There was a time on Cake when people took the time to communicate in paragraphs instead of a couple sentences reply. I know that may be hard to believe looking at most of the Twitter length replies that dominate on Cake; however, I assure you that there once was a time of a greater commitment to communication and the written word.

I came across the above magnificent conversation that is from March of 2018. It’s sometimes hard to remember that Cake has been around that long: I didn’t discover Cake until October of that year. But back then, there seemed to be a greater investment in sharing something that took effort to create.  

Maybe it’s too much of an ask nowadays for people to put in that level of effort to their communications on social media. Commenting on blogs is less common compared to a decade ago. And it’s so much easier to tweet a link to someone else’s thinking than to take the time to express your own.

And yet, I still see amazingly long and thoughtful reflections whenever I host a panel on an interesting question. But then people will complain every few months that “You shouldn’t do panels when a public conversation could be created instead.” However, when I do create such public conversations, I usually get limited engagement by comparison and/or Twitter length responses.

I’ve decided to discontinue hosting those panels that I love for the foreseeable future. I will instead spend more of my time creating longer content for conversations of mine as well as crafting longer well thought out responses to the conversations of others. Hopefully others will respond in kind. I know there are a few people here who regularly put a lot of time and effort into their replies so I know that I won’t be the only one engaging in this effort.

When Elwood Edwards recorded "You've Got Mail" for AOL in '89. Only bought stamps to pay bills after that; and don't even need stamps for that today!

Stephen...

No doubt, I'm probably one to disappoint you with my replies. I'm into brevity when it comes to wordsmithing.

Bill

And yet, I still see amazingly long and thoughtful reflections whenever I host a panel on an interesting question. But then people will complain every few months that “You shouldn’t do panels when a public conversation could be created instead.” However, when I do create such public conversations, I usually get limited engagement by comparison and/or Twitter length responses.

Why do you think there's a difference between the responses from a panel vs a conversation on Cake? It's an interesting observation but aside from one being open for all to reply to and one being restricted to invitees only I'm not aware of any other differences between the 2 post types.

Cake encourages conversations but I think if you look at conversations in real life most are composed of a series of short sentences. Outside of a court room or debate situation most people just aren't used to forming an extended response in one go.

Why do you think there's a difference between the responses from a panel vs a conversation on Cake? It's an interesting observation but aside from one being open for all to reply to and one being restricted to invitees only I'm not aware of any other differences between the 2 post types.

Maybe it's the psychology of being invited vs just stumbling across a conversation? When you're invited to a panel it implies that someones wants you to share your opinions, so you'll likely put more effort into your response.

I have some suspicions on this, but I honestly don’t know why with any degree of certainty. When I began to use the panels for discussions of questions that could’ve been posed in a public conversation, my hope was that it would lead to an increase of long responses in public conversations. (Sidenote: There’s obviously a place for short responses, long responses, or a combination of the two in public conversations. However, it felt and still feels like the long responses are an endangered species.)

According to a study on social media, the content most widely read and shared is over 2,000 words in length. Like your OnePlus conversation, which I still am in awe of. Or the panel on Google+ Influencers. We sometimes forget that on social media platforms, over 99% of the active users are invisible. They don’t create content (conversations), or share comments (replies), or like. But they do read interesting content that educates, enlightens or entertains. And for Cake to continue to exist, there continues to be a need for more evergreen conversations and evergreen replies. 

We sometimes forget that on social media platforms, over 99% of the active users are invisible. They don’t create content (conversations), or share comments (replies), or like. But they do read interesting content that educates, enlightens or entertains.

I think we had a conversation before about having additional metrics for Cake posts, like views/reads or something like that as another measure of engagement. Is that idea still on the cards?

FYI, I merged your suggested topic of “Playstation 5” with “Playstation 4” since there were almost 200 users following the latter. The merged topics have been renamed “Playstation”.

The PlayStation 5 is hereThe most anticipated gaming console in recent years is finally here, Sony's PlayStation 5. And it looks sexy af. https://youtu.be/RkC0l4iekYo The industry has taken a shift to online distribution ...cake.co

Great conversation, btw. Greatly appreciate your taking the time to create this: you and JBeck are doing an amazing job of increasing content in the video games topic. As I said above, the more evergreen conversations and evergreen replies published, the faster that Cake will grow. And the sooner that enhancements to Cake will see the light of day.

Shameless suggestion to readers: If you haven’t created a conversation on Cake in the past three months, how about creating a new conversation on one of your passions? If your intriguing conversation enlightens, educates or entertains, you’re on the right track!