Community

Whilst Stephen travels with his family, I had the pleasure of running 512Pixels intermittently. Today, I wrote about the community in which we're lucky enough to find ourselves:

Watching the 512 brand continue this week — as if all were normal — has summarized the wealth of support inherent within this community. If it passed you by, I tend to think that’s the very best that could’ve happened.

Recognizing a natural reflex is one of the most unremarkable things in the moment, but, in retrospect, it can be truly astounding.

If — by some fluke — you're unfamiliar with Stephen's site, you ought to familiarize yourself.

Roger Ebert (1942 - 2013)

Chris Jones, Esquire:

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear, he writes in a journal entry titled “Go Gently into That Good Night.” I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

The tale of Roger Ebert and his battle against cancer is a harrowing, visceral story. At the same time, however, the narrative holds the rare traits of a touching, memorable, and fundamentally important story to be enjoyed and appreciated.

The beauty of Jones' long-form article lies within the brief snippets of prose from Ebert himself. Through a narrative depicting the sorrow and inevitability of death, Ebert's beautiful penchant for expression, thoughtfulness, and kindness pours forth for all to see.

Ebert embraced the world around him and sought out the best and most pleasureful experiences for himself. And, in doing so, he provided a wonderful legacy for all of us to bear witness. He showed that, regardless of difficulty, happiness is the true and most important goal in life.

For Mr. Ebert, it seems, the root of all of this was his writing:

When I am writing my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be.

Rest in peace.

The Fertile Ashes of Google Reader

Announced amidst the furor over the election of a new Pope and the resignation of Andy Rubin, Google yesterday outed the less-than-stunning revelation that its RSS product, Reader, is set to retire this summer.

Of course, Reader has been on deathwatch for quite some time. Popular — and grossly misinformed — opinion has deemed RSS an irrelevant and dinosauric technology — a relic of the early days of the Internet. Thus, as the service enjoys relatively few users and offers little in the way of revenue streams, Google decided to shutter the service.

Although my initial inclination was to voice disappointment and anger toward Google, upon further reflection, I feel this is a warranted and pragmatic business decision. Highlighting a waining portion of its infrastructure, Google sought to — rightly — rid itself of cruft. Moreover, it liberated one of the most technologist-engaged — and therefore most volatile — properties within its wings.

For months, we've watched ambivalently as Google's shed excess products, outmoded designs, and refocused itself on the future. As with any change, many felt resentful toward Google for axing some beloved services. Others, on the other hand — myself included — felt the decisions represented a welcome narrowing of focus within the notoriously nebulous company.

In my eyes, the latter philosophy is utterly applicable to the death of Reader.

Perhaps Google could've kept Reader on life support. Or, perhaps they could've worked to monetize and improve the platform. Regardless, the likely outcome of either scenario would've been unilaterally underwhelming. We would've been left with a deplorable product amidst a rapidly improving Google ecosystem. There would've been no semblance of consistency and there would've been a gaping sore on an otherwise attractive, new Google visage.

So, rather than slip into complacency, Google euthanized a product that had fallen into irrelevant stagnation years ago.

In doing so, as many optimists have been quick to highlight, Google has removed the anti-competitive barrier to entry in the RSS marketplace. For the first time in years, developers and thinkers are engaged and actively pursuing innovative means to work with RSS.

Quite a remarkable turn of events for a purportedly dead and irrelevant technology.

For those who choose to decry RSS as outmoded technology, I cannot help but pity such a misguided and pessimistic outlook. RSS is a backend technology designed to be withheld from your view as a user. Just as OS X has undergone an aggressive path of simplification, RSS has also been steadily ushered behind the proverbial curtain away from our prying eyes.

And just because you cannot see something does not mean it cannot have a profound impact upon the manner in which you engage with the world.

RSS is a platform agnostic, apolitical, enabling technology that allows for the efficient distribution of content. Considering the resurgence of long-form writing and its confliction with the ever-more cluttered experience of Twitter and Facebook, there has never been a more fitting time for a new (or revitalized) distributional technology to make waves across our space.

The arguments for the death of such a fundamentally useful technology are most certainly not new. They've persisted for years without ever showing any tangible proof of a demise. In fact, looking back, the first article I wrote for The Loop was entitled, "The Purported Death of RSS." For context, that was written in November, 2011. And it was most certainly not the first article to seep onto the Internet refuting widespread conjecture over RSS's demise.

In other words, people have been blustering about the death of RSS for a very long time. And yet, as we all witnessed yesterday, the shuttering of a "dead" Google product caused outrage and Twitter activity to rival the election of a new Pope.

2013 is a monumental and utterly formative year for digital publishing. In my eyes, it's certainly no coincidence that RSS has been set free during this time. Readers are receptive, writers are experimenting, and publications are reforming. RSS stands to undergo a renaissance of relevance and that's certainly not a bad thing at all.

Read & Trust Magazine - March 2013

Aaron Mahnke, Read & Trust:

We are surrounded by mobile computing devices. This month, some of the best writers in the world of mobile computing weigh in on what this new era means for us.

For this month's issue of the Read & Trust Magazine, Dave Caolo, David Chartier, Federico Viticci, and I wrote about our respective takes on so-called "mobile computing."

As you might guess from my preamble — and from reading this site over the past few months — I took significant issue with the delineation between mobile and traditional computing and shared my opinions regarding the modern technological landscape.

Rather than framing "computing" as an entity which can be characterized as "traditional," "mobile," or, God forbid, "post-PC," I make the argument that such perspectives are reductive of the far-reaching capabilities of modern technology. Citing Google Glass, the iPhone, and even the traditional PC, I sought to blur the lines between each of the disparate devices and instill some semblance of awareness of the possibility spanning across all of these devices.

More than my piece, however, the March issue holds writing from some phenomenal writers who're utterly deserving of your support.

The March issue of the Read & Trust Magazine is available now.

"The Recline and Fall of Western Civilization"

Dan Kois, Slate:

The woman sitting in front of me on this plane seems perfectly nice. She, like me, is traveling coach class from Washington to Los Angeles. She had a nice chat before takeoff with the man sitting next to her, in which she revealed she is an elementary school teacher, an extremely honorable profession. She, like me, has an aisle seat and has spent most of the flight watching TV. Nevertheless, I hate her.

Why? She’s a recliner.

Continuing Slate's near-monthly trend of delving into the world of bizarre/counterintuitive/pointless arguments, Dan Kois has today chosen to heroically (i.e., bafflingly) attack reclining seats on planes.

(Also, before you ask, the answer is "Yes." That is the actual headline Slate ran for the article.)

Although Kois' article isn't anywhere near as bad as Henry Blodget's Internet-ruining live-blog of traveling economy on an international flight — which, incidentally, I refuse to link to — I will say that I find this trend to be woefully embarrassing.

Somewhere beneath the link-bait headline and surrealist tone, there's likely an interesting — albeit trite — point to be made about the state of modern airlines. And yet, due to the nature of the publication, such valuable content has been washed over with a deliberately alarmist piece designed to incite responses such as this, mindless agreement in the comments, and a general rise in self-entitlement in the American populace.

We've collectively glossed over the value of a balanced dialog in favor of sporadically yelling controversial things into an audience of buzz-snorting readers. Perhaps it's funny at times. Perhaps it's even relieving to see people take themselves a little less seriously on the Internet. But, at the end of the day, it's realistically just poor writing combined with poorly formed arguments. And I'm growing increasingly tired of it.

Supporting Independent Content and OneThirtySeven

Since launching the site redesign in September, 2012, I've received a humbling number of donations from readers via the well-hidden OneThirtySeven PayPal form. As I noted when I added the capacity for donations, I simply have no intention or inclination to advertise the feature.

Today's a brief exception.

Generally speaking, I fear that far too many writers are attempting to prematurely monetize their writing. Although I certainly understand the desire to elicit a material gain from the hours spent producing content online, I feel that, in some cases, monetization has overtaken quality as the goal and purpose of writing in the first place.

Many have taken to implementing membership initiatives, magazines, newsletters, t-shirts, postcards, and so on, but few have remained focused upon improving the commodity and service they're attempting to sell.

When I added the capacity for donations, it was not a frivolous moment. I thought long and hard about providing such an option. In the end, I settled upon adding it, but tucking it away within the site.

The reason is that this weblog is not yet at a point I feel is deserving of large-scale support.

Metrically speaking, OneThirtySeven appears extremely solid. Readership continues to multiply on a monthly basis, RSS and Twitter followers are increasing steadily, the consistency of posting is reaching a point of relative stability, and this content has now been proliferating for over a year.

And yet, from a personal perspective, I feel there is much further for me to go with my voice, my curation, and my techniques. Accordingly, I'm extremely wary of instituting any semblance of well-traveled monetization method.

2013 is going to be a year of tidal shifts in digital publishing. Although the independent community stands apart from the world of mainstream publications, I suspect there will be a convergence this year over experimentation in monetization. Memberships, paywalls, and so-called "freemium" models will invariably become commonplace, but only a handful will find long-term viability in doing so.

The trouble is that, with each new monetization model requiring reader support, the market becomes increasingly destabilized. There's only so many writers that readers can be expected to support and the rapid proliferation of the monetization mentality in the publishing community will likely cause an excessive saturation.

I mean to say that, even if OneThirtySeven was at a point of feasible financial support from the community, I would be reticent to adopt one of these models. Folks like John Gruber, Shawn Blanc, Jim Dalrymple, and Andrew Sullivan have pioneered new ways to fund their craft, whilst innumerable others have simply attempted to re-appropriate their efforts.

For all of this, I mean to suggest that I do not intend to implement a monetization method unless I can create something altogether different from my counterparts in both the independent and mainstream communities. I'm of the belief that, without sufficient differentiation, this weblog will simply merge with a growing mass of similar sites with similar business models. 

OneThirtySeven and Bionic were both conceived with the purpose of being different in voice, content, and purpose, and mindlessly adopting a business model for the sake of attempting to gratify myself would, therefore, not only be pointless, but also an element of self-betrayal.

I hope I don't come across as disparaging of other independent creators who've implemented monetization models. I support a great deal of them and I believe you should too. The trouble is that we're quickly moving toward a point of utter communal saturation — a point at which it will become difficult for the average reader to support all of the sites she or he enjoys. Just as retail subscription services rose to prominence in 2012 and subsequently overwhelmed many consumers, independent publishers are facing a similar problem. Although I'd love to support as many as possible, it's just becoming patently unfeasible for both myself and the wider reading public to do so.

For now, I'll continue to offer a donations option, but I've removed PayPal as the medium for such support. Per Patrick Rhone (a writer you should be supporting, by the way), I've migrated my donations to Spacebox (a front-end for Stripe). As a result, payments are made more easily, PayPal doesn't clutch its talons into your shoulders, and the process is made all the more incidental.

For those of you who've donated in the past, as I've written to each of you individually, I cannot thank you enough. Your gracious donations provide me with a great deal of confidence and drive.

For those who're considering a donation, I'm not going to coax you into it. OneThirtySeven is a learning platform for me and I find more than enough reward in seeing more and more people reading, linking, and chatting about my writing.

Still, if you'd like to express your support, I welcome small donations via Spacebox, but I'd be equally appreciative of a simple email with a few words of advice or support.

For those in the independent community, I strongly advise against implementing an ill-considered monetization method for your weblog. Consider your audience before you decide to ask them for money. Be mindful of the bearing a membership model has upon your readership. Although you might think there'd be no correlation, I suspect the reality is quite to the contrary.

As I wrote in November, 2012:

Anything you earn whilst writing — be it money, friends, connections, or otherwise — is a gift that you would not have had otherwise. To embrace an attitude of self-entitlement and demand more is not only excessive, but it is rather embarrassing.

The lesson is that pursuing things you are passionate about and enjoy will inevitably benefit you in an astounding manner. But, if you choose to pre-define the shape of these gains, you will find yourself disappointed and disillusioned.

Enjoy a sense of blind optimism and write for the sake of writing. You will unquestionably be rewarded for doing so.

In other words, there's more to writing than searching for a fleeting material gain. So, if you plan to introduce a monetization method, please try to keep that in mind.

For those who wish to donate, you can do so via Spacebox. For those who wish to email me instead, you can reach me here.

As always, thank you for your support. Should the situation allow it during the year, I may well consider a formal business model for OneThirtySeven. For now, though, I'm quite happy to just have a few words of support here and there.

At the end of the day, that's really what it's all about.

'The Atlantic' Set to Experiment With Pay Models in 2013

Jeff Bercovici, Forbes:

The Atlantic is two things every legacy publishing company would like to be: profitable and more reliant on digital advertising revenues than on print. But while that may have been good enough in 2012, for 2013 the magazine has a new goal: to get more readers paying, in some form, for digital-only access to its journalism.

Coinciding with the highly-publicized news of Andrew Sullivan's exodus from The Daily Beast, The Atlantic has vaguely shared its intentions to dabble with a variety of digital publishing models in the coming year.

The Atlantic has undergone somewhat of a renaissance in recent years, the shift fueled by the increasing acceptability of long-form, intelligent commentary online. Having only left a paywall model two years ago, The Atlantic is evidently hoping to capitalize upon a mobile-driven landscape, whilst also gleaning higher revenue from its larger audience.

The move, more than anything else, demonstrates a newfound sense of optimism for the sustainability of digital publishing. Unlike several years ago, publishers are no longer blindly grappling for some semblance of profitability from an anarchic environment of freely accessible content. Instead, coaxed by the perceived success of The New York Times in the space, publishers both old and new are emerging with forward-thinking, novel, and sometimes endearing methods for financial sustainability and long-term success.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time, and it appears that 2013 is going to be characterized largely by a widespread shift in digital publishing. Readers worldwide have expressed their discontent with the bloated and outmoded methods employed by Condé Nast, instead praising publications such as The Atlantic and, to a far lesser extent, the minimalism of The Magazine.

The latter half of 2012 saw a rapid uptick in the attention paid toward publishing and I suspect it's now time for the publishers to begin showing their hands for the coming year. Although the specifics of The Atlantic's intended experiments are unclear, I cannot help but feel optimistic for the shifting state of the industry.

As a writer, we're on the precipice of a belated and well-needed disruption of publishing. As a businessperson, we're on the cusp of an overdue improvement in the economics of writing.

In both lights, it's an exciting time for the industry and I look forward expectantly for some altogether new and different methods toward success.

The Value of Writing

For those who've been told writing is an archaic, out-moded hindrance in the contemporary world, I submit this quotation from Time's Person of the Year interview with Barack Obama.

As I was flying back to the United States yesterday afternoon, I found myself reading and re-reading this portion of the fascinating interview. Having dealt with the stigmas of the study of Literature and History, it's refreshing to see such an intelligent take on the value of writing from such an influential figure.

Amidst a year of tests and accomplishments in business, I'm frequently greeted with looks of sheer bafflement and shock when I mention my degree. There's a strange alienation in the West from the value of thinking. Despite the paramount importance of effective communication and reasoning, we treat the formal study of such endeavors as limiting.

The root cause is that, for whatever reason, people are afraid to be left alone with their thoughts. Dancing around realities with phones held high in front of our eyes, we obscure ourselves from our experiences and tidy the truth away into the depths of our sub-conscious.

Entertaining stimuli and quick, unfulfilling routes to monetary success have replaced the benefits of thinking and confronting our troubles. We've fooled ourselves into this false sense of catharsis, wherein the technology aids us and our problems simply melt away. Where the study of business is the sole route toward success, the works of great thinkers relegated to the realms of monetarily irrelevance.

Realistically, though, as evidenced by one of the most powerful men in the world, there is little more constructive, valuable, and indelible than committing words to paper. It's an act at the root of all disciplines, but one that has been obscured out of a strange fear of expression and self-awareness.

So, for those of you who choose not to study things like Literature, I offer the President of the United States' testimony as to the under-appreciated value of the written word. It's an endeavor undeserving of derision and self-deprecation, but rather deserving of praise and appreciation from all facets of the modern world.

After a year of writing online, I leave you with this article and quotation as my last of 2012.

Thank you for reading, writing, and making 2012 all that it has been. Here's to a productive, exciting, and challenging new year.

Instagram Reverts to Original Terms, World Apparently Ending Again

Bryan Bishop, reporting for The Verge:

Despite the public reaction, it's important to note that some of the changes Instagram suggested were actually improvements, outlining what the company could do in narrow, specific terms. The proposed tweaks made it very clear that advertisers, for example, couldn't just stick their logo on one of your photos and use it as an Instagram ad. The language the company's going back to is so broad that such use isn't out of the realm of possibility — and in that sense today's development is actually a loss for users. That's to say nothing of the rather gaping transparency hole left in the "Rights" section: a line that states Instagram never has to directly identify advertisements or sponsored content to users in the first place.

I promised myself that I was done with my coverage of the Instagram debacle, but this development is just an unavoidable conglomeration of embarrassing reporting, hyperbole, baited headlines, and misinformation. 

For full effect, let's recap the chronological events surrounding Instagram from this past week:

1. On Monday, December 17, Instagram announced that it was making overdue updates to its Terms of Service (last updated in October, 2010). In the announcement, little was said aside from a statement of reassurance over photo ownership rights. Importantly, these changes were scheduled to go into effect on January 16, 2013 — not immediately.
2. Upon noticing the changes, armchair lawyers began to pore over the minute intricacies of the legal document. Noticing vague statements about advertising and rights, journalists tripped over themselves to cast the most negative spin on the harmless legal stipulations. Because, well, Facebook? Something like that, anyway.
3. The following day, having presumably finished banging his head squarely against a wall for 24 hours, Nilay Patel surfaced with an article utterly dispelling all of the hyperbole, misplaced negativity, and general lack of comprehension surrounding the Terms of Service. Patel assured Instagram users that the Terms of Service was not, in fact, the harbinger of the Mayan apocalypse, but actually a fairly reasonable improvement upon the preceding document.
4. Almost simultaneously, the most long-form article taking advantage of the situation was published by Wired. Meanwhile, at about this moment, average users of Instagram were reposting wistful, sepia-toned screenshots of the offending portions of the Terms of Service. Others took to Twitter to opine about what Instagram's "suicide note" meant for Flickr and 500px.
5. Soon after Patel's article was published, Kevin Systrom, Instagram co-founder and CEO, took to the Instagram Blog to make an official statement. Clarifying the new rules, Systrom explained that the questionable statements actually disallowed advertisers from appropriating photographs, amongst other things.
6. The following day, Wednesday, December 19, the matter was mostly over with. Snarky bloggers, myself included, took the opportunity to deride the repeated tendency toward the fear-mongering displayed by large-scale publications and armchair professionals, but little more was to be said.
7. Today, Friday, December 21, however, Kevin Systrom has posted a further update to the Instagram Blog announcing that the company will be reverting to its October, 2010 Terms of Service. In doing so, it's Systrom's stated intention that he and his company will solidify monetization plans before introducing updated legal terms. This will allow users to truly comprehend the extent of the company's plans without any guesswork.

Now, mere days after journalists were inaccurately babbling about the misperceived dangers of the new terms, Bryan Bishop has proudly announced that reverting to the old Terms of Service is dangerous. Granted, Bishop is a writer for The Verge — the source of the initial salvo of legally-justified rationale earlier this week — but the tone rings resoundingly poorly with me.

Instagram, confronted by thousands upon thousands of misled users, was forced into a public relations nightmare. This was largely incited by a core grouping of alarmist journalists who spend their days twitching over "BREAKING" macros and publish buttons. Given the circumstance, however, it's understandable why the news spread so quickly. We're in the midst of a slow news cycle and some sort of harmful stipulations from a Facebook property were far too good to pass up, let alone allow dozens of other publications to publish without doing the same.

But, today, after all that we've been through, we once again see a publication attempting to cast a negative spin onto something temporary and harmless. An action which, less than three days ago, users and journalists were both clamoring for.

Yes, we're aware that the new Terms of Service was, after all, a significant improvement upon its predecessor. But, at the same time, the mere fact that such panic could've been prompted by basic language suggests that there is plenty of room for clarity and revision. In other words, there is plenty of due cause and logic beneath a decision to hold off on a Terms of Service revision — which was not scheduled to become active until mid-January — until the language and purpose can be fully articulated.

As of writing, Bishop's article, "Instagram reverts terms of service after public outcry, makes them arguably worse," is sitting atop The Verge's featured articles on the front page. With a ludicrously misleading and controversy-laden headline, a matter-of-fact pull quote, "Today's news is actually a loss for users," and a tiny admission at the end of the article that, of course, Instagram has weeks to offer new language before its current changeover date, the whole article sits extremely poorly with me.

The message to be taken away from this is simple: Instagram is actively pursuing clarity in its Terms of Service. Furthermore, Systrom has a desire to fully develop the company's monetization plan before enacting any further policy changes. In English, that means Instagram is still on the same trajectory, it has the same terms as it has for two years without offending you, and it's attempting to ensure clarity and accountability for its users.

I'm not saying that the as-yet-unseen document Instagram is drafting will be good. Equally, I'm not saying that Instagram's monetization method will be gracious and without offense. I'm simply highlighting the fact that Instagram's moves — when you strip away the media-driven hyperbole and spin — make perfect sense. The new terms, if they'd gone unnoticed or without outrage, would've benefitted us as users. Conversely, the old terms which we've lived under for two years — and continue to live under today — will surely be acceptable for a little longer. Adding clarity to a user-benefitting document and displaying accountability for perceived mistakes is an unquestionably good thing.

Publications are invariably going to continue to dodge the blame for their gross inaccuracies earlier this week and Instagram's retraction is likely going to be fuel to reach that end. But, given all that we've learned this week, perhaps we can survive one day without breaking out the Internet crisis weapons and hyperbole.

There's really nothing to see here.

Armchair Lawyers Surprisingly Proven Wrong?

Mat Honan, writing for Wired:

I think there’s a reasonable middle position. I believe Instagram should be able to make money. Facebook telegraphed that something like this was coming just last week, and my reaction at the time was “good.” I was happy that Instagram had a revenue model. It isn’t a charity. And companies that don’t make money are doomed to fail. Facebook paid a lot of damn money to buy Instagram, and it’s natural to want some return on that.

Yet I also believe it’s wrong to take people’s photos – out of context – for use in advertisements. With no way to opt out.

Yesterday afternoon, as our collective hyperventilation over Instagram reached its peak, a number of articles were published with what can be described, at best, as unfortunate timing. Mat Honan, for instance, sought to take advantage of the situation and lead an ethical stand against Instagram in a post entitled, 'Why I Quit Instagram.'

Perhaps if Wired had published the article a little earlier, the concluding statement — cited above — would've impacted with slightly more seriousness. Instead, Honan's article arrived just as the Internet's resident legal policeman, Nilay Patel, had unravelled much of the hyperbole surrounding Instagram's Terms of Use language.

Heaping further soil onto the fire, Kevin Systrom then wrote a formal response to the public outcry over its boilerplate legal language on the Instagram Blog.

Now, Honan obviously wasn't the only person to fully buy into this now-defunct crisis, but his article certainly demonstrates a point: people on the Internet need to understand that the nature of digital business is maturing. The Internet in its glory days was, contrary to popular belief, uncontrolled anarchy. Creating a successful business was not so much an art as it was simply throwing together a webpage and hoping people found it.

Today, in order to succeed — and to continue to succeed — there are inevitably going to be increasingly limiting and onerous implications upon privacy, amongst innumerable other factors. Such is the nature of legal diction when covering a variety of non-threatening matters in an ever-evolving sphere of innovation.

Rather than rushing to call your signature "bullshit" judgment (Oh, look at how controversial you are!) or incite a premature ethical response to something you fundamentally do not understand, perhaps it'd be best for all of us to collectively wait until someone with some pertinent experience might explain the situation.

Over this past week, amidst a slow news cycle, Twitter has become much more of an echo chamber than normal. Whether it's discussions of gun control, privacy policies, or mental health, virtually everyone seems to have come out of the woodwork with ill-informed and woefully self-righteous perspectives. Such is the nature of a highly-curated list of people you're willing to engage with.

Unlike the exponentially more serious issues of gun control and mental health, however, Instagram has proven to be a point of resounding embarrassment for an enormous portion of armchair professionals. Having spent the better part of 24 hours fetching pitchforks and flammable liquids, suddenly rationality and reason returned to the scene leaving countless commentators pale-faced and clamoring for excuses.

As of writing, the "Update" above Honan's post states in full:

Update: Instagram said they’re “listening”, stating that “The language we proposed also raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement.” That question was raised because the terms of service language said very explicitly that photos could be used as part of anadvertisement. I appreciate the update, and Instagram’s willingness to communicate — and I’m listening. But the company still hasn’t really said anything. Without a clear commitment on its end, I’m not making a clear commitment either: In short, I still want options.

Although I appreciate that there is, indeed, further to go in the matter, Honan's update rings false to me. Simply put, Honan was swept up in the hype of a situation he didn't fully comprehend. Of course, he wasn't alone, but I think it serves as a glimmering endorsement of shutting up, getting out of the way, and reserving judgment until you have all the facts in hand.

The slow Holiday news cycle has been a repeated lesson in the pitfalls of hastened journalism and opinion-making. But, more than anything else, we've again witnessed just how fearful people can be of things they do not fully understand. Although I don't expect that to be rectified, it'd be nice if we might all begin to hold these writers accountable for inciting such outrage over matters they themselves do not grasp.