Twitter, The Blog Killer
Is Twitter Killing Blogs and Blogging? was the question posed by Mark Evans.
My sense is Twitter is emerging as a vibrant alternative to bloggers and blog readers. Some bloggers who may find the grind of writing daily are now able to share their thoughts in quick bursts on Twitter, and still feel like they are contributing and cultivating their digital brands.
Twitter has become a quasi-RSS reader where people gain access to the information (news, blog posts, services) they see as valuable without having to visit blogs directly or use an RSS reader. Many of these people are still using blogs but perhaps not as actively.
Evans also points out that the blogosphere is becoming increasingly competitive as reader-generated content keeps on getting pumped out, especially from the leading bloggers who now employ teams of writers.
It is still the case that, if you blog well and think about search-engine visibility, you can ensure your blog posts will get traffic particularly via the search engines. They are still much beloved by the current Google algorithms.
A much more important factor that Evans does not mention is that the online world is going increasingly mobile. Twitter status reports are ideal for a mobile device. This rapidly changing scene in terms of the typical screen size that audiences are using is critical.
With most people thinking from a desktop PC mindset, they don’t get the message. It is not that Twitter is killing the blog. It is that small screens are taking over from big screens. Make your blog post more Twitter-ish and you’ll do well whatever the screen size.
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BPWrap
January 30th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
While I think Twitter could be useful for many things and networking with others I don’t think it would be suitable for replacing blogging all together. I guess it would depend on everyone’s individual preferences, but I’d rather meet some nice people on Twitter who come to my blog and I visit their blogs in return
January 31st, 2009 at 11:45 am
It’s an interesting suggestion and I think you may have a point that Twitter is eating into the blogging community. I can definitely see the attractiveness of managing your reputation through twitter rather than blogging because of the time-saving advantages but personally as a reader I wouldn’t use Twitter as an alternative to following blogs. So perhaps the number of bloggers may fall but readers could stay at the same level.
February 7th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I’m not sure I agree – Twitter content is short and temporary. Suitable for consumption on the go, but doesn’t contain much inherent value. Sure, there are scenarios where it is valuable where short updates on that status of something are needed, but I think the majority of useful content is longer form.
Perhaps I’m too “old school”, but I see blogs and twitter-like services as complementary, rather than competitive.
February 11th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I believe twitter is just some hype.
1. it is a very simple service they offer
2. although information is fast, the content is poor
3. famous because used by many bloggers or geeks, nobody else really works with it.
To debate! To me twitter is not useful, just excessive promotion!
February 13th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Ouch! I just joined Twitter! But Evan’s theory might be true to some extent but I really don’t think Twitter’s killing the blogs. Small Screens might be taking over big screens in some “emergency” cases but big screens still rule over mobile screens, people like me who actually READ various blogs are never gonna adapt small screens as long as they got a monitor at home..
February 16th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Twitter is like a missing link between blogs and facebook – the question is, will it become a website for passing time on lunchbreaks like FB, or change the face of the internet like blogs have done?
I’d guess the first one :-/
Maybe there’ll be room for it as an add-on to blogs, but at the moment it’s just a novelty
February 17th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I don’t think twitter is going to kill off blogs, in fact I think it might encourage those who aren’t yet into blogging to get involved and blog themselves.
Twitters can help lead me to blogs where comments are dicussed in more detail… which is great for an overview of what is happening generally in my chosen field.
February 21st, 2009 at 10:59 am
I don’t think so. I never use twitter anyway, although I have an account there. My suggestion is mobile blogging, it’s a lot better because we can still send any message around the world to our sites/blogs.
What about the cost ? GPRS / 3G are cheap now. I prefer to send a whole stories to my blogs rather than only a message or two.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Twitter is Great . People don’t stop and think that there are ways to pull yourself out,