Friday Five: 2017’s best blog posts

It’s time for the annual look back at the year’s blog post and re-share the ones that gained the most interest.

Here are the top five, as judged by pageviews.

Friday Five: Fiscal year favorites

Happy Fiscal New Year to all whose budget year ends on June 30, which is many of us in higher education. Here’s a look back at this blog’s five most popular posts of FY17.

A new Twitter list for #highered news junkies

Are you interested in getting the latest news from journalists and news outlets that specialize in higher education? If so, I’ve got a list for you.

16 tweets that defined my 2016

Twitter’s analytics dashboard offers a month-by-month view of activity.

Thanks to Twitter’s analytics tools, users can take a look at their top tweets, top mentions, top followers and other vanityesque metrics (which, we’re told, can be dangerous if misused or misinterpreted). It’s a fun stroll down a virtual memory lane. It’s also instructive, as it provides some indication of what got traction in the ephemeral social mediasphere, and perhaps offers some clues as to why.

Twitter at 10: I still #LoveTwitter

I #LoveTwitter so much, I even love the #failwhale (my 2009 Halloween costume)

Happy birthday, Twitter! The social media platform is 10 years old today, but Twitter kicked off the celebration early with this tweet and video on Sunday.

Starting in 🇦🇺 on 3/21 and moving across the 🌍, we thank you for 10 incredible years.

Love, Twitter#LoveTwitterhttps://t.co/pH4WWdgK6q

— Twitter (@Twitter) March 20, 2016

Over the past 24 hours, the love for Twitter has been pouring in from all across the globe in the form of tweets, articles and blog posts. I’m happy to see this, because Twitter has taken more than its fair share of grief over the past few months. Some people aren’t crazy about how Twitter has tweaked its timeline. Investors want to see more growth. And Twitter’s toying with the idea of expanding the character count from 140 to 10,000 has irked many users, including me.

I haven’t been with Twitter since the get-go. (Few people have.) But I signed up in September 2007 — so I’ve been on the platform for eight-plus of its 10 years. I’ve remained fairly active as a Twitter user, mainly because it remains my go-to learning network. It’s also been a way of connecting with many people I’ve never met in real life but feel like I know. Sometimes, those online connections lead to offline meetups, which is always great because I feel like I know some people — or something about those people — before I ever really meet them.

I think Lance Ulanoff best describes how I feel about Twitter in his Mashable article on the platform’s 10th anniversary:

My relationship with Twitter is best summarized as the kind you have with a sibling. I love it, deeply, but also question its choices. I can be vocal in both my admiration and my dissatisfaction. Yet, at the end of the day, we’re tied together.