I have just become comfortable with the idea of blogging, and suddenly a new term was introduced to me; microblogging. As I stared at the word for the first time, I wondered what it could mean. My first thought was that it must be more detailed blogging, to resemble the term micromanaging. However, I was wrong. Microblogging simplifies the activity. Blogging has transformed into a form of communication with rigid structure and heavily defined rules. Microblogging reverts back to the exploratory nature of the infant stages of blogging. In that stage, there were no real rules, just adventure and the expanding of the concept of blogging. Today, blogging has much more thought out ideas and a format that must be follwed on a given site.
The most popular site that can be considered a microblogging site is Twitter. Twitter sped up communication to almost instantaneous communication. The only restriction Twitter has is a character limit per post. This forces users to be clear, concise, and succinct. Those who are longwinded like myself, need to cut it down or not apply at all.
Twitter has also found a way to separate itself from social networking like Facebook. Twitter doesn't contain the nonsense that Facebook does (games, nagging statuses, commercials galore, etc.). You follow what you'd like and they post simple messages. It is an all new information highway. Although it is just as addicting as Facebook, it simplifies communication. On Twitter you don't have to be bombarded by game invites to "FarmVille" or "Mafia Wars" or "Words With Friends". Twitter takes the main concept of Facebook that everyone likes and magnifies it; status updates. Twitter is based on simple messages that each user posts. Sure you can add video and article links, but it is really just about written words that top out around 140 characters per post.
When thinking about how I would use Twitter, the answer is clear. I could use Twitter to place my thoughts on news in sports at any given moment. As I've stated in previous posts, I started a blog which I am marketing through Facebook. I could tweet about those same topics on Twitter and have many more people see what I'm doing. The bottom line is that people don't want to read long articles of 700 words or more. Our attention spans are getting slower by the minute. If you can summarize a thought into a tweet or two, many more people are open to reading 100 or 150 words of what you have to say.
The only danger I can see in using Twitter is that I might become too lazy to bother writing on my blog anymore. I value writing more today, than I ever have in my life. I like fleshing out ideas on my blog and bringing up supporting details and statistics to support my often uncommon views on sports. The concept of crafting and argument or building a case for something interests me. Not to the point where I'd like to become a lawyer, but to the point where I'd be happy to contribute to a news source with my opinions and outlooks on a topic I'm very comfortable with.
Twitter makes people lazy. Twitter makes people use improper grammar. Twitter creates many bad things in society, but Twitter is where society is headed. It is time for the rest of us to catch up and try to adapt to the most popular communication tool on the Internet.
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