V-Log: A Deep Dive Into Saving Time Magazine By Turning It Into A ‘Twitter Killer’ App #Disrupt

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

No one listens to me, but this is a really compelling concept. The idea of turning the legacy brand Time Magazine into an app that would compete — and ultimately kill — Twitter is really cool. And on the face of it, it’s pretty obvious. What you do is, you use the existing content creation backend infrastructure of the magazine to start the app.

There’s just so much to talk about. I talk about all of it pretty extensively in this video. But, like I said, no one listens to me and I’m just pissing in the wind. But it is fun to talk about. I just wish someone with some power at Time Magazine might at least listen to me.

V-Log: Monetization Of The Transition Of Time Magazine Into A ‘Twitter Killer’ App #Disrupt

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This is an interesting talk. Enjoy.

V-Log: Re-Imagining Time Magazine As A ‘Twitter Killer’ App #Disrupt

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I guess why I keep writing about this concept is it’s so obvious to me. I’m something of a “power user” of Twitter and I kind of hate it. It sucks. The reason it sucks is, really, only about 10% of its user base is worth anything. So given that Time Magazine has been bought by a technology company, it seems pretty obvious to me that if you’re going to “save” it, you turn it into a social media platform designed to fell Twitter.

There’s just so much you can do with this concept. For me, the crux of it all is if you base the service on the old Usenet platform’s concepts, it make a lot of sense. Now, Reddit is a lot like Usenet, but it’s such a poorly designed implementation of Usenet as to be useless, at least in my opinion.

But here are the basics of my re-imagined Time Magazine.

Groups
Existing writers and editors of Time Magazine, instead of putting a magazine out every week, would be paid, in essence, to contribute content into the service in Groups they would be responsible for. Given that they would be paid to use the service, they would have a reason to be willing to take the time and effort to manage these Groups as systadmins. They would — at least at first — have the exclusive ability to create new Groups. Later, as a Point system kicked in, other people might be able to bubble up to the surface of the system and also be able to serve as systadims. But that would take time.

Posts
This is one cool feature — instead of being limited to 280 characters people using the Time App would have an entire full-page, multimedia Post to write content into. These Posts would have a robust threading quality to them, as well as the ability for users to in-line edit them once they had proven that they weren’t completely insane. (How they might prove this is up to discussion. I think at first it would be simply the amount of time you had used the service or whatever. Something intuitive.)

Video Conferencing
Another cool feature would be the ability to have recorded 4-way video conferencing. If you limited this feature, at least at first, to Time App staff, then you wouldn’t have to worry about abuse.

Anyway, there is so much more I could talk about, but no one listens to me. But, like I said, this is so obvious to me. It just makes so much sense. The user base of Twitter is in near open revolt and if you gave them a better mouse trap, I think they would flock to it in droves. I know a lot of celebrities and thought leaders hate Twitter with a passion. If you gave them something like my proposed “Time App” I think they would love it from the get-go.

V-Log: Saving Time Magazine By Turning It Into A ‘Twitter Killer’ App #Disrupt

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

There’s just so much you can do with Time Magazine’s content. It has a great name and it generates huge amounts of content on a minute-by-minute basis. So, why not use its editors and writers as the core of a new social media app and Website, one that could “kill” Twitter.

I mean, really, Twitter is completely useless and only about 10% of its user base produces any content that anyone wants to read. So what would happen if you started off from the ground up a new service where at first only the editors and writers of Time Magazine could contribute into the system full page, multimedia posts that were in different Groups devoted to thousands of different topics?

Now, I’m basing all of this in a very loose way on the old Usenet newsgroups. But to the modern user, I guess they would see it as kind of a mixture of Twitter and Reddit. What happens is, you seed the service will Time Magazine staff, then gradually, over time, others would build up enough “points” that they could also do administrative things.

It’s pretty widely known that most people — especially celebrities and other thought leaders — hate, hate, HATE Twitter for any number of reasons and I think if you gave them a viable alternative they would flock to it. There is just so much you could do with this premise. You could have recorded video conferencing, you name it.

But no one listens to me, so I’m just pissing in the wind. But this is such an obvious yet out-of-the-box use of Time Magazine staff and content it’s kind of sad that no one will do anything with this concept.

V-Log: A Deep Dive Into The Issues Surrounding The #2018Midterms #Resist

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Here are some words about the state of the 2018 mid-terms. I get into a fight with someone in the comments, which might be entertaining.

V-Log: The State Of My #Scifi #Novel I’m #Writing For Sept. 20th, 2018

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Just a little mulling.

V-Log: A 2018 Mid-Term Issues Deep Dive For Sept. 19th, 2018

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I really want to start a podcast about the 2018 mid-terms, but for the time being, I’m going to just do a scope or Facebook Live about where things stand each day leading up to election day. I don’t know what I’m going to call this, but I was thinking maybe Daily Mid-Term Deep Dive or something like that. I don’t know when I’m going to do these little videos, but probably later in the day to account for breaking news.

I keep vowing to myself that I’m going to tune out from politics until after Nov. 6th, but I fear that’s just not going to happen. So I might as well wallow in politics and angst if I’m not going to be able to get myself off the grid.

My Vision For Time Magazine: Turn It Into A ‘Twitter Killer’ App Based On Usenet Concepts

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Of all the legacy media brands that could be used to destroy Twitter, Time Magazine is at the top of the list. The reason is simple — Time Magazine has a major problem and so does Twitter. Time produces a lot of great content, but it’s based on the cycle of a weekly magazine. Meanwhile, Twitter’s problem is even more systemic. Not only is about 10% of Twitter content the only thing worth anything, but it is extremely poorly designed when it comes to what people have come to use it for: having a discussion.

So, with that in mind, I propose that Time’s new owner, Marc Benioff, completely re-imagine Time Magazine as a publication from the ground up. What you do is, take the very core of what makes Twitter popular — writers and editors talking to each other in a public form — and use all the existing writers and editors of Time as the core of an app (and Website) based on the concepts of the long-ago Usenet.

Now, there are some basic flaws with this concept that would have to be managed. Chief among them being how do you scale the concepts of Usenet into the millions? I propose these problems are fixed in several ways. One, you are paying people to essentially post full-time into a discussion app, you can give them a lot more sysadmin control than you might otherwise. They would have a vested interest in curating their “newsgroups” that they were responsible for. Each writer and editor would have any number of newsgroups, or Groups, that they were responsible for. No need for a hierarchy like Usenet once had. You would have redundant Groups focused more an editor or writer than whatever subject.

Meanwhile, if you limited who could post to any particular group, that would greatly control the number of posts into any particular group and as such aid in scaleability. In affect what you would have is discussion of the massive amounts of content generated by Time Magazine native to the content itself. In other words, given that you would have full-page threaded posts in Groups and those Posts would have inline editing, you would give readership an unexpected to date unprecedented since of empowerment. The ability for people to inline edit content from Time Magazine in threaded discussions via an app would be something a lot of readers would enjoy.

Let me be absolutely clear — I know this sounds a lot like Reddit. That comes more from Reddit being a poorly implemented version of Usenet than it does what I suggest is simply Time Magazine copying Reddit. It seems to me that something like turning Time Magazine into an app is just the thing to not only save the magazine, but “kill” Twitter.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

The State Of The #Scifi #Novel I’m #Writing For Sept. 16th, 2018

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I find myself doing a lot more writing than usual these days. It’s just a matter of putting in the work at this point and not worrying so much about what quality produce I’m producing. It is just the first draft and so it’s more about getting the story down than anything else.

A Speculative Hot Take: What if Cynthia Nixon Wins? #NYPrimary

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I honestly don’t think Cynthia Nixon is going to win, but the conditions are there for at least something interesting to happen. I’m seeing chatter on Twitter of reports of high voter turn out and the country’s mood is such that I could see The Resistance at least getting within shouting distance of a massive upset.

I don’t think we would fully comprehend the significance of a Nixon win. The moment is was confirmed, we would realize we were in a new era. Nixon would be catapulted into the ring of a prospective 2020 Democratic nominee for president and the anger and energy of the Resistance would be hard to deny.

But, like I said, I am not prepared to say she’s going to win. I just think things are going to be…interesting. This is going to be an example of the Democratic Establishment getting the shit scared out of it by the passionate Left of the Resistance. But who knows. It will be interesting.

A Nixon win would be a thunderclap going into the 2018 mid-terms. It would be the first concrete evidence that this year is not going to be run-of-the-mill. Washington would be in total shock and the Republicans would probably be quivering in abject fear as to what might happen to them come November.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’m sensing something that’s not there.

I sure do, on a personal level, need a unexpected upset tonight.