Tweetbot was the app of my choice for Twitter for most of the time since I started using Twitter in March 2007. I think it always was a reason that I still use Twitter nowadays, as I was able to see a chronological timeline and could filter the content the way I wanted it. Event though some features of Twitter have not been allowed on 3rd-party apps, I preferred using Tweetbot over the Twitter website or any official app that ever existed.

Now, like Twitterrific, Tweetbot was announced dead by Tapbots:

We’ve invested over 10 years building Tweetbot for Twitter and it was shut down in a blink of an eye. We are very sorry to all of our customers who chose Tweetbot as their way to interact with Twitter’s service and we thank you so much for the many years of support and feedback.

It might just be an app, but I find this very sad, as with this I can’t see myself using Twitter as before anymore. Maybe it is time to move on, like many others did already. And maybe the loss of those 3rd party apps only shortens my time of still being kind-of active on Twitter.

Let’s not look back, but forward and be excited by what is coming. Like using Mastodon instead and Tapbots Ivory – even though I can’t tell you anything about it yet as I never had a chance to get on the early access program.

See you there …

I bet this is a version where Craig Hockenberry had people revising a lot already. Still you can hear the frustration of him, when he has written the blog post.

There’s no sense in clinging to the personal whims of a clown leading a shit show. Especially when his circus will end up being a $44 billion version of MySpace.

As I have written earlier last week, I can’t imagine how the people behind Twitterrific or Tweetbot must feel, after Twitter, without notice, cut off everything – well, a little bit as the pandemic was for me and beyond tellerrand, what Musk is for them.

This, plus the massive amount of layoffs makes me think a lot these days. And I am sorry for all the people who are affected.

Even though I’m sometimes absolutely not looking forward to taking the dog for a walk, because, well, I have to and it’s not a matter of choice (unless I train her to go to the toilette), I do enjoy the stroll through the forest. I enjoy it any time of the year as each has its nice bits. Autumn creates a morbid atmosphere sometimes. Trees drop their leaves to the ground, where they rot. Nothing really ever gets dry in this time. The fog in the morning feels mystical and the trees without their leaves can appear a bit spooky.

Trying to verify my phone number on the German Paypal website …

Description: In the video you see a part of the Paypal web interface and me trying to click a link in a flyout-menu to verify my phone number, but before I am able to click it, the menu disappears.

No need for me to write anything that has been said already. But here are some links about what people said.

Bastian Allgeier has written a longer post with his opinion about and his experience with Mastodon:

Suddenly there was this old Twitter vibe. Real conversations. Real people. Interesting content. A feeling of a warm welcoming group. No algorithm to mess around with our timelines.

Also Jon Hicks has written down his personal view on how he experiences the first couple of days over there on Mastodon:

After the initial learning curve, I'm finding a community much like the early days of Twitter, and feeling more relaxed about posting.

In his article “The IndieWeb for Everyone” Max Böck writes:

Maybe its time to rethink some of these expectations. Maybe we need some of that early internet vibe back and be ok with smaller, closer communities. Maybe we can even get some of the fun back and start exploring again, instead of expecting everything to be automatically delivered to us in real time.

I think, if you take all the posts written – and I guess many more will be written – you find the truth somewhere in the mix of it. Yes, Twitter is broken for a long time, but I can’t just kill my accounts. I made most of my business via Twitter and grew my network with the help of Twitter massively.

I don’t expect Mastodon to be the new Twitter or a replacement and here I am with Max: we need to stop replacing things and trying to change old things to hopefully make them better. Maybe it is time to think about if it is time to stop something, to start something new.

Oh, and like I said in August 2018, you can find me on Mastodon also…

For many years my number one tool on any of my computers is iA Writer. I love it and use it more than anything else. it does exactly what it needs to do, is fast and does not distract me from what I want to do, using the tool: writing.

Now iA is working on a text based presentation tool. Of course I had a look at it and so far I really like what I am seeing. The approach of iA Presenter is a completely different one than as for known tools like Powerpoint or Keynote. As iA Presenter is text based, the focus is on your written text. It is easy to then create your slides based on your paragraphs, after you have written what you want to say. Regularly written text is only visible to you, a little bit like presenter notes are in known presentation tools. Headlines that you define will be automatically shown on your slide. Split and join slides easily afterwards to create you structure. Integrated images are easy to configure to create interesting layouts that are full responsive, which means you don’t need to worry about fixed resolutions of your presentation or the resolution a projector has at an event you are presenting at. 16:9? 4:3? Landscape or portrait? All done with just the single version of your presentation, which – I think – is super handy. I also really like how easy you can define on which screen your presentation will be shown and where to see your notes.

In addition iA Presenter comes with a couple of really nice templates you can use. Whether you like color or more minimal use of colour, you pick and choose and surely you can also add your own templates to be used in your presentation.

It certainly feels very different to any presentation tool that I have used before, which mostly is Keynote these days, but I really like this approach and will give it a try for my next presentations.

If you want to give it a try, let me know. I have a couple of beta invites.

Once more Felix Braden has released a very tasty typeface over there at Floodfonts. It is called Sirenia and feels very organic.

The whole set contains 1270 characters and includes many decorative elements as well as swash variations. I really like the warm look and feel and can’t wait to give it a play for the right purpose. Maybe already for next beyond tellerrand in Düsseldorf ;)

But have a look yourself and see how nicely Sirenia looks and feels.

This was the first year back in New York after 2019. And here is my set of photos from Smashing Conference 2022 in New York.

I can’t believe someone would ever create a film about what I do. Totally excited, but equally afraid to see how it turns out in the end and what the story line of the documentary is.

How that all started? Well, there are those two guys. Their names are Andreas Brüggemann and Stefan Nitzsche. They both are lovely people. And they decided to make a documentary about what I do – beyond tellerrand. I think that is crazy 😳. But also nice and I am humbled. And excited.

See Trailer 3 of the film here: