PICAXE on social media, what went wrong ?

Buzby

Senior Member
On the PICAXE store ( https://www.picaxestore.com/ ), at the top-left are three 'social media' buttons.

Lockdown has given me plenty time to explore things I've not looked at before, so I clicked these buttons.

I wish I hadn't bothered.

The FB page has had 12 comments in 9 years, the Youtube channel hasn't been update for 6 years, and the Twitter account has had two tweets since 2009.

Compare these figures with the blizzard of activity on just about every other social media page regarding microcontrollers, and one wonders why PICAXE is so poorly represented.

Stay safe,

Buzby
 

matchbox

Senior Member
I'm not on FB or Twitter. But some more good Youtube tutorials on Picaxe's setup and syntax would have been welcome for me in the early days. And may still be useful for people thinking about, or just starting out with Picaxe. There are so many Arduino, Adafruit etc tutorials on Youtube.
 

cpedw

Senior Member
I haven't found Youtube a satisfactory way to learn things. In my experience, it takes a long time with a lot of hand-waving, pointless chatter and unpleasant music when reading would have got me there in half the time.
Maybe it's an age thing - I'm rapidly approaching 3 score & 10.

Derek
 

papaof2

Senior Member
I've passed that magic age but I also find that music on most technical presentations adds nothing to the information and always detracts from the presentation when it overrides the speaker's voice. If you wish to communicate, do so clearly. If you place text on the screen use the presentation rule of thumb that the text should be there long enough to read it aloud - twice. If you speak, be the loudest voice. Why spend hours polishing a 20 minute How-to and then have half your words unintelligible?

I attended a company school on the C language back in the dark ages but I'm self-taught in the other programming languages I've use - lots of dialects of BASIC on the micro platforms ;-) plus SQL and various other database dialects plus HTML and PHP plus VBA in Excel. I set up a couple of Excel VBA applications to do things with various database servers that the people responsible for those servers had told the users couldn't be done. Sometimes you just need to get out of the box and pay attention to the data that's there and the ways it can be used together - if all transactions have a date/time stamp, you can determine how long it took for each step of a process to happen.

I think PICAXE might not have played well with social media because so many standalone (not part of a software development group) programmers are introverts and aren't about to share their dirty laundry on Facebook or Twitter ;-)




https://picaxeforum.co.uk/threads/read-me-first.7679/


edited by Eclectic
 
Last edited by a moderator:

wapo54001

Senior Member
Over the years I have noticed quite a number of oddities in the way Rev-Ed have handled their business but if you look at it all in the light of what I believe to be their mission statement -- to bring programming to British schools -- you can see that what they do does make sense and what they don't do also makes sense. If something doesn't further your mission, don't do it and don't spend money or resources on it. This narrow mission is the only reason I can think of that seems to explain it all . . .
 

premelec

Senior Member
I've not had anything to do with UK schools but am forever grateful that Peter Anderson brought PICAXEs to my attention so many years ago - perhaps an unintended consequence of RevEd's; still aiding my education . I'm 84 years old and still learning from this forum and using PICAXEs. I don't participate in the various 'social media' sites - too little time... ;-0
 

cpedw

Senior Member
This thread seems to confirm what I have suspected for quite a long time - many Picaxe forum users (is that the same set as Picaxe users?) are well past school age and a significant proportion are not UK based.
 

hippy

Technical Support
Staff member
many Picaxe forum users (is that the same set as Picaxe users?) are well past school age and a significant proportion are not UK based.
Both impressions seem true to me.

PICAXE users of school age are usually using the PICAXE as part of their school courses and most get all the help they need from teachers and their friends and rarely seek help from the forum. Most PICAXE users are likely never seen on the forum.
 

inglewoodpete

Senior Member
I don't have a twit-face login so never paid any attention to it. This forum does me fine.

My 24-year-old daughter tells me that Facebook is "not cool" any more, so maybe the younger PICAXErs don't know about it.

On Facebook, I don't need to be wished a happy birthday by 427 people, many I hardly know, nor do I need a news feed telling me how many times Prince Harry has got divorced in the last year.
 

Eng460

Well-known member
Given that we older users from remote locations are not the “mission critical“ target audience, it is all the more impressive that Rev Ed provide the excellent support through a Hippy, (and possibly other staff members?) on this forum that we all benefit from.

In that respect they are doing way better than bigger companies who charge much more for their products.

And not forgetting more than a few very knowledgeable other members that are so generous with their time and knowledge.

We all owe a great debt of thanks. So I hope we are all learning enough skills through our hobby activities to be a legitimate extension of the education part of the mission. I am sure that I am, and while so much is easily learned from the manuals, they have their limits when we demand so much of our projects.

Eng460
 

johnlong

Senior Member
Prince Harry has got divorced in the last year.

Boy did I miss that one.
Totally agree with Eng460 this site offers help and assistance when you need it
and the possibility too look at things from a diffrent angle, which greatly adds to the picaxe experiance
The comments and assistant is sober without the yelling and deflamatory comments you find on other sites.
Where alot of if you dont know what are you doing why are you posting.
But I do agree that videos do add to the experiance as they can show the potental which can be achived wetting the
apitite for a more indepth look at the chip. And on that note can you post directly to the forum and if so how large can the file be
So on that note a big thanks to all the contributers questioners and answersers thats what make a forum
 

erco

Senior Member
If Rev-Ed wants a bigger Instagram presence, these young interns are available immediately!

 
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