter

Furthermore, it has built-in RSS support!

For example, you can see @taylorswift13’s profile on Nitter at https://nitter.net/taylorswift13 and follow her via RSS with https://nitter.net/taylorswift13/rss — by merely appending /rss to it.

You can either self-host it or use one of its public instances. At the time of this writing the official instance is https://nitter.net.

Reddit #

Reddit famously includes RSS support for every subreddit, for example¹: https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/.rss. It has a lot of noise though as it includes all recent posts including the ones with a few number of votes.

To experience a higher quality, filtered version of the latest given subreddit posts with more than a certain threshold (of your choosing) of upvotes, check out the reddit-top-rss project:

Reddit Top RSS is a set of scripts for Reddit’s API that generates RSS feeds for specified subreddits with score thresholds. To preview your outputted feed items there is a front end that utilizes the Bootstrap v4 framework.

You’re supposed to self-host it, but there’s a demo version available at https://reddit-top-rss.herokuapp.com/.

Appendix #

For more RSS bridges and resources, see:

Disclaimer: I do not endorse these lists of resources. Use them at your own risk.

The last slash isn’t strictly necessary: https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux.rss is also valid. ↩︎

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Novos paradigmas @ Redes sociais & News

serendipity@perrotta.dev (Thiago Perrotta) — Fri, 30 May 2014 11:57:00 -0300

♠ Produtividade já foi uma questão que discuti bastante por aqui. Por exemplo, esse post contém alguns pensamentos soltos, e esse outro algumas guidelines para o Facebook.

Apesar de tudo, essa não é a única questão para a qual temos que abrir nossos olhos. Parando para refletir um pouco, se você se imaginar há 3 anos e comparar o seu eu ao eu atual, você irá notar que a forma com que a internet entrou em sua vida e passou a fazer parte dela, de modo intrínseco, é uma metamorfose absurda. Naturalmente, se você está lendo esse post, então o que eu falei é uma suposição razoável para você.

A questão é: perdemos muito tempo vendo notícias e updates que não são essenciais para a nossa cabeça, nem para uma eventual tomada de decisões. Claro que alguns updates são importantes, e outros são relacionados a pessoas que você gosta de seguir / acompanhar, de modo que não acho que valha a pena você ficar 100% sem adquirir informação nenhuma simplesmente porque a Information Overload te dominou. Por outro lado, tentar acompanhar tudo é uma tremenda perda de produtividade.

Então, motivado por essas coisas, vou tentar mudar alguns de meus próprios paradigmas em relação às redes sociais. Naturalmente, vou compartilhar algumas coisas que soam como boas práticas, e que possivelmente você também poderá querer adotar.

1 - Deprecated. Usei o hostsblock durante uma semana (é só para Linux). Ele realmente bloqueia todos os domínios que você especificar, mas isso acaba tendo a desvantagem que eu mencionei antes: bloquear 100% não é uma solução ótima.

2 - Deprecated. Também cheguei a usar esse add-on na época que usava Firefox. Mesmo comentário que o anterior.

3 - Recentemente um add-on do Neal Wu para Chrome ficou bastante popular. Fiquei bastante feliz tanto pelo que o add-on se propõe a fazer (não é um bloqueio de 100%!), quanto pela pessoa que o desenvolveu (dica: é um cara bastante inteligente). E o melhor: ele é open source, de modo que você pode tentar adaptá-lo para bloquear outros sites também!

Agora chega de software, vamos às boas práticas.

4 - Sempre que você ver um link da categoria funny, “engraçadinho”, “legalzinho”, NÃO O POSTE. Seus amigos não precisam ver isso. É, isso inclui a categoria “reddit” também. Quem gosta do reddit vai ler coisas lá, eu não preciso ficar compartilhando o post do dia do reddit que mais gostei na minha timeline. Isso se aplica principalmente ao 9gag e similares. Eu detesto esse tipo de sites (9gag, não reddit), mas ainda assim vejo compartilhamentos sobre isso o tempo todo. Dica: já dei unfollow na maior parte das pessoas que compartilha sobre isso, mas parece que é algo viral, em todo o canto aparece mais uma.

5 - Boas plataformas para compartilhar links, GIFs e firulas? Tumblr! (Eu não tenho um…).

6 - Utilizar agregadores de feed (RSS ou não) para juntar as notícias que você quer ver é uma ótima prática. Baseado em RSS, atualmente eu uso do CommaFeed. O Reader do Wordpress também pode ser razoável (ele também funciona para RSSs que não estão no Wordpress).

7 - Eu procuro evitar entrar diretamente em portais de notícias (ainda mais se forem grandes portais de notícias. Prefiro receber as principais notícias de forma descentralizada. Bons sites para isso incluem Reddit, Hacker News (@Ycombinator), Slashdot, Google News. O último não é bem descentralizado, mas reúne notícias diversas.

8 - Gosto do Pocket para reunir coisas para ler. Veja bem: ler tudo é overkill, mas algumas coisas valem a pena. No entanto, mesmo para essas últimas, nem sempre você vai querer digerir dado artigo em dado momento, então você o guarda para ler depois, é simples.

9 - Sobre redes sociais de fotos (atualmente, Instagram e Imgur, a meu ver): deixe as fotos dessas redes nessas redes! Isto é, não conecte a sua conta do Instagram com a sua conta do Facebook. Os seus amigos que não estão no Instagram provavelmente não têm nenhum interesse em ficar visualizando todas as selfies que você posta. Por outro lado, é razoavelmente provável que os seus amigos que estão no Instagram possam gostar de ver essas fotos. Então, a meu ver, conectar o Instagram com outras redes sociais é uma forma de narcisismo.

10 - Conectar o Twitter com o Facebook é uma questão a se pensar. Se você é uma daquelas pessoas que posta centenas de Tweets por dia, não faça isso, os seus amigos do Facebook não irão querer ler todos os seus tweets. Por outro lado, se você só posta alguns por dia (meu caso, ao menos hoje), talvez isso seja razoável. Não tenho certeza se é 100% razoável, porque a probabilidade de um único tweet ser relevante é bem pequena; por outro lado, talvez o conjunto de tweets seja relevante, tudo depende do contexto.

11 - Finalmente, a relevância das redes sociais está no conceito de comunidades. Se você compartilha uma coisa X que interessa à comunidade Y, então em geral as pessoas da comunidade Y vão ficar satisfeitas com X. Por outro lado, quando você compartilha X com todo o seu feed, é bem provável que apenas pouquíssimas pessoas achem X relevante. Assim, acho o conceito dos círculos do Google+ fantástico.

Essa lista poderia continuar de forma indefinida, mas acho que é mais prática do que teoria, então fico satisfeito com os itens anteriores.

E para finalizar, acho que o erro do News Feed do facebook é o seguinte: ele assume que você quer ver os updates de todos os seus amigos. Só que existe um problema fundamental nisso: não é só porque uma pessoa X é sua conhecida que você necessariamente quer ver todos os updates de X. Às vezes X é um colega de trabalho, ou de faculdade, ou um antigo amigo de escola, e você quer se manter conectado com X, não tem problema nenhum nisso; mas, isso não quer dizer que você queira ver os updates de X. Assim, na maior parte das vezes, um usuário médio do Facebook acaba vendo mais coisas que não o interessam do que as que o interessam.

O modelo do Twitter, ou do Google+ (por exemplo) é ligeiramente diferente: você só segue, por definição, quem você quer seguir – então você em suma não tem o direito de reclamar que a pessoa está postando futilidades, afinal foi você quem a seguiu, qualquer coisa é só dar unfollow nela. No caso do Google+ você só visualiza updates dos círculos que você quer (assim como só posta para os círculos que você quer).

Note que a única plataforma que não inclui nessa discussão foi blogs. Trato-a de maneira diferente. Quem sabe não falo sobre isso em um outro dia. Até a próxima.

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