Mathew Lowry

@mathewlowry

Australian in Brussels. Info architect, innovation, knowledge, community & content strategist. All the Stuff I Like, Think & Do:

1,556 Following1,323 Followers2,878 Posts

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Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· 15d

Not long ago, nobody thought anyone would pay to receive a newsletter. People will pay for things they really value, and/or things that'll help them make them money. Note that microblogging may not fit into either category.

Screenshot from Unpacking Bluesky's Adoption Challenges
https://experiments.myhub.ai/permanent_versions/atproto/bluesky_adoption_challenge

I doubt most people will pay for social media which is identical to the free incumbents but lacks their audience. I can imagine some of them paying for
something which delivers greater value than incumbent social media ever can. There are so many things you cannot do with X, Facebook and the rest. Can we have some apps that provide value people cannot get anywhere else, and can we communicate the differences, not the similarities?
Maybe, at the end of the day, the social media we have today is the social media which can be supported by advertising, and X-style
microblogging simply cannot provide enough value for most individuals and organisations to pay for it. But there are plenty of online content applications that some people do pay for, and to date they are either productivity software or longform publishing (enewsletter and website publishing). My goal is to combine them, but that's another story.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· 17d

Mystery solved. Cookie + Brownie = @brookie.blog, at least if your Belgian.

Photo of a brookie, showing a layer of brownie and a layer of cookie. And with a bite taken out of a corner

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· 22d

Yes Sir! Ooooooh

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· 22d

Thinking I may have gone a little OTT on @twinkl.social, and absolutely keeping it that way. #lessisabore

Screenshot of my "customise twinkl" page, with every option selected.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· 25d

Getting some of that this morning, thought @brookie.blog should know.

A delicious looking cake called Brookie at my local boulangerie

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· 29d

Let's cross those fields, what could go wrong?

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jul 12

Yes, and that's why turning decentralised in theory into decentralised in practice is so essential.

From Unpacking Bluesky's Adoption Challenges (now on V3, but this text was there from v1, fwiw):
https://experiments.myhub.ai/permanent_versions/atproto/bluesky_adoption_challenge

"Undermining Bluesky's key argument

These examples show that while almost everyone on Bluesky uses one company's infrastructure, the network will look centralised, even when built with decentralisable
technology.

getting users onto alternative
infrastructure may be almost as
important

This undermines one of Bluesky's
differentiators against its better-funded, walled"

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jul 11

So I hit the landing page's subscribe button and I'm asked to create a blog... But I just want to subscribe!

A page asking me to log in to create a pckt blog

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jul 8

Did someone say puppy?

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jul 7

Trump trumped. ht @siemdc.bsky.social

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 27

Tropical storm in (checks notes) Brussels?

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 25

That ridgeline is 1 metre wide, 4m long, 1500m drop on 3 sides (you can see it at the end). Breathtaking view, highly recommended, not for the faint of heart ;)

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 25

Mt Kebnekaise, 4 years ago (tomorrow, actually - thanks for the reminder!)

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 23

Same. Never got a follower because of a position I held. I don't have followers, I have

Photo of vin diesel with the word Family.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 23

And yet...

Screenshot of finding being incredibly obtuse about it.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 23

Not an advisory committee, just the EC's own in-house science service, from the unit in charge of evidence-informed policymaking. publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/h...

Extract from page 8
"...values. Despite the earlier recommendations, those val- ues cannot be fully protected without EU digital sovereignty and autonomy.
Recommendations to achieve digital sovereignty:
•
Achieve digital sovereignty through European digital, physical, and online infrastructure: Decentralised systems like Atmosphere, FediVerse, Mastodon, Eurosky, which also need EU cloud infrastructure, computing power, etc. to give autonomy back to citizens, take the decisions out of the hands of foreign corporate owners, and can allow explora- tion of alternative democratic models in real time. Financial support, R&D funding, encouraging more EU-based private funding, and public early adop- tion (e.g., requiring public administrations to also use alternative platforms, training civil servants) are needed to make them viable competitors of established centralised incumbents, whose R&D budget dwarfs funding currently available in the EU."

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 23

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 21

PS it's okay if you didn't know about this: the bluesky crew does a crap job of marketing this killer feature. PPS Fascist content often looks like this:

Photo of Elon Musk giving a fascist salute

Elon Musk saluting the crowd at a AfD rally

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 21

Here's how (look to the bottom right - and yes, this is an edit):

Screenshot of the first version of my reply

Screenshot of the drop-down where the edit post feature is available.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 20

Oh God he doesn't expect me to leave this sofa, does he? I'll go for a walk tomorrow. #peluchefatale

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 19

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 17

It's a pattern I've seen before.

Screenshot from https://medium.com/@mathewlowry/in-memoriam-richard-medic-b3af3ed57a24

"Out of the entire Brussels Bubble, he was probably the only other person I knew who really saw Madelina Kay (aka EU Supergirl). I still don't know what it means that the most supportive Europeans she found in the Brussels Bubble were both Australian."

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 17

"We have the European commission, council, parliament... "

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 17

AZ: "verify to post, provide your real name to get priority on the feed".

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 17

Pretty full house, for the Brussels press club

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 16

Feeling this. I wrote something about this well over a year ago, and still haven't fully digested the fact that I'm clearly not in the right timeline.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 13

Father's Day came a day early this year.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 12

. Stop letting excellent be the enemy of good. . Stop wringing your hands as you bury your head in the sand. . Enforce your laws as much as possible. . Support realistic alternatives. . And above all, show leadership by using them mathewlowry.medium.com/x-strategy-o...

Main image from the blog post which doesn't display in the preview for some reason.

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 12

So that's wierd... this is how I see it. Is it because I'm the author, @schlage.town?

A screenshot of my previous post pointing to my leaflet page, which does not show the rich preview embed

Mathew Lowry@mathewlowry· Jun 12

12 hours, 12 more! I guess LinkedIn likes you more, which is ironic, given Sifa! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯