One Man's Notes

Never change, Magazine Journalism MA students…

A bland date poster advertising a City Journalism student event…

Want to feel old? Somebody born when Leeroy Jenkins wiped his raid will turn 19 this year.

You’re welcome.


Finding the intro that finally makes the piece you’ve been struggling with work is such a blissful moment.


Let’s get phygital…

Apple’s Vision Pro is a tentative first step towards building a blended digital/physical world. But this is like the launch of the original Mac, not the iPhone.


Good morning from the Downs.

A lone sheep in a field up on the Sussex Downs.

Haircut achieved.

Adam Tinworth before a haircut. Adam Tinworth after a hair cut.


Today I will be:

  • a. marking
  • b. learning about DMARC
  • c. getting a hair cut

One big party, my life.


🔗 Return-to-office mandates don’t help companies make more money, study says:

Now, new research from the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh suggests that office mandates may not help companies’ financial performances, but they can make workers less satisfied with their jobs and work-life balance.

I will never understand the obsession with getting everyone back into the office. If you want them back, tempt them, don’t order them.


Finally, some harbingers of spring.

Daffodils at Hassocks Station

After nearly a month battling a respiratory virus, today is the first day I’ve woken up and genuinely felt like I was on the mend.

Feels good.


Why are publishers making fools of themselves by deploying generative AI that clearly isn’t ready yet?

They’re terrified of repeating the mistakes of the past


Started reading: Rooted by Lyanda Lynn Haupt 📚


A quick round-up of podcasting news, derived from my work on the audience strategy module of our new MA in Podcasting.


Last summer danah boyd was still trying to ignore the Metaverse.

It’s only got easier since!


A compelling argumentment from Om Malik that Google has entered the same stage of decline that, for example, Microsoft saw under Steve Ballmer.


I have to say, I’m a little bored of being ill now. I’ve had one illness or another since I caught COVID nearly a month ago.


Whether or not Substack ever had a significant Nazi problem is now a moot point.

It undoubtedly has a Nazi image problem – and that’s not going to easy to shift.


Platformer leaving Substack for Ghost over the “platforming Nazis” issue.

That’ll be a substantial hit for Substack.


This is an insanely long, but very detailed and compelling, telling of the Substack story — and how the platform got into its current mess.

Recommended.


I’m getting a lot of traffic from Russia at the moment.

Not quite sure what to make of that.


My annual look at the most popular posts on my journalism site, One Man & His Blog.

The clearest trend is the real sense of uncertainty surrounding social media right now. If it’s confusing for users, think how challenging it is for professionals…


Dave Winer:

It would be better if journalists did not gravitate to a Facebook-owned Twitter clone.

Amen.


One of the (very) small ironies of the “Substackers against Nazis” ruckus is that I’ve ended up spending way more time on Substack than usual, just to track what’s happening.


My inability to remember which is the correct spelling – whether or wether – means I accidentally write about castrated rams rather more than anyone outside Farmers Weekly should ever do so.


Substack launched Notes to steal attention from Twitter.

It succeeded. Right now, I bet they’re regretting that.