Is Twitter the be all and end of blogging?
There is a lot being made of Twitter at the moment. Ashton Kutcher has a bet with CNN to see who can hit a million followers first. This morning we learned that Twitter had 9.3 million unique visitors in March. There are at least two Twitter-focused conferences that I know of and that’s just the beginning. Twitter is more popular than Britney Spears (that’s probably a good thing) does this mean that blogging has jumped the shark and is on the downslide?
I know I’m not blogging as much as I used to. Myself, those quick, passing thoughts that pop into my head are pushed out in 140 character bites instead of 200 word blog post, but what about everyone else?
By my read, “blogging” is on a downslide, and this is a good thing, but writing and reporting online using a blog engine as the platform is stronger than ever.
Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but what I’m seeing is a steady evolution and maturation of the online publishing community. Twitter fills a great gap between having mass email lists that clog your inbox (can you imagine an email list with 2,000 recipients and people constantly hit reply to all to chat with other members?) and IM (again, massive lists, lots of chatter, easier to ignore though). You can easily turn it off, direct messages come into email to get your attention, and if you want to just catch up on tweets directed to you a quick search will do the trick.
Online publishing, especially combined with the rapid dispersal possible with Twitter, is a powerfully strong way to speak your mind, show off your creativity, or even make a company like Amazon squirm. I’m still writing, and even writing a book on blogging (where I also note that I don’t care if it’s called “blurging” because it’s still writing), and intend on writing more and more (it’s only time that prevents me from doing this).
Face it, we all love fads and trends. Twitter is hot just like blogging was hot in 2005-7. Something else will be hot soon, so let’s just not forget that it’s what the tool does within the greater scheme of communications, media, publishing that matters in the end.
In the meantime, did you read that tweet about…
Good heavens, for the first time we disagree on something. Well, actually we don't. We look at the issue from a different perspective. I think Twitter is here to stay, what is going to be transformed is how we interact with each other, via blogs, etc. I can't live without Twitter, STAT.
I completely agree with you and I can't live without Twitter either. As Twitter (and Laconi.ca I hope) evolve I think we're only going to get better and better at this.