Jun 122008
 

I’m not the first per­son to notice the duplic­a­tion of posts, as people post what’s hap­pen­ing to Twit­ter and Face­book and Plurk, and blog about it if they feel like writ­ing some­thing a little longer. Which means that when you really want to keep up with what someone is up to, you sub­scribe to them on all those chan­nels, and Friend­Feed as well, and put up with the duplic­a­tion (spiced up by the time lag between things appear­ing on one chan­nel and when they appear on the oth­er; ain’t latency fun?). 

The prob­lem comes when you want to respond, or join in the con­ver­sa­tion. Do you reply to the tweet? Or com­ment on the blog post­ing? Or respond to the per­son indi­vidu­ally by email or chat? Or all of the above? 

In the con­crete case that made me think about this, I sent off a chat mes­sage, and now I’m going to also blog it: con­grat­u­la­tions to Edd and fam­ily on the new arrival; may he sleep peace­fully and grow vig­or­ously, and not fight too much with his older siblings.

And maybe that’s the answer: take each case as it comes, depend­ing on which audi­ence you think might (or should) be involved, and how eph­em­er­al the con­ver­sa­tion should be.

Jun 122008
 

My daugh­ter is now two, and likes some dif­fer­ent books to the set I reviewed six months ago, although she still likes the Boyn­ton books and Moth­er, May I? by Grace Mac­car­one (I sus­pect because it has a pic­ture of a truck in it, and fea­tures a hug at the end). 

In no par­tic­u­lar order, we have Hand, Hand, Fin­gers, Thumb by Al Per­kins and Eric Gurney, There’s a Night­mare in My Closet by Mer­cer May­er, Dog In, Cat Out by Gil­lian Rubin­stein and Ann James (lots of scope for mak­ing up stor­ies about what’s hap­pen­ing in the pic­tures), Waves in the Bathtub by Eugenie Fernandes (make up your own music for the song, it will sound much bet­ter than the tune in the book), and Where’s My Teddy? by Jez Albor­ough (ours is bundled with It’s the Bear!, which gets nearly equal billing in the tod­dler appre­ci­ation list). These are all books my son liked as well, so chances are good that oth­er tod­dlers will enjoy them just as much. My son did­n’t have Mon­key and Me by Emily Gravett, but my daugh­ter likes it.

And, of course, she also likes any­thing with a pic­ture of a truck in it.

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