Surveying the Socials.
In which I check out a trio of new places to hang out on-line. While the Brabzon book research moves into thinking about big buildings, and the Beatles podcast passes another milestone.
Like many people, last weekend’s Twitter meltdown left me considering potential alternative homes for my social media community activity. Despite its recent issues I can’t say I’m in a particular rush to leave Twitter as an online presence. I’ve been on the platform for fourteen years and have invested a lot of time in setting up and curating distinct feeds for my writing (@alanjporter), my professional content services (@TheContentPool), James Bond (@BondLexicon), U.N.C.L.E. (@UNCLE_Lexicon), and Beatles (@BeforeBeatles) related projects.
It’s also taken some time to build followers and develop connections and friendships in the various online communities on Twitter. As well as long standing friendships, connections made on Twitter are directly responsible for my starting podcasting, and writing fiction. - Not something I can easily abandon.
BUT, with a plethora of alternatives popping up, the least I can do is check them out, and at the same time make sure that I make a land grab for my preferred username of @alanjporter so that I have a consistent handle no matter which platform folks want to try and find me on (if, for some inexplicable reason they have a sudden urge to do so).
So last weekend I signed up for Mastodon, BlueSky, and Threads. I’m not sure at the moment how I’ll be using them. To start with I’ll just be cross-posting a few items and seeing how they turn out - hopefully better than Hive, which seems to have lapsed into near silence over the last six months or so.
But even with just a few days activity I have definitely noticed differences between the three:
BlueSky seems to be where most of the creative community, writers, artists, comics folks etc. have migrated. It’s also where I’ve seen the most engagement so far.
Mastodon is where I’m seeing mainly folks from my technology and content strategy professional life turn up. Adoption and engagement seems to be a bit slower so far.
Threads definitely has the quickest adoption rate, and is where I’m finding more of the film/TV folks, as well as the various motor-sports accounts I followed. Looks like the James Bond online community is also heading this way. But while the follower numbers are the highest of the three, the engagement seems to be the lowest.
One thing is clear, none of these platforms last forever. Looking back on my own online history which started back in the early modem-driven bulletin board days of the mid-90s I have been active on around twenty different platforms so far.
It will be interesting to see where this all pans out. I have a feeling that the days of one dominant platform where everybody hangs out (which is what made Twitter so powerful in its heyday) are gone and once again we may end up needing different platforms for different interest groups.
Maybe I’ll check back on things in a year…
Other Stuff
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Brabazon Bits
Research on the design of the giant Bristol Brabazon aircraft inevitably leads to the need for the facilities to build and operate such a large aircraft. These included a strengthened extended runway, with catastrophic consequences for a local village (which I covered in a previous newsletter ), and the building of a purpose built aircraft assembly hall.
The Brabazon Hangar that resulted was an impressive feat of engineering. The final building spread over 1052 feet, split into three equal bays which rose 117 feet in height. The East and West bays were 260 feet deep, while the much larger center bay extended to 410 feet. The total area was approaching seven acres or 290,000 square feet. Access for aircraft was by six folding doors, two to each bay, and driven by six 5hp electric motors to move the total 220 tons weight of doors.
At the time it was the largest hangar in the world, a designation it held for many years, and would remain a significant landmark for decades to come. In fact it is still one, and I was lucky enough to spend time exploring its now empty interior during our research visit earlier this year. My research into the design and construction of this amazing building is just getting started and I’m sure there’s some fascinating stories to uncover.
Thankfully although the Filton airfield is no longer operational and is now under development, the hangar will remain and is due to be transformed into a concert and sports arena, and I'm looking forward to hopefully giving it a return visit in a few years time to see how it turns out.
Pages and Screens
Books Read in 2023 - “Fantastic Four: Full Circle“ by Alex Ross
Alex Ross plays tribute to the classic cosmic Fantastic Four tales of Jack Kirby in this oversize graphic novel.
The story itself is a quasi-sequel to one of Kirby’s best (but it doesn’t really matter if you’ve read that or not), and does what the FF do best, combine engaging family dynamics with exploration, adventure, and metaphysical ideas.
Unfortunately the narrative does get bogged down a little in the middle and takes a bit of an abrupt tonal shift, but is redeemed by a thought provoking conclusion.
But it’s the art that naturally takes center stage here as Ross uses the canvas of the large page size to present spectacular visuals, experimenting with panel layouts, color, lighting, and modern interpretation of some classic Kirby techniques.
This is a delightful reminder of what the Fantastic Four should be.
Podcast Procrastinations
The Before They Were Beatles podcast -.This week I started working on the script for Espiode 25 covering the months September through December 1962. In the run up to that episode I was happy to see the podcast reach the 60,000 downloads mark.
Next week I’m also scheduled to do an interview about Before They Were Beatles on The History of Rock And Roll radio show. Really looking forward to that conversation.
And talking of Before They Were Beatles, just a reminder that if you’d like to keep up with the progress of the work on the 20th Anniversary edition of the Before They Were Beatles book you can sign up for a subscription to the dedicated Substack monthly newsletter HERE. -
Weekly Web Round-Up
Batman On The Cover - The journey through Batman’s comics publishing history continues this week as we move into March 1968 with new issues of Detective Comics, a special anniversary issue of Batman, a World’s Finest adventure, and some Justice League action.
The standout again is thanks to the dynamic layouts of Neal Adams with the low level POV shot of Batman and Superman seemingly in peril on the cover of World’s Finest
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See you next time
Alan J. Porter