February 11, 2010
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When social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter made "status updates" a regular thing on the internet, there was a fear that this will decrease the general need to blog. The thinking behind that is "why bother writing a full blog, when you can just micro-blog?" The obvious response to that is that you can say and do a lot more on a regular blog, than with 140 characters on Twitter. However there is a certain convenience to just saying a little bit of what you want to say, than spending the time to elaborate on your thoughts. The idea behind status updates is to just spread out what you are thinking, but not necessarily have to explain it right away. "Micro-blogging" indeed.
I'm afraid I'm kinda falling under that trap. I seem to have embraced status updates, as I've been been blogging considerably less than I used to, despite my weekly "random links" and "blogthings / what I'm listening to" posts. I've even started posting a blog, listing my status updates from twitter/facebook, which feels ironic to do. I've blamed time being a factor that's been eating at me, with all the things I do (or want to do) on my regular day to day life, and spending the time on my blog has suffered. It's just been too tempting to take advantage of the alternative option of spending less time by just micro-blogging my thoughts on Twitter/Facebook. However I'd like to say that I'm still completely on board with this blog, but the frequency of my entrees are probably going to be a little bit irregular.
Comments (4)
In my opinion "twitter brain farts" < "well thought out blog"
Status updates and twits (I kind of think of them as the same thing) are essentially presence monitoring (like the presence settings you have in IM). It gives you a little information so you have a general idea of what the person is doing. It's nothing like the posts in a blog.
One example is this:
twit = "yo! me in da house"
blog entry = long philosophical debate with a friend
Not saying that they can't be equivalent but they shouldn't be. Twits are just status updates. It actually shouldn't even be something you manually do. When the technology gets better, it should become something like a passive monitor of what your current status is. For example:
GPS posts where you are
Calendar posts your plans or where you're supposed to be at the time
IMs, SMS, constant voice recognition posts your conversations and quick thoughts
always on camera takes snapshots of interesting things or faces of people you meet (we do have face recognition built in to cameras these days)
When you get a chance check out "My Life Bits". This is a concept that was put forward in the 60s that commodity technology has just recently gotten good enough to implement. I'm waiting for voice recognition to get really good to transcribe conversations and then we're all set. Perfect memory and recall everywhere, with the ability to fast forward and rewind every part of my life.
Besides the status updates that talks about what a person is doing or a quick opinion for all to see, I also find them quite useful when posting random links to see (it's like another newsfeed). I prefer blogs for the detail it can bring, but there's nothing really wrong with status updates. Although I've seen many people abuse it's uses and that can get ridiculous.
Ooooh! New twitter webapp! It follows a feed and figures out when you're not at home and can be easily robbed. Looks like it's for all over the world. I love the Net.
@darren_macintyre - yeah I saw that too. It's worse if you are using foursquare, since that's purely tracking your location via GPS. LOL
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