Will microblogging replace traditional blogging?
Twitter's boom is gaining momentum. The growth of thousands of percent, which was recorded by research companies, is accompanied not only by mass registration of ordinary users on this service. It seems that Twitter will soon be able to boast of the largest database of "star" accounts - famous people who not only registered there, but also write something from time to time.
In the many years that I, so to speak, have been studying the web, I don’t remember a single service that would so rapidly gain popularity. And even the notorious boom of blogging and the blogosphere of 2003-2004 can not even come close to Twitter-addiction. Of course, then there were fewer users, and they were less experienced, and less used to working with online as a tool, and online services were just emerging as a class.
However, what is the secret of the Twitter boom? I'll try to determine.
- Twitter - easy to use
Minimalism of settings that experienced users can complain about, on Twitter has played to the benefit of beginners and those who do not like to delve into the work of the service for a long time. Registered and write, more you do not need anything. Although I am an adherent of LJ, but I admit that on Twitter everything is several orders of magnitude simpler. In general, it should be so. Microblogging with micro-tuning.
- Twitter is available to everyone
This service can be called the most democratic blog hosting. In 140 characters you can’t especially demonstrate your literary research, you won’t be brilliant as a writer. Here the advantage of people who work with the word professionally is not so noticeable. The advantage that, in general, is felt on other blogging platforms
- Twitter is popularized by celebrity.I
think the previous two factors partially led to the fact that famous people began to register on Twitter - celebrity, which, in turn, influenced the popularity of the service. I don’t think it’s worth listing their names, everyone knows about Twitter accounts of Barack Obama, the team of actors from House MD, Oprah, Stephen Fry, etc. Ah, well, the President of Ukraine and Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
With a certain stretch, we can say that observing the life of famous people has become as simple as possible - using Twitter. Which also caused a wave of registrations.
- Twitter is operational.
If it’s sensible to add subscribers and not engage in Twitter spam (that is, the total addition of users), then updates to the Twitter feed can be called the most efficient source of information. While the official publications are just about to write about the event, bloggers have already written, but they are still posting on the blog and posting it, on Twitter they have not only reported what has happened, but are also actively discussing it.
I also note that the number of microblogging services on the Web is literally increasing before our eyes. Some of them will be able to get their user audience, which is already happening, for example, on FriendFeed, Plurk, etc. But the LJ audience turned out to be less active regarding the transition from traditional blogging to micro. The recently launched ljchat project, although advertised with might and main, does not yet demonstrate a large increase in popularity. At least from my friends, where there are a lot of technologists, there are already 4 users registered in ljchat .
More recently, I wrotetext about how I do not like Twitter. In general, my attitude is not that it has not changed ... it has become different. Twitter should not require seriousness, thoughtful reading or competent expression of thoughts. And then it can be perceived and actively used.
Actually, the answer to the main question about whether Twitter will replace other types of blogging is still open. However, I think that some bloggers will change their blog hosting services to microblogging. But not standalone authors, of course.
(I can’t understand why my post is visible only to readers of the blog “I'm smart” ... :(
In the many years that I, so to speak, have been studying the web, I don’t remember a single service that would so rapidly gain popularity. And even the notorious boom of blogging and the blogosphere of 2003-2004 can not even come close to Twitter-addiction. Of course, then there were fewer users, and they were less experienced, and less used to working with online as a tool, and online services were just emerging as a class.
However, what is the secret of the Twitter boom? I'll try to determine.
- Twitter - easy to use
Minimalism of settings that experienced users can complain about, on Twitter has played to the benefit of beginners and those who do not like to delve into the work of the service for a long time. Registered and write, more you do not need anything. Although I am an adherent of LJ, but I admit that on Twitter everything is several orders of magnitude simpler. In general, it should be so. Microblogging with micro-tuning.
- Twitter is available to everyone
This service can be called the most democratic blog hosting. In 140 characters you can’t especially demonstrate your literary research, you won’t be brilliant as a writer. Here the advantage of people who work with the word professionally is not so noticeable. The advantage that, in general, is felt on other blogging platforms
- Twitter is popularized by celebrity.I
think the previous two factors partially led to the fact that famous people began to register on Twitter - celebrity, which, in turn, influenced the popularity of the service. I don’t think it’s worth listing their names, everyone knows about Twitter accounts of Barack Obama, the team of actors from House MD, Oprah, Stephen Fry, etc. Ah, well, the President of Ukraine and Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
With a certain stretch, we can say that observing the life of famous people has become as simple as possible - using Twitter. Which also caused a wave of registrations.
- Twitter is operational.
If it’s sensible to add subscribers and not engage in Twitter spam (that is, the total addition of users), then updates to the Twitter feed can be called the most efficient source of information. While the official publications are just about to write about the event, bloggers have already written, but they are still posting on the blog and posting it, on Twitter they have not only reported what has happened, but are also actively discussing it.
I also note that the number of microblogging services on the Web is literally increasing before our eyes. Some of them will be able to get their user audience, which is already happening, for example, on FriendFeed, Plurk, etc. But the LJ audience turned out to be less active regarding the transition from traditional blogging to micro. The recently launched ljchat project, although advertised with might and main, does not yet demonstrate a large increase in popularity. At least from my friends, where there are a lot of technologists, there are already 4 users registered in ljchat .
More recently, I wrotetext about how I do not like Twitter. In general, my attitude is not that it has not changed ... it has become different. Twitter should not require seriousness, thoughtful reading or competent expression of thoughts. And then it can be perceived and actively used.
Actually, the answer to the main question about whether Twitter will replace other types of blogging is still open. However, I think that some bloggers will change their blog hosting services to microblogging. But not standalone authors, of course.
(I can’t understand why my post is visible only to readers of the blog “I'm smart” ... :(