Andre Torrez wrote a great piece about how his online habits are starting to change. From We met on the Internet:

I’ve been posting about this a bit, but I think my time off pushed me even further along to where I was going. I won’t say “off Twitter”, but I feel like focusing more on things around the edges of Twitter.

And maybe I am just looking for examples””seeing patterns where there are none””but a few things have appeared that makes me feel like other people are feeling the same way.

He goes on to cite some examples of this pattern — Mike Monteiro’s Evening Edition, Dave Pell’s excellent NextDraft, and Dustin Curtis’s Svbtle network.

I’ve also recently found myself yearning for these kinds of off-Twitter experiences that are more substantial, without closing the door on Twitter completely. Now I finally have a phrase for that, thanks to Andre: they’re things around the edges of Twitter.

I often wish I could move all my link-sharing off Twitter and onto this site, but I know that’s not really possible, because the readership isn’t quite there yet. But I much prefer not just tweeting a link, but also adding some thoughts, or even just trying to set the context so people can decide if it’s a link they would be interested in, or not. That’s an “around the edges” experience, since Twitter would still remain central to my workflow, but it wouldn’t be the main activity. Maybe one day I’ll get to do that.

Anyway, that’s quite a tangent. Please read Andre’s excellent post, and think about what that means for you. Does Twitter still add the value to your day that it used to? Bitly did some research recently and found that the average half-life of a link on Twitter is 2.8 hours. After that, it’s pretty much lost forever. Is that ok with you, or are you also starting to cherish the slower, more deliberate communities where you’re allowed to pause and take a breath before moving on to the next thing?

(link via @Mike_FTW)