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February 23rd, 2009

From sites to blogs to Twitter to…

twitter_logo_125x29Admit­tedly, I’ve come a bit late to the whole Twit­ter thing (and I’ve always tried to be such an early adopter – well, ok, BMX bikes passed me by too – and don’t tell any­one but I’m not on FaceBook).

As it stands, a whole week in, I can kind of see the attrac­tion of Twit­ter. Essen­tially, it allows me to get a quick thought out with­out writ­ing a whole blog post. Of course there’s also the abil­ity to stay in vic­ar­i­ous touch with other peo­ple — either those I know or those I’ve heard of. But really it’s a time thing.

It’s inter­est­ing to note that at one time putting your per­sonal thoughts ‘out there’ meant cre­at­ing a web­site (well, there was a bit of a period pre-internet but let’s skip past that one). Updat­ing was a pain and not exactly con­ducive to a dynamic, real time experience.

More recently came blog­ging which made pub­lish­ing the con­tent of your head way, way eas­ier. Every­body waded in, writ­ing lots, updat­ing reg­u­larly. Until life and work got in the way and the posts began appear­ing at more sedate intervals.

Now, with the impo­si­tion of the 140 char­ac­ter limit, dash­ing off a quick thought is, well, pretty quick. It’ll be inter­est­ing to see how this lat­est phe­nom­e­non affects the vol­ume of blog posts. Will peo­ple increas­ingly take the quick and easy over the con­sid­ered? We’ll see.

Of course, this makes me won­der about what comes next. Micro-tweeting with a 20 char­ac­ter limit? Emoti­cons only? Only time will tell.

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  • http://Findmeoninkedin. Ben Evans

    The dis­tinc­tion I’d make as a user of about 3 days who also removed him­self from Face­book as it was all get­ting a bit silly, is that I think blogs are about the writer and their views. Twit­ter is about how peo­ple inform / engage with one another. Twit­ter for work seems to me more like instant mes­sag­ing in it’s poten­tial to be a use­ful busi­ness technology.

  • http://FindmeonLinkedIn.Stilldon'thaveablogandmymobiledoesn'tworksoTwitterisnotreallyworkingformeyet. Ben Evans

    The dis­tinc­tion I’d make, as a Twit­ter user of about 3 days (who removed him­self from Face­book as frankly it was all a bit embar­rass­ing), is that I think blogs are about the writer and their views. The value in Twit­ter arises from peo­ple engag­ing with one another quickly and eas­ily, but in a more ‘broad­cast’ way. I’d liken it to Instant Mes­sag­ing with­out secrets — it’s got poten­tial to be a use­ful busi­ness tech­nol­ogy. There is a recent IDC report on tech mega­trends which talks about com­pa­nies who suc­ceed in the next decade embrac­ing social web as a plat­form for work. I can see Twit­ter being one of the eas­ier plat­forms for busi­nesses to get their heads around. The good news Jay is that you are still in my mind clas­si­fied as one of the early adopters… inter­est­ingly #10 Down­ing Street was in the list when I looked so you’re up there with Gor­don on the bleed­ing edge.

  • http://FindmeonLinkedIn.Stilldon'thaveablogandmymobiledoesn'tworksoTwitterisnotreallyworkingformeyet. Ben Evans

    Clearly i don’t know how to post com­ments either as I seemed to do that twice… sorry.

  • http://b1blog.wordpress.com/ Jay Ball

    Hi Ben

    Twit­ter is obvi­ously in its early days where it is mov­ing from a free wheel­ing ‘wouldn’t-it-be-cool’ idea into some­thing more struc­tured and more com­mer­cial (I’m not say­ing that this is par­tic­u­larly a good thing).

    The peo­ple doing well tend to be the ones who already have a pretty pop­u­lar blog or who are a ‘name’. Every­one else is jump­ing on and hav­ing a play (which is a good thing IMHO).

    How will busi­ness use it? Well, to cre­ate their own names (like Scoble did for Microsoft); to do fast news updates (the polit­i­cal par­ties are going this route although it is also good for events); and as link farms (look what I know).

    The one thing that gets me a bit at the moment is the whole push to retweet. As much as I do retweet the stuff I think is cool, the focus on it by so many sites and twit­ter­ers feels a lit­tle too spammy for my taste.

    At the bleed­ing edge with Gor­don… what a scary thought.

    Cheers

    J