Slack DM with [EDITOR A]
Tom Scocca Is anyone writing about this stupid chat-in-pubic thing?
Tom Scocca *public
Slack DM with [EDITOR B]
Tom Scocca What’s the difference between this and Twitter?
Tom Scocca [Link to Medium post about Talkshow]
[EDITOR B] i guess….
[EDITOR B] self respect?
[EDITOR B] this seems real real real dumb
Tom Scocca The premise I guess is that everything anyone does is interesting and should definitely be broadcast.
Slack DM with [EDITOR A]
[EDITOR A] it’s in discussion
Tom Scocca I was thinking of just chatting at people about it and publishing the chats.
Tom Scocca Like this one.
[EDITOR A] hmmm
[EDITOR A] do it for gizmodo
[EDITOR A] Assigned
[EDITOR A] there
[EDITOR A] publish that
Tom Scocca OK.
Gchat with [FRIEND A]
Tom Scocca Why would a person want to put their texts in public?
[FRIEND A] oh i like talkshow
[FRIEND A] it’s dumb but cute
Tom Scocca How does it differ from people tweeting at one another?
[5 mins]
Gchat with [FRIEND B]
Tom Scocca Why
Tom Scocca [Link to Medium post about Talkshow]
[19 mins]
Slack DM with [EDITOR A]
[EDITOR A] the clock is ticking tom
[EDITOR A] where’s my post
Tom Scocca I’m chatting as fast as I can.
Slack DM with [EDITOR C]
Tom Scocca I’m chatting with people about this
Tom Scocca [Link to Medium post about Talkshow]
[EDITOR C] What is this shit habibi
Tom Scocca It seems to overrate how interesting text conversations are.
[EDITOR C] Texting me in public is Twitter
[EDITOR C] All my texts are boring as shit
Tom Scocca I’m going to publish this exchange, OK?
[EDITOR C] The majority of them are to my wife or son and involve stuff like “I’m going by the store, should I get anything?”
[EDITOR C] Sure
Gchat with [FRIEND A]
[FRIEND A] nobody can get in your mentions
Tom Scocca Hm, OK.
Tom Scocca May I publish this?
[FRIEND A] [REDACTED]
Tom Scocca It’s going to be anonymous.
[FRIEND A] OH then fine
[FRIEND A] yes
[FRIEND A] lol
Slack DM with [EDITOR C]
[EDITOR C] Sometimes I text gossip with my cronies but the precise reason we’re texting it is that it seems reasonably not-public barring some massive, epochal hack of the internet’s mainframe
Tom Scocca So you’re saying you wouldn’t use this.
[EDITOR C] I would not use this
[EDITOR C] When I text with people to have the sort of conversations I wouldn’t mind having on a performative public-texting app
[EDITOR C] It’s precisely because texting has an immediacy to it that the use of an app would remove
[EDITOR C] [UPLOADED SCREEN SHOT OF BORING TEXT CONVERSATION]
[EDITOR C] Here’s an example of a typical boring text exchange; I wouldn’t mind this being public but a) who would possibly want to read me and [REDACTED] talking about a UFC flyweight fight and b) the precise reason this was a text exchange was that [REDACTED] wanted to get my attention by invading my actual phone number to talk about the fight
[EDITOR C] If he’d tweeted me I would have been much more likely to ignore the invitation to conversation, true, but that’s much more true of a public-texting app.
[EDITOR C] As manners questions go, “I need something between Twitter and texting” seems like the problem least in need of an answer that I’ve heard in a really long time
Gchat with [FRIEND C]
[FRIEND C] Has the Yogurt Desk reacted to the Chobani news
Tom Scocca It’s struggling with it.
Tom Scocca [Link to Medium post about Talkshow]
Tom Scocca I’m chatting with people to see how welcome this new app would be.
[FRIEND C] Publicly?
Tom Scocca Yes
[FRIEND C] OK where
Tom Scocca I mean I’m just pasting DMs into a blog post.
[FRIEND C] Yeah OK
[FRIEND C] So it’s an app that looks like people IM’ing but you can... argh
Tom Scocca Right.
[FRIEND C] Jeepers who asked for that
[FRIEND C] And then what, people can join in? Big deal, that’s comments on a kabillion sites
[FRIEND C] Or a “chat room” from what, the 90s?
[FRIEND C] <So-and-so has entered the chat room>
[FRIEND C] Bleah!
[FRIEND C] And then there’ll be ads in it I guess
Gchat with [FRIEND B]
[44 mins]
DISCUSSION
I’m trying to institute Slack at my office, an 8 person non-profit where people still call each other — across the office, on speaker phone — to ask tiny questions, or walk down the hall to do the same, which inevitably ends in a longer conversation about things that were not part of the original discussion.
My office, which is mostly older folks, has not really caught on.
I am frustrated and mad.