there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented

I am an unabashed fan of Apple, and therefore Steve Jobs as they were for many of us inseperable, but I was surprised how I felt on hearing the news; the best way I can describe it is as a feeling of hollowness.

I didn’t know him, I never met him or even saw him present, but I feel I understand him. Every time I use a piece of Apple hardware or software I can see, and understand, his values and passion.

Two of my favourite Steve Jobs philosophies are that Apple products should be “insanely great” and “it just works”.

I’m reminded of these philosophies when I watch my six year old son creating music in Garage Band, export that music to iTunes and then sync it to his iPod. I like to think that Steve Jobs would be as proud and delighted as I am to see him beaming away as he listen to “his music”.

This is Steve Jobs legacy: insanely great products that are a joy to use and bring delight their users.

As before my iTunes OCD has driven me to design my own cover art; I’ve continued with the style of the first, but made it darker like the mix.

Download from Flickr.

Via the splendid @johnoxton

To mark the latest Field Notes release they had a competition on Twitter; first to reply with their first name would win a Field Notes notebook personalised with that first name.

For once I was in the right place at the right time, and won by just a few seconds. I was expecting just the personalised notebook so to receive the whole pack plus a pack of Field Note pencils, a personal favourite, was a lovely surprise.

I’ve been buying my stationery from The Paperie for a while now, and I highly recommend them.

Amazing, even for NatWest.

How they choose to respond to this will be very telling. If they have a social media strategy does it include damage limitation plans? Only time will tell.

In Paris, I always imagine living in a doghouse-sized all-Muji garret. Tiny corrugated cardboard speakers. Plastic the color of Vaseline.

— William Gibson (@GreatDismal) July 14, 2010

What I found in my few Twitter free days was that I didn’t miss it as much as expected. I didn’t have cravings or withdrawal symptoms despite going cold turkey. I found that I can take it or leave it and I’ve decided to take it.

Twitter has become a part of my day, a part of my way of doing things. It’s a source of news and review; a focussed, personalised mini RSS feed. If I have a question Twitter will often closely follow Google when I’m looking for an answer, and those answers have the added weight of peer review or authority.

So no more of this Twitter tooing and froing.

Now I just need to find a way of removing Gowalla and Foursquare tweets without un-following people.

Whilst this week is an experiment to see how I, a one time Twitter addict, get on; I don’t have any specific reasons for deciding to take a break and possibly turning my back on Twitter. It’s a combination of things that has led to a rising sense of “meh?”

I’ll report back in week about how it’s gone or is going.

Mike explains his need for a Twitter break:

I’ve sensed lately that I need to take a step back. I’ve caught myself constantly checking my Twitter mentions, working very hard to tweet something of value and scanning my live feed in Tweetie for something, anything interesting to read.

Mike goes on to say:

While that’s typical Twitter user behavior, I’ve felt this incessant attraction to scanning random tweets and replies at all times to be distracting my focus from more important things in my life right now.

I can identify with Mike’s feeling of compulsion to check Twitter often, perhaps too often, and for the desire for there to be something new and interesting to read. This reminds me of a talk about Technology and Psychology by Suw Charman-Anderson at FOWA two years ago. Suw described a series of common ‘symptoms’ connected with email which I think many of the audience could identify with; it transpired that there were the psychological symptoms of addiction.

Andrew’s reasons for leaving Twitter share a theme with Mike’s: that of ‘mental bandwidth’ and time. But Andrew also had issues with the content and perceived value of what he saw being Tweeted. In an email he explained:

For me, social media, and Twitter in particular, is becoming a billion banal internal monologues being broadcast to the world. I think there is a serious risk of us all becoming infantilised. We are not talking to others, just ourselves. With a few exceptions, there is no real “conversation” going on.

I was also not sure what I was contributing by talking about what I was “doing”. It started to feel childish and pointless.

I now see Twitter as a waste of valuable processing time in my already cluttered head . I’d rather spend time with real people – thinking, arguing, and just being with them and not worrying if I need more than 140 characters to make a point.

Interesting, and again there are some sentiments with which I can sympathise.

Why I find Mike and Andrew’s thoughts and actions so interesting is that I a phase of wondering about Twitter, and what it means for me. I’ve ditched all other social media sites and accounts. I took particular enjoyment in deleting my Facebook account; now that is a place devoid of conversation and full of banal, superficial rubbish. So that Just leaves Twitter.

I don’t have any problem with what people say on Twitter; if I don’t like it, don’t find it interesting or of value or if somebody tweets too much I’ll unfollow that person. I manage the signal to noise ratio with extreme prejudice.

I’ve just found that the Lists functionality on Twitter allows me to put people into lists without having to follow them. So I can keep my main Twitter feed clear of clutter, but still have easy, occassional access to people that are of interest. I’ve recently found a number of Formula 1 and motor sport journalists and teams that are highly interesting to a petrol head like me. I’ve been able to put them into a motor sport list so I can get my racing fix without having my main Twitter feed full of testing updates from Valencia for example. This facility is transforming how I use Twitter.

The compulsion to check Twitter and the associated time-suck is an issue I can completely identify with. I recently started a new job that is wonderfully busy, and now I really can’t afford the time during the day to check Twitter as much as I used to; my streamlined main Twitter feed and use of lists is going to help me quickly catch up at the beginning and end of the day.

I don’t see myself stopping using Twitter or even taking a break, but instead I’m controlling more carefully when and how I use it. Twitter should be a tool to use how you see fit: be it a news source, a place for conversation with friends, micro-publishing platform or a combination thereof and more.

Most of all I’ve been fortunate to meet and get to know some great people through Twitter. Some I’ve met in person, some our conversation has moved to email and IM, but for many it’s just a Twitterthang and I’d miss that too much to stop.