Microblogging and You

As the blogging bubble is on the cusp of bursting a new wave of online posting is becoming more and more popular. This new style web 2.0 trend is called microblogging, and all the hot shots are doing it. As microblogging increases in popularity many services are becoming available to aid you with your microblogging needs and beyond. So lets take a look at some of the new directions microblogging is headed.

Technorati Tags: blog, endo, feeds, micro-blogging, microblogging, TWiT, puppy, RSS, RSS reader, web 2.0

Let the self obsession begin

They call themselves “online presence services” and the leader of the pack is the increasingly popular Twitter. If you have never heard of Twitter then you might need to re-evaluate which websites you are checking on your RSS feed. Twitter might not have created the microblogging concept, but they sure took the scene by storm. Twitter is the essence of microblogging. Basically you go to the site, set up an account, and then start posting a brief sentence or two about what is going on in your life right now.

This may sound like a simple, almost silly form of communication, but considering the tech world’s biggest names are behind the movement, “twitter-ing” is starting to demand more and more attention.

However, Twitter is not the only service out there for the self obsessed. Recently Facebook began offering the same service. The difference here is that the Facebook network is a bit more exclusive than than Twitter’s. Whereas I might actually want to know what is going on with some of my actual friends, I might not be as concerned with what is going on with other random people. Facebook’s service seems like a great plan to get people more connected, Twitter is something else.

Since Twitter opened up its API fans have started putting widgets on their sites. Now when I am checking out a blog I can also see what the author is up to during that time. Is this necessary? Probably not. Is it an interesting way of communication. Defiantly.

Also, speaking of blogging, thanks to the ability to link text in Twitter it becomes a new way to drive traffic to your blog. Recently I wrote a post on endo (a mac RSS reader). After that I started noticing incoming links from Twitter. Apparently one of the developers of endo linked to my blog in one of his Twitter posts. This is web 2.0 in action and it gets better.

Microblogging 2.0

Since the on set of microblogging more and more amazing ideas have come to the forefront. Today, people have more than just Twitter’s API to keep them satisfied. If you are big into Twitter, now you can follow your favorite users through your RSS reader, which apparently is not just for news anymore.

Maybe your not into words and consider yourself more of a photo person (they are worth a 1000 words). Groups like Radar offer a “micro-photoblogging” service. Yeah it’s that cool.

Each and every day more start ups announce themselves as groups within the microblogging genre. Soon we are going to start seeing a bigger flux of users in this realm of communication. That being said, though the market for microblogging 2.0 enhancements is a bit small right now, this market is poised to explode in the near future.

And speaking of the future…

The next big thing

Developers are discovering that though Twitter might be a popular service, there is a market out there for users that want something more. So quickly, here is the three top “next big thing” microblogging sites.

Tumblr:
This service claims to be the scrapbook of blogging. You can post just about anything to share with others. Plus, according to Tumblr staff:

“Tumblebogs are the refreshingly simple way to share anything you find, love, hate, or create.”

iStalkr:
Here’s an interesting concept, why not stalk yourself? You can polish your own ego and build your web presence at the same time with iStalkr. Here’s what they’re saying:

“iStalkr is a web app that allows you to create a lifestream (based on Jeremy Keith’s Lifestream concept) tracking all your RSS and ATOM feeds for services you use, like Digg, Del.icio.us, Ma.gnolia, Flickr, Last.fm, Google Reader’s Shared Items, Tumblr, Twitter , etc, and create a time line of your activities. You can paste this time line data into on your blog or use the data in other apps. iStalkr then utilizes that data socially, like twitter, where you can monitor your friends time lines and other people can monitor yours.”

Jaiku
The Twitter community was up in arms recently about Leo Laporte, host of This Week in Tech, leaving Twitter for its competitor Jakiu. The fuss was mostly about Laporte’s lame reason that he didn’t want TWiT to be confused with Twitter. Anyway, here’s a bit about Leo’s new favorite microblogging service:

“Jaiku acts as more of an ‘online presence,’ allowing you to do things like import RSS feeds from any of your other web properties (including photo feeds from the likes of Flickr) in addition to its fundamental feature of allowing you to post 140-character, SMS-friendly updates of what you’re thinking or doing. Jaiku also has refreshing bits of genius sprinkled everywhere, such as the ability to group update notifications via email instead of sending single notices every time any contact posts something.”

So there you have. As this concept grows to macro scales the status that I am most interested in keep track of it that of microblogging.