What Is Micro-Blogging?
Micro-Blogging is a term created to describe the use of publishing brief (usually under 140 character) text updates to inform others of what you are currently doing. Some of the more popular micro-blogging platforms currently include Twitter, Pownce, and Plurk.
What Is The use Of Micro-Blogging?
Micro-Blogging is a great way to keep your friends and family informed of what is going on in your life. It’s a great way to make new friends, it’s a fantastic way of discovering new and interesting information and requesting information to questions you have as well.
For instance I follow aaronwall of SEOBook.com on Twitter because of his reputation in the SEO commmunity and although he doesn’t post many tweets the ones he does are of high quality and relate to search engine optimization which I am involved in. Leo Laporte once asked the people who follow him on Plurk and Twitter what is a good FTP program to use because the one he was using just didn’t work for him. He was bombarded with answers and I’m assuming made a decision on his next FTP application based on the amount of feed back he received. I myself have used Twitter and Plurk to ask different questions.
As a business you can also use a micro-blogging platform for public relations, quality control, client interactions and even in the marketing of products and product releases. Direct spamming of your business is frowned upon and will generally result in users to either unfollow or to block receiving updates from you.
Which Micro-Blogging Platform Should I Use?
That choice is totally up to you. I currently use Plurk and Twitter but will probably sign up to any new platforms that pop up. The ways I use each platform does differ. On Twitter I tend to say whatever pops into my head funny, offensive, stupid and sometimes informational I’ll just give a quick tweet and poof it’s gone. Plurk on the other hand shows all of your updates on a timeline so you can visually see what you have been up to in relation to time and as such I use Plurk more of a status update that my friends and family can see.
Micro-Blogging Platform Differences?
Twitter - Went public in October 2006 making it one of the older and more popular micro-blogging platforms on the market. Twitter is free to use and allows you to send updates called tweets of 140 characters or less to simply answer the question of What Are You Doing? You can see a great video by dot sub explaining Twitter in full detail here
After creating an account on Twitter you will be able to tweet by either going to Twitter.com and posting or by using one of the many third party Twitter applications available for PC, Mac and mobile phones. My favorite Twitter app is Twhirl uses Adobe Air framework making it cross platform and is free.
After joining Twitter you can start following other Twitter users. Some of the more popular and interesting Twitter users to follow include: leolaporte, kevinrose, patricknorton, hotdogsladies, ambermacarthur, therealdvorak and of course myself cegeland
Pownce - Pownce was started by Kevin Rose of TechTv and Digg fame and was launched to the public on January 22, 2008. Pownce revolves around the idea of not just updating friends with what you are doing but with sharing files, inviting friends to events and sharing links with your already established friends. Pownce offers both a free and a Pro account version where the Pro account allows you to send larger files, create custom themes and eliminate all ads on the Pownce site. You can update your Pownce account through their website or through the full featured Adobe Air powered desktop client. I have a Pownce account but it is seldom used.
Plurk - A relative new comer to the micro-blogging scene and was launched to the public in May of 2008. To begin your Plurk you first select a qualifier verb such as “has, loves, is, shares, wants, wishes” etc… you then can type your 140 character update which is then shown on a timeline. You are then able to scroll left and right to visually determine what you, your friend and family were doing at a certain point in time. Plruk also allows you to add comments to other Plurkers comments in a threaded style fashion to allow for an ongoing discussion within each Plurk. Plurk was limited to using its website but today I was pointed to an Adobe Air client for Plurk called Plurkair that I have just downloaded and installed. If you want to follow me on Plurk my user name is cegeland
Now What Do I Do?
Go and signup for accounts at one, two or even all three of the above mentioned micro-blogging platforms and then start using them to see which one suits you best. Start posting interesting, informative, funny and/or controversial updates to attract followers and start following others you find interesting. Invite your friends and family members to the service you are using and start interacting with them. In general just become connnected to the social community and if you find yourself becoming addicted to these types of services don’t worry you’re not alone and a service such as ping.fm may be another service you need in the future so that you can update all of your social networks at onece.
