The World of Micro-Blogging

Micro-Blogging is very different than traditional blogging. Blogging is like making a flyer and handing it out on a street corner to people who you think might care. Blogging is as precise and proof-read as it is formal. Blogs are expected to be decorative with pictures and graphics as well as thoughtful and interactive content.

Micro-Blogging is like sending a shot 140 word text message to everyone on twitter. As Marc, writer for Technology Bloggers, writes: “Most days bloggers write nothing at all because the sheer pressure of creating a masterpiece of a post is just too overwhelming. But on Twitter, one snarky tweet can say it all with less.” Micro-Blogging is a new medium that explores communication with a less is more mentality.

Micro-Blogging is also different than social networking. Facebook posts are only seen by friends, or people stalking your profile. Twitter tweets, by contrast, can be seen by anyone who logs onto the site. Twitter is far more archaic and crazy but creates an entirely different flow of information light-years faster than Facebook.

Doug Gross, writer for CNN also notes this very useful feature of the site. “As a result, news spreads faster than ever,” he writes, “Twitter's real-time news flow has been cited as a tool in citizen uprisings in Iran and Egypt and as invaluable for fundraising efforts for crisis situations like last year's floods in Haiti.” While this spread of information can be rumors or flat-out lies it can just as likely be truth. According to Tania Branigan, writer for The Guardian, “Microblogs have spread news of protests, exposed scandals and became the locus of public outrage at the high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou this summer.” Another example can be seen the the Arab Spring and uprisings in the Middle East.

When I personally use Twitter it is for a lot less of a cause. I use Twitter to stalk guys that don't know I exist, usually celebrities. As far as use for the site Twitter makes it pretty easy to stalk any celebrity or person with an account. Twitter proudly posts the number of your followers like it's some type of contest and anyone can follow you unless you dig deep into the settings. While I do follow a few organizations I find it much more interesting to follow people. As seen with the Kony 2012 video that spread so quickly through Twitter by posting first on celebrity Twitters, the number of followers can become an unstoppable web of information.

While the potential for amazing communication is there, just like on social networking sites power seems to be wasted on the irrelevant. Twitter has the potential to be millions of headlines from across the globe or insight from people hundreds of miles away that could affect the minds of viewers everywhere. Rather than breaking news our Twitter feeds are clogged up with postings about some irrelevant person's horrible day waiting in line at the DMV, or me, just re-blogging something cool some guy who will never know I exist said.

My Twitter account for this class can be viewed here: https://twitter.com/#!/KatherineGuenth