James Poling

Back in October I asked if Twitter was stealing my Zen. The point was, did microblogging actually take you out of the moment you are in to give you time to post it to Twitter or FriendFeed or wherever you microblog. I think there is a definite balancing act that you have to make to keep that from happening, but I think once you get the hang of it, and figure out what level of involvement is right for you, it’s almost the opposite.  It, in a way, heightens your experience by allowing you to document it and ultimately share it.

Chris Garrett had a great post up last month asking a slightly different question.  Basically, Chris wants to know if Twitter is stealing readers from blog feeds.

There is much to be said for the blog, or email newsletters. Not least is depth and detail that is not possible in 140 characters. But that in itself could be seen as a disadvantage as reading more than a few sentences feels like “effort”. Writing a few hundred words even more so. 140 characters means “just the facts”.

Blogs will more and more have to provide value greater than mere links, quips and trivialities. The chit-chat conversation has moved, and your content and community will need to evolve. Discussions on blogs will need to take more thought and provide more value.

It’s almost like in the blink of an eye, blogs have outed newspapers as aging behemoths that can’t keep up with real time, instantaneous updates and then, in an even shorter amount of time, microblogs have come along and outed blogs as long-winded dinosaurs.

I don’t think Twitter will kill the blog.  I think it will do what nearly everything else has done since the rise of the blogs.  I think it will help to shape them.  I think it will help to make them better and more informative.

Blogging is still very much in its infancy.  Even as I posted earlier about the evolution and ultimate demise of the blogroll, this isn’t much different.  Sure, there are people who are “well established” in the blogging theater and already boast an impressive reader list, there are many still to come.

Learning to pick and choose what social networks you want to use and focus your time and energy on is the first step in learning to craft your brand (you) and divide it up into the necessary components to keep each of those streams informative and interesting to your readers.  Learning how to fuel each of those components to enhance the other is the key.