Twitter: Blogging for the Lazy?
Ever since I have become more active on Twitter, I am finding that I am reading fewer blog posts. What is even more worrisome is that it seems like a lot of people who zealously jump into "tweeting"[1] start to blog less. This is troubling, to say the least. Several people who I follow on Twitter will make comments in multiple 140 character tweets[2] in order to communicate their message. This is flat-out wrong. If you can’t tweet what you want to say within 140 characters, then it shouldn’t be tweeted in the first place, but should rather be blogged. Certainly, it is easier to just blast away a 140 character comment than it is to write a couple of complete sentences on a blog. Plus, the immediacy and ephemerality of tweeting does have its own appeal. But just like SMS or IRC before that, Twitter should be used for ideas and thoughts that are not intended to be perdurable.
[1] "Tweeting" is the act of submitting a message on Twitter.
[2] 140 characters is the maximum allowed per tweet.
P.S. I can be followed at http://twitter.com/pbrao
April 4th, 2009 at 9:01 am
why is less blogging troubling? i think we’re trading the value of thought-out edited publishing for the immediacy of real-time grunts (which have value collectively).
why are continuation tweets wrong? i thought that there are no rules on twitter…that this is an experiment to evolve communication. character limits are not the only important difference between twitter and blogs (i think it may have been you who prompted some of my thinking on this). perhaps an alternative will come along that has many of the benefits of twitter, but allows more characters.
p.s. i am trying feedly for the first time today. wow. i would have never read this post otherwise.
p.p.s. can you make the captcha box some other color? it’s very alarming.
April 4th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Nate,
Perhaps I am a bit traditional, but collective consciousness that is exhibited through a serious of 140 character “grunts” is, IMHO, qualitatively inferior than well thought out and reasoned essays/books. It is a lot easier to rip off a pithy one-liner than write a well-reasoned argument.
There certainly aren’t any rules on how to “tweet”, but I think as these new social media (i.e., blogging, tweeting) mature, we need to come to a shared understanding of what media to use to express ourselves in different circumstances. In fact, I think most of us know when to use email vs SMS. We can “text” each other about dinner plans, but we would rather email when discussing the role of nutritional science in the decline of the American diet, for example.
I think one of the potential advancements in this area will come in the form of aggregaters or lifestreams, where a single application can weave together the relevant social networks. (Is that what Feedly does? I’ll have to check it out).
P.S. I changed the look/feel of the captcha. Thanks.