Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Fireant — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:49:17 -0000

So wrong

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Cat — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:56:47 -0000

Wow, a lot of time spent on an argument that really doesn't matter. People have opinions but do you realize you'll never get this time back?

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Alexander Higgins — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:10:20 -0000

Wow, someone is not happy with twitter. Don't get me wrong... I see alot of senselessness in these apps to but. I just blogged about the frustrations of trying to make my computer understand what I was thinking and well...

Let's just say all I wanted to do that night was to be able to twitter to my blog!!

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Pascal Rauma, Finland — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:04:42 -0000

I re-read the definition of what a blog is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... and honestly I don't see in what Twitter differs from it save the obligatory length, hence micro.
Definition apart, blogging is whatever one decides it is, provided it fits a/m definition, no matter the support/platform.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Doc Rock — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:11:38 -0000

One great side of twitter that is missing from this banter is the many tweetups that are held all over the world all generated for twitter. I have meet some great folk that way and have initiated some business as well.

Gizmodo was a great for profit blog that i used to read regularly and they had one too many socially not so responsible fails over the last year or so. Now many other "bloggers" are too having the same issues. So hearing directly from a few real people is awesome and helpful.

You sparked a good fight but why not try asking us how we feel about micro-blogging rather than spoon-feeding some less savvy readers with misshapen information. The people who use it know weather it is useful or not, not a one-sided review.

Just a thought.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

imma — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:35:25 -0000

I think you're a little hard on twitter - if it was providing an equal experience it wouldn't be a *micro* blog ;)
Although an individual twitter post might not provide as much depth as a normal blog post a twitter conversation involving several posts can easily include more depth.

Also you appear not to be including the horrible spam blogs in your concept of bloggs.

- imma

ps : congrats on such a provocative post though - it definately seems to have made people think about it :)
pps : is this a good microblogging example? a breif summary of what might go in a blog post : http://twitter.com/aaronrm/... (random post i found looking for mention of 'Wall-E')

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Adolfo — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:04:28 -0000

381 characters. The Black Sheep is one of the microtales written by Augusto Monterroso. This guatemalan is considered among the best spanish writers in the XX century because of his short fables (http://tinyurl.com/6p8ndv).
There should be plenty of reasons to argue why Twitting is not MicroBlogging. I think size of the posts is the weakest. Most of the times, 140 characters are enough to say the things we use to say in our Blogs. DonÂ´t you think so, Steven?

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Neal Campbell — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:51:41 -0000

If Blogging is a contraction of Web logging, then Twitter fits, Brightkite fits, and almost anything that's recorded on the Web in any format fits. You're adding a time and effort component that hasn't traditionally been a part of the definition.

I put a considerable amount of thought into some of my tweets. It isn't always easy to craft a sentence in a way that fits it neatly into 140 characters. I often put much more effort into individual sentences posted on Twitter than individual sentences posted on a blog or comment. My last tweet took a good 10 minutes to get just right.

So if Twitter isn't micro-blogging what is your definition and what is your definition of blogging?

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Nicholas — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:18:03 -0000

I noticed that earlier, you said that the point of a blog was to generate conversation. I think that is the main thing that your post misconstrued. Implied in this definition is that a microblog is something which is smaller than a blog, but still generates a conversation. Twitter falls under that definition.

You "devalue" your post by implying that blogging is something which can be devalued - this implies that blogging has some intrinsic value that you think Twitter cannot have. (You also somewhat "devalue" your comments by seemingly replying to almost every individual comment to your post, with a number of them filled with typos and unnecessary sarcasm, but that's addressing the person and not the idea presented here.)

As for this post getting far more comments than a "more important" blog post on another subject, the subject of this post is more magnetic to comments, as most inflammatory posts are. Whether this is good or not depends on what your goal for a post is - do you want to generate a conversation and have a large number of comments? Or do you want to inform your reader and enable them to learn something new? The latter is likely what the "more important" posts you are referring to are aiming for, while the former is what this post seems to be aiming for.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

littleidea — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:56:40 -0000

My initial reaction to the description of twitter, was 'that is the stupidest thing ever'.

Now I consider it a critical tool.

I search for posts about our product and retweet the good or try to help the frustrated.

Twitter is great at conferences and has got me more than a dozen face to face conversations I might not have had otherwise. That is just in the last 6 weeks.

The one point people seem to be missing in this discussion: twitter being one to many is not what makes it special. Using @, twitter is a conversation that other people can overhear. Twitter is like IM where all your friends can see who you are talking to and what you are talking about. That's where the magic happens.

Twitter being micro-blogging or not, is a non-issue created by people trying to define what they don't understand in terms of what they do.

twitter.com/littleidea

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Damian Madray — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:53:48 -0000

I somewhat agree with some points in your post. Sometimes, it does seem pointless but twitter is a great promo tool.

What I really want to say is that I think the fundamental problem about your post is that you didn't define 'micro-blogging.' You assume your readers know what it is and we do but clearly you have a different definition than the masses.

In order for anyone to completely agree with your point, you should give your definition of micro-blogging and maybe we could see it from your perspective.

Lastly, twitter as an IM? Twitter doesn't meet my need as any IM such as Gmail, MSN, etc. If it doesn't meet those need, it's NOT an IM. Don't make it what it's not.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Dave Saunders — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 08:56:22 -0000

Before blogging software, I remember how blogging evolved from the web change log that engineers maintained as one of the pages of a web site (after all, we were engineers and we kept change logs of any source code base). Those change logs would pick up random comments like "going to see Batman tonight. Bought 39 tickes to take the staff" and in the mid-90s many started to notice the "change log" was getting more hits than the rest of the site.

That was a blog, in its raw form and that matches what these "micro blogs" provide in a very authentic way.

Yes, the common usage of Twitter may be like IM but that doesn't mean that Twitter is NOT micro-blogging. From the perspective of history, twitter is more like a blog than most of the blogs today.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Joshua March — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:59:12 -0000

You seem to be missing the whole point. 'Blogging' is simply a term for writing on the web. You may personally attach more memes to it, probably because you spend a lot of time perusing well thought out tech blogs, but the vast majority of blogs are personal notes, mainly meant for friends, on places like MySpace.

You may as well say that magazines aren't proper writing; only books are proper writing!

Twitter's a tool which allows you to maintain a blog-like website which you can update with small (micro) text (blogging). The term has absolutely no correlation to the quality or subject of the writing itself.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Mark — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 02:10:03 -0000

No one's trying to make Twitter out to be more important than it is. You just have an incredibly inflated view of the significance of blogging.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Nosredna — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:19:16 -0000

You're wrong. You're following the wrong people.

Twitter is microblogging if you're following the correct people.

Some people can say more in 140 characters than most bloggers say in a wind-baggy 10 paragraphs. It's not work to say everything that comes to mind. That's just egotism.

Work is in editing, not writing.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Vanessa — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:30:03 -0000

I've come to the conclusion no one seems to know what a blog is anyway.

I could be wrong and that's okay, but I think what Twitter does is remind bloggers what blogging use to be before it became e-real estate and blogs began to look like registered domain websites.

Until I read this I couldn't put my finger on why I'm having a hard time--blogging lately. Just today I was thinking my blog sucks and wondered if I was just having a bad day.

It just might be that it needs to be more like Twitter: Writing what you want, when you want. Please, show me a true blog in 2008.

A blogger since 2003

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Damon Billian — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:12:17 -0000

"The fact is that Twitter is no different than another service that we have had for a very long time on the Web and itâ€™s called Internet Messenger or Gtalk or any number of messenger type services."

I agree:) The only difference is that the distribution of Twitter is different than the more established Messaging services & truly sits on the web as an application (not a download, etc.).

I am using Twitter right now, after a long hiatus, and I am still on the fence. But I don't think it resembles blogging in many, many ways...

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Bob Duffy — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:59:10 -0000

I consider Twitter microblogging. It logs my daily opinions, experiences on the web. That's a blog. But it is much more. It is social networking. I get more value from the network of microblogs from Twitter tnan any other source of media. I found this post from Twitter. And some of the best conversations and issues with my colleagues have been hashed out with Twitter.

Twitter is allowing people to connect with each other quickly and simply. The form lends itself to blogging of many quick and simple thoughts. With that you get ideas and expressions that represent a broad experience. Many inane and trivial while others capture valuable thoughts and actions the very moment they happen.

Why should that make it "less" of a blog. In some ways its a purer form of social media. Blogging too often mirrors traditional media tactics of well crafted and planned articles that distance themselves from the real time thoughts and feelings of the author.

Don't feel insulted that it's aligned with blogging. It's just another tool that many people are finding valuable as they embrace online conversations. That should not take away from traditional blogging.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Vicki Brown — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:57:08 -0000

Twitter is a communication tool. It can be a microblogging tool, a news-aggregation tool, a location-sharing tool, an IM tool, or a tool for twaddle.

According to the man who claims to have invented the term "weblog" our current "blogging" isn't "weblogging". Things change when people get involved.

WordPress is a "blogging tool" but I don't use it for a blog. I use Word Press to run a meme. For me, WP is not a blogging tool.

Twitter is just another way to write on the Web. It's a way to share information. Whether it's a "microblogging" tool depends entirely upon who is doing the writing (and the reading)... and the defining. :)

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

graywolf — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 22:55:28 -0000

I'll offer up 2 tweets which are profound despite their brevity

http://twitter.com/gaberive...

http://twitter.com/JetBlue/...

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

Anthony Stevens — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:40:03 -0000

You're trying to define blogging in terms of the tools, not in terms of the resulting conversation. Do you even really know what blogging is all about?

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

baz — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:26:53 -0000

QFT

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

baz — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 20:23:36 -0000

If anything is "micro-blogging" it's FriendFeed. Surely the lowest end of the blogging spectrum is simply posting a link with a comment. That's exactly what FF allows you to do (esp. using the bookmarklet - just like "BlogThis!").

But that's not my point really. I'm sort of with you in you point that "real" blogging involves a bit more thought, and yes, "work". But we don't really need to label everything do we? Twitter/FF/Blogger etc. all do the same thing and they all do different things too.

Just FYI, Ping.fm lets you choose whether updates to Twitter are considered as "Status Updates" or "Micro-blogging". Ping.fm *does* need to classify these things to make the service easier for their users. But, do we?

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

the Michael Schneider — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:39:20 -0000

Twitter is nothing more than OpenIM (open instant messenger). I couldn't agree with you more.

Re: Twitter is Not a Micro-Blogging Tool

StevenHodson — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:39:52 -0000

thank you nafnosseb for returning and trying to clarify your position - I appreciate that. Perhaps my use of the word devalues might have been incorrent - even though I still thinkn to ta point it does - but not from the fact that people use the service is so many different ways. I have written on my home blog many times how I think that Twitter does provide a valuable service and probably some that we may not even realize at this point. That doesn't change the fact that I don't consider it to be a microblogging medium.

As for how I used Twitter in the past I first started out using it because I wrote one of the first desktop clients for (Windows only) so I had an extremely wide range of contacts. From the A-List right down to the "I just burped" crowd. Once I stopped developing I began to be far more selective about who made it to my Twitter list but I always tried to have a wide range.

At this point I haven't used Twitter or any of the services and clients built up around it for going on a week now and I don't miss it at all - I wouldn't be able to say the same about FriendFeed (which I don't consider to be microblogging tool either).

This really all boils down to personal choices of the tools we use to communicate and I have enough history in the computer and computer communication industry to say that nothing out there now is really all that new in principal. Sure the way they are being delieved - mainly by HTTP since that is harder to firewall against - has changed.

But none of this stuff is revolutionary or even evolutionary.

Again thanks for returning to expand on you comments - this is what blogging is about and could never be done with a 140 character limit.