Comments on: Micro-blog killed the long-form blog

By: e-head

e-head — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:09:44 +0000

The short-form blog is virtually of no interest whatsoever to anyone outside someone’s immediate circle. I assume you could care less what I had for breakfast, or what movie I’m going to tonight. After all, you don’t even know me.

The long-form blog is more for ideas and topics which may be of interest to others. It allows these ideas and topics to be more fleshed out.

By: Andrew Littler

Andrew Littler — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:25:09 +0000

I agree and I do not. I micro-blog and I blog-blog and I personal-blog. Why cant we do all three? My first blog, my pseudo-pundit blog, is the stuff I want taken seriously, the micro is forwarded to my personal one.

With so many aggregator and RSS/ API based cross posting programs, I see this becoming less a problem

By: John H Maloney

John H Maloney — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:13:10 +0000

I do find myself twittering a lot more that blogging, but that’s largely because it’s more convenient and it’s the new toy. However, I doubt it will ever replace blogging, To use analogy that I’m sure someone else has probably already come up with, twittering is like poetry whereas conventional blogging is more akin to prose. One form is shorter and more concise, but the other allows for more detail. Both are valid forms in their own way.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:36:08 +0000

Great post - I tend to agree that blogging will not die, and I’ll go a step further and say that it might actually become elevated. Microblogging has mass appeal, almost anyone can do it without much effort or skill. If microblogging becomes the communication method of choice for people who just want to do quick shout-outs to their friends or post short tidbits, perhaps then blogging will become more of a journalistic endeavor, the path taken by people who do want to write long, thoughtful articles, establish themselves as thought-leaders, and reach a wider, more engaged audience. Kind of like the difference between the many people who draw tons of cute stick figures on the sidewalk, versus the few who take the time to create paintings…

By: Jaimesh Mistry

Jaimesh Mistry — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:43:03 +0000

Holy smokes! Jeff Putz couldn’t have put it any better!

Microblogging is taking the blogosphere by storm. My wordpress hasn’t been touched in weeks, and it seems a bit of a shame. Tweeting (or powncing ;-)@KR) is sooo much easier, and it suits the younger generation much better than full on blogging. My friends would never get into blogging. Even with all the ease of wordpress or even blogger, it’s just too time consuming (and a bit boring) to write a post that’s worth reading - especially if you don’t initially have an audience. Much on the contrary, my friends and family love twitter, and its a great way to catch up with the latest goings on of all the admirable people in Cali, like @kevinrose, @Aubs, @alexalbrecht, @DannyTRS, @jeffcannata and (of course) @Neha_T.

By: Jeff Putz

Jeff Putz — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:11:36 +0000

I think the bubble thing is an important thing to remember. It gets harder and harder to consume media from the Web 2.0 crowd because I think they’re losing touch in a big mutual masturbatory mess of alternate reality. When I show people Twitter here in the Midwest, they don’t get the point, or understand why anyone would want up-to-the-minute updates on a person’s rest room breaks.

Anyone can peck out a couple of words, and frankly for a lot of far less talented people than yourself, that’s about as rich as they can communicate. That’s fine. Few great ideas, expressions of love or high impact declarations can come out of a short-form post. I firmly believe it’s just narcissistic noise, and not even interesting noise. It’s like watching Entertainment Tonight, which has little depth about celebrities.

Compare it to the average news package on ABC or something, like whatever forthcoming piece they do on Ted Kennedy. That’s the meat. The headline about his tumor isn’t a story by itself.

I can almost guarantee that any of the packages that NBC does during the Olympics will be a rich and interesting story too. Why? Partly because the 100m dash is boring, but mostly because the underlying stories are far more interesting. If it came down to “Bob Costas is eating a doughnut,” which is pretty much what Twitter et al. is, there’d be little interest.

Your blog posts are like these TV pieces. In that respect I would encourage you to not limit the scope of what you think a blog should be. Your Twitter stuff is likely relevant to your closer friends (and to stalkers), but I suspect that The Real Neha is a lot more complex and has more to say.

Keep saying it.

By: Davor

Davor — Wed, 21 May 2008 07:45:58 +0000

I think micro blogging is great for quick updates, reporting from live events and generally, posting updates when you are on your mobile device and can’t use your computer for whatever reason. Having your own CMS can not be compared to micro blogging at all in my opinion. Blog is much better for promoting yourself or a company, selling things and advertise online. On the other hand, if you do any of this on any micro blogging platform, people just would not take it as seriously as it would be published on a website or a blog. It’s like one wears an awesome t-shirt at work and it’s cool but if the person wants to look professional, the suit is must-wear. I know it’s a stereotype but business is business. Same goes for blogging. I love Pownce,Twitter an Facebook but I’ll never stop blogging because of it.

By: Rémian

Rémian — Wed, 21 May 2008 07:18:53 +0000

Good question! The micro-blogs seems to be more present in our live, because we use them more often. They act also as unposed way to post articles. My work takes a lot of place in my blogger life, so I write article less frequently on my blog focused on techs and web developement. So I think all my readers and friends are looking forward to ervery new post on my blog. Less is more worth indeed.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:27:53 +0000

I don’t think that modes of communication ever truly die. Consider that people are still writing letters on occasion and using forums and BBS style sites and it could be noted that methods of communication may decline over time, but they do not die entirely (unless you communicate through laserdisk or betamax, but that’s a whole other story).

With micro-blogging, it’s great for status updates, but it’s simplicity becomes a crutch whenever you try to do other things with it, like reference posts to search, use tagging, etc. It works well for social networking as it’s basically short bursts of information (similar to social networks that are essentially short bursts of data tied to a human element).

I guess, I’d place money that the micro-blog will get more popular because it’s easy to access, but there may come a time that either a better format or even a medium format arises, like say, combining Twitter with DaMN (DeviantART Message Network) and adding in some lightweight blogging tech like tagging, sharing, more content types, bumping the character limit up, etc. At least, that’s my idea of what Twitter like services might be down the road.

By: Mattie

Mattie — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:20:42 +0000

Oh! I’d also like to add that the honeymoon period with services like Twitter and Pownce and Jaiku and Tumblr will be over at some point. I think that is the real point where accurate predictions can really be made.

At this time, these services are still new. We are only just now migrated out of the early adopter phase and into public saturation.