<Note: I call this a 'popcorn' post>
If you’re on the ole Twitter, or even better, if your organization has implemented a micro-blogging application of some sort, you get it.
That is, you probably have a semi-coherent idea of what micro-blogging actually is.
I’m not here to rehash the history of micro-blogging and how it came to be; please leave that to the excellent work of BlogSchmog.
Today, what I take umbrage with is the term micro-blogging.
Blogging, for me at least, is an exercise in creative and thoughtful writing. At times, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a blog post and something published in an actual magazine or periodical.
Let’s take Alexandra Samuel for but one example.
This particular piece of writing (entitled German Shepherds) can be found in Business 2.0 magazine. Contrasting that, may I point your attention to a blog post of hers (entitled The Core Tenets of the Social Web, 25 Years in the Making) on the Harvard Business Review blog site.
Maybe I’m somewhere between daft and dumb, but it’s hard for me to tell the difference of what may be considered ‘credible’ writing for a magazine and ‘credible’ writing for a so-called blog. Particularly for someone like Alexandra. There are many others too.
Perhaps where I’m really stuck is on the term blogging.
Regardless, the term micro-blogging is not serving justice to the term blogging itself, nor those bloggers/writers, like Alexandra, that effortlessly give back to the collective intelligence ecosystem of our world.
Which brings me to the point.
Micro-blogging is not blogging in short spurts; it’s simply about chatting.
Imagine you’re at a water cooler at an office, and you're only allowed to talk in one sentence with a maximum of 15 words. Are you really using your deep thinking skills, or, conversely, are you merely chatting?
Imagine you have something to share with that same office (pre-Internet) … might you have posted a note on the staffroom bulletin board? Eg. Check out the bake sale next week. Eg. Car for sale – inquire within. You probably would have seeing as you couldn't have sent an email out to the office email distribution list, let alone any 2.0 social tools.
This is chatting.
Ask yourself how many times you’ve engaged in an actual 140 character conversation on Twitter or through your internal micro-blogging system. Yes, we all have.
How many times have you actually, truly, deeply thought through a micro-blog quip? This isn’t a bad thing folks, but for me at least, blogging is about giving back after first reflecting, synthesizing and rationalizing. Micro-blogging seems to be slightly less thought through, instantaneous but still purposeful.
But, it’s not blogging or micro-blogging.
It’s chatting. We're sharing things, we're in conversations, we're adding to the genius pool ... but it's not a blog, nor is it a micro blog.
It's chatting.
It will never stick, I know. But it bugs me nonetheless.
Blogging, for me at least, is an exercise in creative and thoughtful writing. At times, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a blog post and something published in an actual magazine or periodical.
Let’s take Alexandra Samuel for but one example.
This particular piece of writing (entitled German Shepherds) can be found in Business 2.0 magazine. Contrasting that, may I point your attention to a blog post of hers (entitled The Core Tenets of the Social Web, 25 Years in the Making) on the Harvard Business Review blog site.
Maybe I’m somewhere between daft and dumb, but it’s hard for me to tell the difference of what may be considered ‘credible’ writing for a magazine and ‘credible’ writing for a so-called blog. Particularly for someone like Alexandra. There are many others too.
Perhaps where I’m really stuck is on the term blogging.
Regardless, the term micro-blogging is not serving justice to the term blogging itself, nor those bloggers/writers, like Alexandra, that effortlessly give back to the collective intelligence ecosystem of our world.
Which brings me to the point.
Micro-blogging is not blogging in short spurts; it’s simply about chatting.
Imagine you’re at a water cooler at an office, and you're only allowed to talk in one sentence with a maximum of 15 words. Are you really using your deep thinking skills, or, conversely, are you merely chatting?
Imagine you have something to share with that same office (pre-Internet) … might you have posted a note on the staffroom bulletin board? Eg. Check out the bake sale next week. Eg. Car for sale – inquire within. You probably would have seeing as you couldn't have sent an email out to the office email distribution list, let alone any 2.0 social tools.
This is chatting.
Ask yourself how many times you’ve engaged in an actual 140 character conversation on Twitter or through your internal micro-blogging system. Yes, we all have.
How many times have you actually, truly, deeply thought through a micro-blog quip? This isn’t a bad thing folks, but for me at least, blogging is about giving back after first reflecting, synthesizing and rationalizing. Micro-blogging seems to be slightly less thought through, instantaneous but still purposeful.
But, it’s not blogging or micro-blogging.
It’s chatting. We're sharing things, we're in conversations, we're adding to the genius pool ... but it's not a blog, nor is it a micro blog.
It's chatting.
It will never stick, I know. But it bugs me nonetheless.
