Cathemeral Thinking

What is a magazine?

2009-09-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

Summary: An exploration of the essence of magazines reveals that their defining characteristics have more to do with how they represent and enable communities rather than any physical or publishing characteristic.

Why define magazines?

As I work toward launching a new magazine, I am contemplating a question that seems to have an obvious answer to many people, but is definitely contentious, and for which there is no real consensus. Although finding a concrete answer might also seem like a philosophical pursuit of no real importance, I think it is pretty important to be aware of what I am about to do. I should probably already know the answer to this as editor-in-chief of one magazine that I built, but the changing publishing landscape prompts me to re-examine it. Knowing what makes a magazine also gives us a chance to emphasize what is characteristic and gives us hints as where we could focus our efforts.

There are really two questions to disentangle in this discussion: “what have magazines traditionally been?” and “what is a magazine in essence?” It is the latter I am most interested in.

Of course, a far more interesting question than "What is a magazine?" is to ask how to best connect writers and readers. However, I wanted to think about this particular much smaller question as a starting point. I also find it an interesting question to ask because there are these things called "magazines" out there. Does that label actually mean anything? And if it does, what does it mean? I am working on the assumption that it does have a meaning, but you can decide whether or not the label "magazine" is meaningful based on my analysis here. If the concept of a magazine no longer has any use, that is also a very helpful thing to know. [Note: This paragraph added in response to very useful comments from Michael Nielsen. He is entirely right that the bigger question is more interesting, but I never actually got the reason for choosing this smaller question into the essay.]

Magazineness

I asked a bunch of people who have not necessarily thought hard about this but who are bright and interested in the media or publishing. Many of them wanted more context for answering the question, usually in terms of whether I was asking how is a magazine different to a newspaper, or some other form. But I’m primarily interested in what creates “magazineness”. If Plato had an ideal of a magazine, what would characterize that ideal magazine?

I also dug around on the Web looking for various definitions of magazines, including those from magazine and publishing associations. I didn’t find any particularly convincing, to be honest, in the sense that I could easily think of counterexamples which I think ought to be called magazines. However, that digging and discussion was useful for developing the following incomplete list of possible properties that you could use to define magazineness.

The possible properties of magazineness

Here are some possible properties that could be used to define magazineness: periodic; has self-contained pieces; specialist readership; not immediate; has a 3-part structure of front-of-book, feature well, back-of-book; issues are fixed and permanent; various design elements; date-stamped; a collection of pieces; depth of coverage; involves paper; editorial voice; and/or production quality.

At first glance, it is pretty clear that none of the properties listed above would by themselves suffice to separate magazines from other types of publications or would be general enough to include what seems to be the universe of magazines. However, it is worth exploring a few of these in more detail to understand why they are not sufficient. It seems that likely that a characterization of magazineness would include multiple properties.

Periodic: This definitely seems reasonable to describe magazines for most of the last century. However, is periodicity too broad in that it seems to include newspapers, television programs, comics, and many other media? At the same time, is it too narrow when it comes to digital publications that publish on an ongoing basis (e.g. Salon.com or Slate)? These online publications do tend to be date-stamped and stories are assigned to a particular issue, even if the frequency is daily, but the idea that information comes out as it is generated confuses a traditional idea of periodic publication.

The idea of fixedness seems to suffer from the same problems. However, I’m having trouble thinking of a publication that regularly rewrites and replaces past stories. But perhaps that would actually be of great value to a magazine: “Living stories” that are updated as circumstances change. Of course, many magazines revisit a topic—e.g. top ten holiday destinations under $100/day—and the old versions are essentially obsolete.

Specialist readership: This seems to be a reasonably strong property of magazines. At least it seems that way until you start to think about publications like TIME, Newsweek, or US News & World Report. What specialist readership exists for those groups? But perhaps those publications aren’t really magazines at all. Are they weekly newspapers? The Economist calls itself a newspaper and states on its Web site:

“First, why does it call itself a newspaper? Even when The Economist incorporated the Bankers' Gazette and Railway Monitor from 1845 to 1932, it also described itself as ‘a political, literary and general newspaper’.

“It still does so because, in addition to offering analysis and opinion, it tries in each issue to cover the main events—business and political—of the week.”

Perhaps there really is room for a class of publications called “news magazines”, which have the properties of newspapers but come out less frequently than daily.

So leaving aside news magazines, does specialist readership get us somewhere? First let’s think about a few other examples to see if it applies because some examples seem a little more difficult at first.

What is the specialist readership of The New Yorker? I think it is probably a group of people who self-identify as politically left-leaning, well-educated, thought leaders. Vanity Fair is probably in a similar class in that readers probably see themselves as style aficionados and leaders, whether that style is for fashion or ideas.

So apart from specialist readers that identify via a hobby or interest, there are also groups of readers who self-identify with a particular image. That is probably not the most obvious interpretation of specialist readership, but I think it fits, and there is something bubbling away below that concept. To me it is the idea that readers of the publication identify with other readers of the publication, even though they haven’t met them. They have some image of what other readers of the publication are like, and they want to be part of that group in some way. This is really getting at a sense of community, and I’ll come back to it later.

If we really wanted to understand the readers in these terms, we could do worse than consulting with the advertising sales department of a magazine. Although that is a dirty concept to people on the editorial side of the house, a good ad sales group knows just as well as anybody else who reads the magazine and how they are defined. I’m not condoning the idea that editorial takes its lead from advertising but rather that experts in advertising are very good at analyzing audiences and have something to tell us. In return, advertising salespeople who are trying to do a better job ought to listen hard to the editorial side of the house to understand who the publication is trying to reach.

Immediacy: The idea of taking time to reflect on matters is part of some definitions of a magazine, as opposed to the supposed immediacy of news reporting. I’m not especially convinced by this argument. Online magazines are able to respond to events fairly rapidly in way that would not be classified as news, and with material that wouldn’t fit in a newspaper. It is often true that magazines run long-lead stories, but so do newspapers, especially when it comes to investigative or enterprise reporting.

Perhaps there is a story waiting in a magazine’s stock just looking for a reason to run it. Something might happen that spurs a magazine’s editors to select that story over others and the result is that the magazine does respond quickly to events.

Structure: I think most people would have some intuitive sense of magazines having a traditional structure, usually referred to front-of-book, feature well, and back-of-book. It’s a pretty versatile structure and it tends to work well for readers. But there are plenty of magazines out there that don’t have this structure. Some examples: One Story, The Thing Quarterly, 60 Minutes, This American Life (on radio). Are they all magazines? I’m prepared to accept that they are although 60 Minutes might be better called a news magazine. Overall, I don’t think structure is a key part of magazineness.

Design elements: Talk about how designed a publication is gets us nowhere. All publications are designed, some very poorly, with little thought, or purely derivatively from the defaults of a production process. Among the people I spoke with, design elements were some of the most common details called out as characteristic of magazines, however. Things like high production values, soft covers, thin paper, lots of images, advertising, and other properties were mentioned. But for every one of these examples, it is fairly easy to think of a counter-example. So although particular design elements might be common properties of magazines, they don’t really qualify as part of magazineness.

I think use of paper probably falls into this category as well. There are plenty of publications I would consider magazines but that don’t use paper. It’s just very common and what people are used to.

Collected pieces: This seems like a pretty strong criterion for magazineness but I’m not sure I see an argument as to why it is essential. There are a few counter-examples I can think of. One Story, which I mentioned before, has precisely one story in each issue. The Australian science radio show Ockham’s Razor has precisely one voice talking on one topic in each episode, apart from the producer’s bookending brief comments, and yet it feels like a magazine to me. I suspect that the reason collecting as a characteristic arises is due to another property I will suggest as part of magazineness: selectivity. It’s harder to see selectivity without having enough examples to observe it, but I think that it plays a more fundamental role than collecting. I’ll return to that topic.

Depth of coverage: Some argue that magazines are characteristic in that they have greater depth of coverage than newspapers or other media. I’ll just ask whether that five-part Pulitzer Prize-winning series in the New York Times really has less depth than WIRED magazine’s, Wired/Tired/Retired section.

Editorial voice: The concept of a magazine’s voice is quite subtle to define, I think, but many people agree a voice can be characteristic of a magazine. Various media display some kind of voice, but it’s usually more noticeable in a magazine than in most multi-person projects. For a medium that is much more strongly dependent on voice, personal blogs come up as a prime example.

Editorial voice can manifest itself in various ways. One is in terms of points-of-view on topics, especially when it comes to commentary. Some newspapers appear to have a strong point-of-view, although that is generally through the opinion sections. Most newspapers, in the United States at least, strive for a neutral take on news. Whether they succeed is another matter, but they do declare that is their goal. As such, the way they might attempt to carve out a niche is not via voice.

Voice also comes through in selection of stories, and this is a point where I think we get closer to another aspect of magazineness. The New York Times famously declares “All the news that’s fit to print” on its cover. No magazines I can think of attempt to be comprehensive in that way. Even within a niche field, magazines don’t seem to be in the business of publishing a comprehensive collection of stories. Stories are selected from among those of interest to readers but typically reflecting the, sometimes idiosyncratic, choices of an editor or group of editors.

Toward a definition of magazines

Having taken a brief excursion through the possible properties of magazines, we can see a couple that seem to touch on the essence of magazineness and many red herrings. The key properties seem to have to do with a community of readers and editorial voice. So let me take a stab at a definition:

A magazine is a selective representation of a community that offers focus to the community via an editorial voice.

In aiming for a brief definition, there might be some ambiguity, so let me try to clarify. The word “selective” is getting at the idea that a magazine need not be comprehensive in representing its community. If it is trying to be comprehensive, then it is probably a lot closer to being in the news business or might be trying to straddle the two worlds. Of course, at the current time, most of the publications sitting in the news magazine niche seem to be struggling except, perhaps, for The Economist.

By calling a magazine a representation of a community, we include the ideas of trying to reach some defined audience but I think it is more than just a population segment. It is a group of people who could potentially identify with each other as part of some community.

The idea of offering focus is important, I believe, because the publication enables members of the community to make some sense of the issues facing the community thereby allowing the readership to become closer as a community, with a common framework for thinking about themselves. This typically happens via an editorial voice but that does not mean the voice of an editor necessarily. Some publications successfully sustain a joint editorship model that doesn’t have the personality of an individual driving the voice.

Corollaries of the definition

If we accept this definition, what else does it tell us about a magazine? The first of these is about community. If a magazine does form a representation of a community, then it ought to be able to provide enough of a focus to support face-to-face gatherings of its readers. There are plenty of examples of that happening in practice. Perhaps the most successful in recent years has been Make magazine, which runs the MakerFaire once a year. Attendance has been increasing in the five or so years it has been running, and other groups are establishing spinoff Faires beside the official ones in the San Francisco Bay Area. The New Yorker has a festival each year, and Salon.com runs cruises.

The definition also suggests that communities and magazines live symbiotically. As a community grows stronger, a magazine can feed on that strength. Similarly, a strong magazine can provide focus to help grow a community. On the flip side, as a community grows weaker, magazines would tend to grow weaker as well. I don’t have any good data on this but am interested to hear of examples. For instance, is the ultra-exclusive Black Ink magazine for American Express black "Centurion" card holders still in existence given the global economic crisis? Or has that very-high-end community remained intact?

This definition also suggests that the fortune of a magazine that has a significant change in leadership is susceptible to large swings. If the replacement leadership is able to adopt an editorial voice consistent with the publication and community, all should be well, but a bad choice could lead to major problems. Similarly, a magazine facing circulation/reader involvement issues might be able to improve its position with leadership that is better able to tap into the sense of community that the magazine represents.

Conclusion

The definition I’ve proposed here is quite different to anything I’ve seen espoused for magazines. I don’t know that it is necessarily in conflict with some existing definitions but it tackles the question from a different direction. I do feel that understanding why magazines are what they are is important to creating and running successful magazines and so the most important part of this discussion is not the answer but that the question is being analyzed. I look forward to hearing dissents, improvements, elaborations, and comments as they will only help further the discussion and, with luck, improve all of our understanding of this world of magazines.

What does twitter mean for breaking news stories? The ISS near-collision case study

2009-03-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

On Thursday morning (US Pacific Time), March 12, 2009, a piece of debris came close enough the International Space Station to require the astronauts to take refuge in the Soyez module, just in case there was a collision. In the end, the debris passed by without incident.

I experienced this event almost entirely through twitter. This essay is to share my experience about how this is an example of ways in which somebody can follow news in a format completely different from conventional news reporting. This experience is, obviously, peculiar to me, in that only I follow my set of twitter users, and this is my personal reaction to it. However, I believe that this kind of process is starting to occur for many more people and it changes the way those people will use conventional news reporting.

I first really noticed the issue when a friend and colleague Dave Mosher (@Disco_Dave) retweeted something from Nancy Atkinson (@Nancy_A) about the potential problem. I started to pay a little more attention, started to follow Nancy, who hadn't been in my stream. Why did I first notice it from Dave's tweet? Because I know him, trust him, and find plenty of good information in his tweets, so I tend to pay more attention to them. (The existence of these trust relationships is critical in the use of social media.)

Thanks to Nancy for being the key person reporting the story and contributing so much via twitter.

At this point, I'd suggest you read my twitter stream below. I have just pulled out the tweets relevant to the ISS incident. Read them from bottom to top, just as they would have appeared in twitter. The way I copied and pasted them, they don't have a proper timestamp on each item, but you'll get a sense for the progress of time relative to the time I cut off the stream and copied and pasted it. Re-reading a list of tweets is not really an authentic experience but I include them for reference and to give an example of what I am talking about. I left in some of the meta-narrative about what this all means for news reporting, and it is that set of tweets that gave me the reason for writing this essay.

(Here is where you step out of this discussion and read the twitter stream from bottom to top!)

As you first look at this compilation, you might be inclined to think, "Wow, that's a lot of writing for not a great deal of information." I definitely thought that when I looked back over what had been written. But keep in mind that this came through in real time so it only took a few seconds to glance at each post and I was looking at it in the background while doing other work.

As I read back over the stream, it reminded me of how much I felt a sense of being embedded in the narrative. As I experienced this live, I also felt like I was getting as much information as I wanted/needed to have a good sense of what was occurring.

Alan Boyle made a comment: "Twitter appears to have accelerated news cycle on something that has in the past been not that big of a deal." That really got me thinking about what else there might be to know about this and I wondered how it would be reported once the conventional media (which includes online reporting) got on top of the story. (He is right that this might not have been a big deal. I probably wouldn't have even bothered reading past the headline about this if it were written up as a story.)

When I started seeing some news pieces popping up in the stream after the event was over, I took a look only to find almost no new information beyond what I had seen in the twitter stream. I felt that the news stories had an awful lot of words for not much information.

I mentioned that in a tweet and had varying responses to the proposition. In one case, I was offered an example of a story that was supposed to counter my experience. But when I read the story, the only extra information I obtained was a specific detail about the part that was the debris. Frankly, I didn't care too much about that extra piece unless it had a lot of other context (which wasn't in the story).

I am sure that those news stories were of use to many people but, for me, having followed the stream, there was simply nothing extra added. That is not to say there can't be value added, just that it wasn't yet happening. I'd also suggest it on the spot is too soon for it to happen, as adding that value will take real reporting, reflection, and contextualizing.

My greatest concern about reporting in a case like this is that in the rush to get out news stories online, only the basic facts are included. That is information I could get easily in many different ways—getting collecting facts for a story like this will be an almost automated process in the future, and we are nearly there now as seen by this example in twitter space.

Those stories are often not followed up with the analysis and context that a good human reporter can add. If journalists want to prove their worth in an age when fact collection is easy, they are going to have to show they have more to offer than being stenographers and basic compositors of facts.

"But what about a sense of story?" I hear you ask (and was indeed asked about explicitly on twitter). Reading back over the twitter stream, I realized just how much story actually was included. There was building drama, human elements, tension, and many other aspects of narrative. Indeed, I am sure that it was the presence of those story-telling observations that let me feel I was embedded in the story. I lived the experience through the eyes of others who were paying even closer attention than I was.

So what is missing from the twitter stream? The bigger picture. How much of a risk is space debris really? What does it mean for the future of the ISS and other space travel? How does the recent collision in space affect future space operations?

Even those questions were getting some treatment as tweeters added links to background information that already existed on the Web.

From the scan of news stories posted at this time, I'm not seeing any real value beyond the twitter stream. Whether these are followed up and in what way will say a lot about the state of journalism in a media environment with instant information tools like twitter.

I'm not expecting a lot but will watch people like Alan Boyle closely as there are people out there taking real advantage of the opportunities offered by the highly-connected online world.

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BadAstronomer To celebrate the survival of the ISS, I have made chocolate pretzels. 5 minutes ago from TweetDeck

b0yle Another blast from the past on orbital debris:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id...19 minutes ago from web

alexismadrigal In the last 10 years, 8 "collision avoidance maneuvers" have kept the ISS from getting hit by big debris:http://snurl.com/dog4g 23 minutes ago from twhirl

physicsdavid @robinlloyd99 Fair enough to not be convinced, but there is a class of people who are getting info in diff ways that devalues trad stories.39 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to robinlloyd99

robinlloyd99 @physicsdavid I'm not convinced yet. I collect 'em all.41 minutes ago from web in reply to physicsdavid

BadAstronomer ISS collision event update:http://tinyurl.com/cxl656 about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

physicsdavid @robinlloyd99 Yes for some those stories will add value. But as more get info other places, like twitter, "normal" forms have less value.about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to robinlloyd99

b0yle Here's a useful FAQ that addresses debris issue:http://tinyurl.com/by4ssa about 1 hour ago from web

robinlloyd99 @physicsdavid for me, story added value, via narrative form. had stuff i hadn't read (or had time to read) on Twitter.about 1 hour ago from web in reply to physicsdavid

newscientist Orbiting garbage causes space station crew to evacuate http://tinyurl.com/dysspj about 1 hour ago from web

physicsdavid @robinlloyd99 Not to criticize the piece but just saying that so much was tweeted that I am more interest in the possible value add. 2/2about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to robinlloyd99

physicsdavid @robinlloyd99 Except the only info there I hadn't already heard in tweets was the type of motor. Not much added value for the length. 1/2about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to robinlloyd99

robinlloyd99 @physicsdavid Here's our 'more to say than can be tweeted':http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/090312-space-station-debris.htmlabout 1 hour ago from web in reply to physicsdavid

physicsdavid @chagota Indeed those comments about reporting model were meant in general. Just hooking into rapidity of ISS story as example.about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to chagota

bobfinn RT @jbhathaw: RT @anneminard: The piece of debris that almost nailed the space station was a whopping .009 meters (0.3 inches) wide.about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

chagota @physicsdavid ... of course, previous comments were outside of ISS . I saw in your statement how it can be applied to news in general.about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to physicsdavid

anneminard The piece of debris that almost nailed the space station was a whopping .009 meters (.3 inces) wide.about 1 hour ago from web

physicsdavid @spacewriter I think that reflection is precisely where we add value. So perhaps we need a model that has rapid info dump + analysis laterabout 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to spacewriter

spacewriter @physicsdavid agree -- the rapid dump is important, although it can be written to indicate that analysis is needed when enough info is hadabout 1 hour ago from web in reply to physicsdavid

physicsdavid @cosmos4u I agree. @b0yle is doing precisely what good journalists can achieve in the fast-paced online news world.about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to cosmos4u

BadAstronomer I'm hearing now it was not the entire PAM that passed the ISS, but just a small part with a mass of about 1 kg.about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck

Exoplanetology The song "Fragile" (by "God is an Astronaut") popped up on my ipod. Fit for today's close call. In space all things are fragile..about 1 hour ago from web

chagota @physicsdavid agree with 2/2 100%. Also, flooded as we r w/news, critical attitude / discerning reader even more important than before.about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck in reply to physicsdavid

cosmos4u Scroll down deep on http://bit.ly/8KhpG: a seemingly similar let's-better-go-to-the-Soyuz-now incident last year, tracked down by @b0yle.about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u @physicsdavid Science writers like @b0yle try to do this as we speak, err, twitter - he looks into how frequent incidents like today's are.about 2 hours ago from web in reply to physicsdavid

Reuters_Science Debris briefly forces astronauts from space station http://r.reuters.com/van82c about 2 hours ago from Reuters.com

b0yle Refuge was taken on Nov. 17, 2008 ...http://tinyurl.com/cbalry about 2 hours ago from web

Reuters_Science Russia says space station crew out of dangerhttp://r.reuters.com/san82c about 2 hours ago from Reuters.com

dbt21 RT @UstreamTV: Live mission audio from the ISS. All clear given as danger has passed. http://www.ustream.tv/chann...about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

b0yle "Pizza box" is 25km by 25km by +- 0.75 km in z direction. Taking refuge in Soyuz has happened at least once before, but details TK.about 2 hours ago from web

dbt21 They think it may have been a PAM (Payload Assit Module)about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

physicsdavid @b0yle @Disco_Dave Too many news stories have only the info but taking up so much space. Bring on the added value a journo can provide. 2/2about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to b0yle

b0yle NASA calls the imaginary box around the space station that occasions an alarm the "pizza box." It's several km wide, but varies.about 2 hours ago from web

physicsdavid @b0yle @Disco_Dave From twitter I feel like I got all the info. Now will conventional "news" go beyond the info to analysis and context? 1/2about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to b0yle

b0yle NASA still checking on how many times this has been done in the past. I've been told three versions, but definitely has been done b4.about 2 hours ago from web

dbt21 Appearently astronauts boarded Soyuz ship for evacuation. All clear now.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

dbt21 Orbital debris almost hit ISS. All clear has been given. Astronauts out of danger.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

dbt21 RT @UstreamTV: Debris has passed all clear given. Live audio from the ISS emergency evacuationhttp://www.ustream.tv/chann...about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Disco_Dave @physicsdavid Great question for @b0yle! Union of Concerned Scientists, has this to say about space #debris:http://tinyurl.com/c2cojd about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to physicsdavid

b0yle @physicsdavid Blog item at http://www.cosmiclog.com about 2 hours ago from web

b0yle @cosmos4u NASA JSC is tracking down how many times the refuge maneuver has been run. Right now the guess is eight times.about 2 hours ago from web

anneminard Astronauts got evacuation practice today when old satellite debris threatened hit to ISS. National Geographic News will have details soon!about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u A NASA source said the debris in question was listed as "PAM-D" debris, implying it was a spent payload assist module:http://bit.ly/ijOUf.about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Debris was a Payload Assist Module, a solid rocket upper stage used to boost satellites to high orbits.http://tinyurl.com/cv55q3 Yikes.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

physicsdavid @b0yle Has the ISS near-impact story nearly run its cycle? Will there be anything extra of value to add beyond the twitterstream?about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to b0yle

cosmos4u @b0yle How often did the ISS crew have to go into the Soyuz as a precautionary move in the past 10 years? Would have been news any time.about 2 hours ago from web in reply to b0yle

Nancy_A Guess things are back to normal, Sandy Magnus is now going to go running!about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u "We were wondering how close we were," an ISS crew member has just asked Houston: He would be - voice higher - "very interested." You bet!about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Astronauts asking how close the debris came. They looked out Soyuz windows but didn't see it. Not surprised; closing speed was many km/sec.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

b0yle Twitter appears to have accelerated news cycle on something that has in the past been not that big of a deal.about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Fincke: "we would like to know how close things came, we kept our eyes on the lookout, but didn't see anything"about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A All hatches have een re-opened. "Big picture is done," says Fincke. ISS Events from today are now being rescheduledabout 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer All hatches are now open, and the ISS is back online.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

BadAstronomer Many thanks to @Nancy_A for being the first one on this! Anyone following me may want to add her too. :)about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Disco_Dave As @alexismadrigal said, @Nancy_A was on this Space Station debris danger early. Thanks for the updates! Her post: http://twurl.nl/wli5w6 about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

cosmos4u RT @cahuich_hypatia ok..back to what we were doing before this [...] event / RT @FlorianBoyd ISS debris danger over! Back to the desert.about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Wow. Well, that was a little intense....about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u Reaction on German Twitter feeds: RT @DLR_de Das Objekt hat die ISS passiert. [...] #Puhh / RT @astrodicticum hu... die ISS hats überlebt.about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Danger of debris hit is now passed. Crew returning to station, following procedures to reopen all the hatches.about 2 hours ago from web

Exoplanetology Phew! Dang debris! Astronauts, please take care.about 2 hours ago from twhirl

scifri whew. very glad the debris missed the ISS. crew is now asking controllers on the procedure to re-enter ISS from Soyuz cabin.about 2 hours ago from web

betsymason Space Station survives a close call with space debris. Astro/cosmonauts had evacuated into Soyuz capsule. On their way back into ISS now.about 2 hours ago from web

NoisyAstronomer @cosmos4u Thanks from those of us that can't get audio at the moment :-)about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to cosmos4u

TierneyODea RT @BadAstronomer: Astronauts are requesting info from Houston on how to get everything back up to speed (they closed down various hatches).about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

BadAstronomer Repeat: danger is over. The debris missed the space station, and astronauts are starting to get things back in order after shutting down.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

cosmos4u And once again, Twitter was the place to be to share the experience of an unsual space event - while listening to the NASA audio, of course.about 2 hours ago from web

TierneyODea I think astronauts are OK. Debris is clear.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

BadAstronomer Astronauts are requesting information from Houston on how to get everything back up to speed (they closed down various hatches).about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

NoisyAstronomer ISS danger is over! Phew...about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

bobfinn RT @Nancy_A: FinckeL We understand we are cleared! Yay! (ISS crew apparently safe)about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

alexismadrigal Heard on NASA mission audio that the Space Station astronauts are OK, after a close call with a piece of orbital debris.about 2 hours ago from twhirl

Nancy_A Fincke: Tell us what the steps are to execute the re-ingress to station.about 2 hours ago from web

Disco_Dave Space station avoids collision!!! *whew* Now let's do something about this: http://tinyurl.com/c2cojd about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

BadAstronomer Looks liek the danger is over, no impact, debris has passed ISS safely.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A FinckeL We understand we are cleared! Yay!about 2 hours ago from web

b0yle All clear on space station debris. Crew is being told they can leave the lifeboat.about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Astronauts are clear!about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

cosmos4u The danger has passed - no impact!about 2 hours ago from web

bobfinn RT @cnnbrk: "ISS crew climb into escape module to wait out passing space debris." This tweet 5 min aft. est. impact. MSM is late.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A Beeps. More Russian chatter.....Fincke speaks!about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u RT @Nancy_A Some people are tracking debris on Google Earth, say it looks like a piece of Iridium satellite.about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Still silence on NASA TV.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Disco_Dave RT @Nancy_A: Waiting, waiting. Crew should all be in Soyuz. 2 minutes to close encounter.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A Anyone else's heart pounding out there?about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u @BadAstronomer I understood the word for "good", but about there my Russian ends ... :-(about 2 hours ago from web in reply to BadAstronomer

BadAstronomer Some Russian ground chatter.about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A Communications now from Moscow a nd Yury. Anyone know Russian?about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Some people are tracking debris on Google Earth, say it looks like a piece of Iridium satellite.about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A No communications from ISS yet.about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Note: we may not hear anything from NASA for a few minutes, so don't panic...
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

NoisyAstronomer Probability of impact low, but must be cautious! Especially after recent satellite collision... about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

BadAstronomer ISS over south Atlantic ocean. RT @spacewriter: @BadAstronomer From the Google Earth track it looks like a piece of Iridium. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

cosmos4u RT @TaviGreiner NASA to ISS crew just now: "We wish you the best" - sure underscores the reality of the threat. about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Waiting, waiting. Crew should all be in Soyuz. 2 minutes to close encounter. about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer "Conjunction" - closest approach - in 2 minutes, 10:39 Mountain time. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

b0yle Space station crew taking refuge in Soyuz while centimeter-wide debris flies past about 4 km away in next few minutes, NASA says about 2 hours ago from web

NoisyAstronomer ISS crew moving to Soyuz escape vehicle w/ news of possible imminent debris hit. http://tinyurl.com/bmovl5 @Nancy_A has your updates about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

BadAstronomer I don't know what this debris piece is, or how big it is, or the odds of collision. I suspect the odds are low but NASA = cautious. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

cosmos4u RT @Nancy_A Soyuz won't leave station unless impact actually occurs. Again, probability low, but object is big. about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Astronauts are moving in to the Soyuz escape vehicle now. Hatch is open, and they're discussing whether to closer it or not. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A Fincke and Magnus are in Soyuz. Waiting for instructions.NASA and Moscow still deciding about closing Soyuz hatch or not. about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u ISS crew just reports that they have "ingressed" the Soyuz and would be ready to depart if need be. Less than 10 minutes til ... what? about 2 hours ago from web

cosmos4u Here "speaks" the ISS her(?)self - RT @ISStation I have my night vision goggles on looking ahead in the night sky but dont see anything. about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Soyuz won't leave station unless impact actually occurs. Again, probability low, but object is big. about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Radio silence now as ISS crew working to close hatches and enter Soyuz. For now, Soyuz hatch to remain open, but can be closed quickly. about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Universe Today link for ISS danger: http://tinyurl.com/bmovl5 about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A Moscow MC recommends leaving hatch to Soyuz open for now, but still discussing options.NASA:closing is posible,Fincke says they'll decide. about 2 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer 18 minutes until astronauts need to get to Soyuz escape vehicle for safety. They won't be actually leaving ISS. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

BadAstronomer Listen to NASA TV about ISS evacuation: http://tinyurl.com/2paqc CLick "Live Space Station Videos" in menu on right. about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A Russian Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov now conferring with mission control in Moscow about close out procedures. about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A ISS Crew Closing node 2 hatch, will be out of communications for short time. about 2 hours ago from web

Nancy_A http://www.nasa.gov/multime... Link for NASA TV, click on "Live Space Station Video" on RH side under Channels. about 3 hours ago from web

Nancy_AJ PM hatch is getting closed, MPEV is closed. Mike Fincke and Sandy Magnus following procedures and keeping mission control apprised. about 3 hours ago from web

cosmos4u RT @Nancy_A Crew will go into Soyuz from 16:30 to 16:45 GMT, possible debris hit would be at 16:39. about 3 hours ago from web

Disco_Dave RT @Nancy_A: Possible debris hit may force evacuation of ISS. http://tinyurl.com/bmovl5 NASA TV has the latest but only Russian audio now about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

cosmos4u NASA audio - via http://www.nasa.gov/multime... - is quite interesting: one ISS internal hatch after another being shut. about 3 hours ago from web

BadAstronomer Small but finite chance of debris hit to ISS in the next 45 minutes: http://is.gd/n4jB about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck

Nancy_A NASA communications with station says if object does hit ISS, there would only be a 10 minute reserve time. about 3 hours ago from web

Nancy_A NASA TV audio feed now confirms the crew will be going into the Soyuz in case of debris hit. Probability is low, but object is big. about 3 hours ago from web

Nancy_A Possible debris hit may force evacuation of ISS. http://tinyurl.com/bmovl5 Watching NASA tv now to get the latest,but only Russian audio now about 3 hours ago from web

Blurts: The value of short, rapid, open communication to collective creativity

2009-02-21T19:28:00.000-08:00

How can information, passed on 140 characters at a time, contribute to any kind of meaningful exchange? I think it is quite reasonable to write twitter off as a new faddish technology that many people are using just because it seems cool. However, behind the surface level appearance of twitter, and other similar forms of communication, something extremely useful seems to be developing.

This essay is not only about twitter but the more general concept of short, rapid, open communication, which I'll call "blurts". In essence, what I will argue is that blurts might not have much meaning in themselves, but a web of blurts among many people can be valuable to many of the participants. A collection of blurts is akin to a form of brainstorming, but in which some minimal structure appears, allowing the most valuable ideas to persist and be developed. Importantly, that structure comes from the interests of the participants, not from some kind of moderator.

There are four example formats for blurts that I want to consider here, although there are many others floating about that I could have discussed. They are: 1) facebook status updates, 2) twitter's tweets, 3) moves in signtific's forecasting games, and 4) comments in Tim Gowers' mathematical blog. Each has a different character but each shows how the properties of length, rapidity, and openness can play into a successful conversation.

Facebook status updates

From the beginning, one of the identifying characteristics of Facebook has been its status updates. Starting with "John is...", each invites the user to share something about the user's current status. With this visible to a user's friends, a shared sense of life and community can develop among users. However, in itself, it doesn't provide any real sense of conversation or allow for the development of ideas. It is a broadcast mechanism, which has low barriers to entry, but then doesn't invite much reflection. Although one person might update their status in response to another's, the collective of people on Facebook would not easily be able to follow the thread of such updates, especially if they were not friends of both/all parties updating their statuses in this way.

When Facebook allowed users to comment on almost anything in a profile, the character of status updates changed. Very quickly, people seemed to start commenting on others' statuses, generally sticking to the short format of a status update. The short form retained the low barrier to entry, encouraging spontaneous responses. With status updates from moving down a newsfeed fairly quickly, it encouraged people to make rapid responses, while the conversation was still present in the collective's newsfeed.

In some cases, long chains of responses formed, often including comments from people who didn't know each other, but were connected only via mutual friendship. Some of these conversations let ideas develop but most stayed at the level of shared personal information.

Perhaps limiting the development of these conversations into something substantive is the nature of Facebook friend relationships. Facebook is set up in a way that encourages people to be friends within the service only if they have some sort of pre-existing relationship. Why would you share so much personal information with people with whom you have no relationship? This culture within the service means that status-update conversations remain essentially closed to the outside world, which is in many ways desirable, but is also limiting in terms of collective development of creative ideas.

Twitter's tweets

Twitter at first seems to take just the status update of facebook and separate it from the rest of the personal information you might share. So, at first glance, it might seem to be merely a limited version of Facebook status updates.

However, the character of tweeting is entirely different as the connections a user makes in twitter are made not necessarily within the framework of existing relationships. This means that the information put out in tweets, while it might be personal, is of a form that is inviting or open to anybody who wants to listen. Networks of twitter relationships could form identically to those in Facebook by using the locked conversation mode, but the barrier to entry is quite high, as users need to allow each user to join the conversation, and the value of doing this for twitter, as opposed to just sharing information via Facebook, seems limited. If you want to restrict your online world to those who you already have an existing trust relationship, twitter doesn't seem the right tool.

Twitter asks "what are you doing?" as if it were merely a status update, and some people do still use it that way, in an exhibitionistic way, but the great value of twitter seems to be arising from a different type of use.

Characteristic of twitter is the ability to impose some kind of structure on the conversations. By directing a reply to somebody, you can demonstrate a link, or chain between people, but still in public, allowing others to trace a conversation, and benefit from the back and forth between multiple people.

This kind of public conversation allows others to join in with comments, information, questions, or other kinds of interaction. The conversation is open, but non-linear. You can jump into it at any point, and leave again when it bores you. The group of people listening will extract precisely the amount of value it has to offer, with the potential to add to the collective value.

Barriers to entry are low, conversation can be rapid, and it happens in a collective space, which allows value to be extracted and generated. Furthermore, the structure allows users to trace conversations, especially if hashtags are used to indentify a tweet with a topic.

Signtific's forecasting games

The signtific lab's forecasting game "Free Space" was a very interesting Web experiment, which aimed to have a group of people forecast possible futures in a given scenario. In this instance, the game asked participants to think about what would happen if the entry barriers to space, via the existence of $99-to-buy-and-launch cubesats, was dropped to be almost negligible.

The game ran from February 18-19 attracting a few hundred participants, contributing a few thousand entries. Each turn was played by a participant filling out a game "card" of one kind or another. Each card had space for 140 characters, just like twitter's tweets. The cards could be root level or could be attached to other cards.

At the root level, players were asked to contribute a card that answered either "So what's the BEST thing that might happen?" or "So what's the WORST thing that might happen?" From that starting point, people could develop the ideas further by playing a card attached to specific forecast about the best or worst. Those cards came in four types:

1) Momentum: If that happens ... What might happen NEXT?
2) Antagonism: Disagree? What might happen INSTEAD?
3) Adaptation: How might this play out DIFFERENTLY in your field or part of the world?
4) Investigation: Curious? Ask or answer a FOLLOW-UP QUESTION

Point were awarded for playing cards, for having others play a follow-up card on one of yours, for having a forecast chosen as a "super-interesting" card by lab guides, or various other criteria.

The most interesting innovation in this game, in the world of blurt-messaging, is that the structure allowed ideas of most interest to the players to develop using the four allowed follow-up forms. Uninteresting ideas didn't get any response, while interesting ideas were teased out into what were often far more interesting forms unanticipated by the original card player.

The time limit for the game and the point structure encouraged players to submit many ideas, not to just dwell over their one most interesting idea, which might not even be pursued by the collective if it was only of interest to the submitter.

Essentially, the game was a group brainstorming session that allowed some ideas to be developed without halting the highest-level brainstorming. Just as in brainstorming, the mot difficult part of the process was trying to swim in the flood of top-level ideas, as so many were contributed. The volume was clearly too large to really cope with, as many ideas were contributed many times over in slightly different forms by various participants who had clearly not read the previous comments.

In one sense, that repetition did not matter because the game was explicitly looking for "outlier" ideas, the ones that were unexpected but insightful. Ideas that came up many times were probably not as interesting as they were "obvious" to some degree. What might happen to those ideas afterward was more interesting. However, it would have been useful if the people who had an obvious idea, had instead seen that somebody else had put it forth, perhaps with some variation, and then contributed by exploring the variation or by pushing the idea toward its consequences.

The rapidity of the process meant that ideas had to be thrown in, based on intuition and dreams, without the filter that might knock out ideas on more reflection. Instead of self-censorship, lower-quality ideas died a natural death because nobody followed up.

By the end of the game, many run-of-the-mill ideas had been ventured, but some non-trivial ideas had been allowed to develop toward interesting possibilities.

Gowers' "Polymath" collective mathematics project

Timothy Gowers currently hosts his "Polymath" experimental approach to collective mathematics on his blog, using the topic of density Hales-Jewett theorem, a mathematical theorem that has been proved using one approach, but for which Gowers thinks a different approach might also work. The theorem itself can be stated in a way that undergraduates can understand but the proof itself is expected to contain some quite advanced mathematics, bringing in a wide range of ideas from different areas of mathematics. (Parts of the conversation reside on the blogs of Terry Tao and Michael Nielsen.)

Some of the principles of his collaborative approach include that participants shouldn't go off and work by themselves to develop some part of the mathematics in detail. Instead, they should venture the core concept and see if it resonates with the rest of the participants. Ideas that are only partly formulated or imprecise are also welcome.

He summarizes the concept of what a single contribution should look like as follows:

One can summarize much of the above by saying that each comment should represent a 'quantum of progress'. That is, the discussion should have been advanced in some small way that is not obviously complex or divisible.

He suggests that people should only be contributing ideas that don't require them to go off with a piece of paper to develop them. In other words, the ideas should be something like the blurts already discussed: relatively brief, rapid, and open. Here brevity does not meet 140 characters, but most contributions are no more than a short paragraph.

So far, the conversation includes a few hundred contributions and Gowers is currently dealing with the problem of how to handle all that information, by considering threading the comments, and also by breaking it into a few key themes. The threading is akin to the follow-up card structure of the forecasting game, determined by the participants, while the breaking into themes relies on Gowers' special role as host. Given the technical nature of the discussion, some use of expertise seems appropriate in this case. After all, the different areas of discussion came about because participants chose to follow them, and Gowers is merely collecting the decisions already made by the group.

I am not in a position to judge the progress of the experiment, but my ill-informed impression is that people are definitely making forward progress, even if the key to the solution is not yet present.

Short

Brevity is clearly a key aspect of blurt communications. It contributes to the collective development of ideas because it prevents one participant from steering a collective discussion in a direction that is only of interest to themselves. A common issue in online discussions is that a long post with many ideas attracts responses targeting only the most controversial parts of the conversation, with many potentially interesting parts of a message abandoned. By breaking the post into the "quanta" of information, each can be tackled on its own terms. Brevity also lowers the barrier to entry because there is no expectation of deeply developed ideas.

Rapid

The tools behind all our examples of blurt communication have a very low barrier to entry because participation involves nothing more than typing a short message. Part of the rapidity of communication comes from the short form, but some of these formats also encourage rapid responses. In the case of Facebook status updates and twitter, leaving a blurt dormant means that it will pass out of sight quite rapidly, and so there is some requirement for rapid response to engage in the conversation. This can be problematic for continued discussion or development as it requires constant engagement.

The short timeframe available for responses encourages spontaneous, gut-level responses, which can then be taken further by others involved in the conversation. I am sure many psychologists could wax at length about why rapid responses can access a different and perhaps more creative part of the brain, but I'll wait to hear that summary in 140 characters or fewer.

The forecasting game establishes a framework which builds rapid responses in as part of the process, ensuring that people go with their impulsive responses. The point-scoring process encourages large quantities of responses, and the restricted total time for the game means that those interested in scoring well should be responding fast.

The Polymath project is less inclined to rapid response, but the idea of contributing quanta of ideas and partly-formed means that if a participant has a gut response, they feel welcome to just throw it into the mix. The culture of the discussion encourages rapid participation.

The rapidity of conversation has advantages and disadvantages in terms of an active attempt to generate discussion, but the rapidity certainly allows for a certain style of interaction that is potentially valuable.

Open

The most active of the blurt communication forms are those that are open. Facebook status updates lack this feature. Given that friends on Facebook probably share some commonality in thinking (to be friends in the first place), the lack of openness would appear to restrict the possible range of contributions that could be very creative and useful to others.

The other formats are considerably more open, and the greater quantity of discussion is likely a consequence. The explicit invitation for strangers to contribute ideas seems key to broadening the creative input to discussions. This is most clearly seen in the forecasting game example, as people contributed based on their own personal experience and interests, which covered an incredibly wide range of topics.

Blurt communication: interstitial creativity

A key property of blurt communication seems to be that the development of ideas doesn't occur during the communication process as much as in between the contributions. Each blurt contains relatively little information but it has the potential to inspire new ideas. The space between blurts, and between participants, seems to be where the creative development of ideas happens. By using the short, rapid, open nature of blurts, these interstices are allowed to play a large role in the collaborative discussions, and so maximizes the potential for creative development.

Obviously, blurt communication is not ideal for all situations, but current tools and technologies seem to be allowing this form of discussion that has powerful potential beyond more traditional forms of discussion.

For those interested, I tweet as @physicsdavid. My entries in the signtific forecasting game are here.