In addition to Blip and del.icio.us, I’m also playing with Twitter and Tumblr. Both are iterations of “microblogging,” but from very different perspectives.
Twitter is fabulous because it bridges technologies that will one day (soon?) be connected. You can send “tweets” (posts under 140 characters) by text messages, instant message, or on a webpage. You can receive tweets by text message, instant message (unless it’s down), webpage, or RSS. Right now I’m having fun watching what folks are up to, getting to know a few library bloggers, and letting friends know what I’m doing. I’m not seeing great practical use yet, and students at my university aren’t using it, but I’m not ready to close the door yet. I particularly like that you can choose your own method of receiving posts.  Most of the time I like RSS. Sometimes I want IM. Occasionally, I like to stop by the website. It’s perfect for me. However, I would like to see the ability to categorize friends to see what specific groups are up to. I’d also like to tag posts, so that when I’m at a conference I could find others who are doing the same things I’m doing. It’ll be neat to see what Twitter adds next.
Tumblr, the other microblogger I’m experimenting with, is very different. After much procrastination, I started an account today. Tumblr makes it super easy to add images, video, and interesting looking text (quotes, conversations, etc). I’ve been trying to make this blog more multimedia focused, with audio, video, and images; Tumblr makes it easy, and makes it something that can be done on the fly through a bookmarklet on your toolbar. It makes it easy to pull in content from other sites using RSS, so you can push pictures, video, tweets, and more to one site that way. I love it, but I also think that it’s really lacking in that it doesn’t take comments. Twitter at least allows for some form of conversation through conventions such as direct and public direct messages. Tumblr is on your own.
I’m guessing that Twitter will continue to be a hybrid work/personal place for me, and that Tumblr will become more of a personal blog (replacing my old one). But for now, at least, I can’t see either replacing this space. Interesting, though, to see what might be in the future for microblogging.
Related posts:
Post a Comment