Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Unbearable Lightness of Tweeting

I am getting so used to writing in spurts that getting up a real blog post seems like a major operation. Devolution or evolution? We'll see.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

The shift away from blogging is evident on several blogs I follows -- as well as my own. I completely agree with your comment about how writing a "real" blog post seems like a huge endeavor. Not sure how we got to that point so quickly....

That being said, I'm not a fan of Twitter... at least not yet. I have a feed of your tweets in my GReader, but -- and please, please don't take this personally -- I gave up reading them weeks (months?) ago. Now, I mostly just mark them all read, 10 or 20 at a time usually!

You've clearly become an active user of Twitter -- that much is clear. And I think it's great how you've adapted from blogging to LinkedIn to MySpace to Facebook to Twitter to . . . . ? Who knows what will be next!

I think my problem with Twitter is that tweets just lack too much context -- or don't create enough. (And yes, I know, that's at least part of the point of Twitter.)

Tweets, while aptly named, just don't seem to offer enough story-telling power to make them interesting to me. I'll happily sit down and read a multi-paragraph blog post, but I just haven't been compelled to read a set of tweets of similar length.

Undoubtedly, this is largely because I am not, myself, using Twitter as a medium of communicating with you or anyone else....

Anyway, thought I would reward your blog post with some rambling commentary on social networking! I'd be interested to hear your comments/impressions about Twitter now that you've been using it for a while.

deedee said...

I've dipped my toes in Twitter, not sure if I like it yet.

Betty Carlson said...

poppy -- I tried it last summer and didn't get it at all. I was also only communicating with Walt and Loulou, so the range was kind of limited! Then I learned a little more about it and really like it. I find it a little less all-consuming than the blogosphere. But I know I will never abandon my dear France Profonde!

Betty Carlson said...

Steve,

Thanks for all of the analysis that I was too lazy to write, lol!

First absolutely no offense taken at not keeping up with my tweets! Gads, I wouldn't even have imagined anyone Google Reading them.

I think if you don't use Twitter yourself, it could be of some interest for following certain types of news, or maybe writers you like, or some specialized interest target. But if you don't "join in the conversation" as they say, it all must seem very trite.

I mainly tweet with an expanded group of expats, some of whom I've gotten to know through blogging, others who are just on Twitter. It's fun to get into quick exchanges in the evening, share a few links, joke about this or that...whatever, really. It's very free-form.

My niece also uses it, so sometimes she tweets me stuff like "What's your favorite Elvis Costello lyric?" just out of the blue -- it's fun to go back and forth a bit.

So far what I like compared to blogging is the immediacy. I can log on in the evening for just a short period of time, while I'm cooking, and get a few answers from some of the "followers" I know well from blogging, or that I am getting to know.

To sum it up, I would say that for me blogging is more about creation, and tweeting is more about conversation.

Betty Carlson said...

Oh and poppy, don't hide! Find me @bcinfrance. Hehe, we'll lure you in yet!

Anonymous said...

Creation or conversation -- I haven't been doing much of EITHER lately!

I do, however, appreciate how a tweet-sized blog post can result in blog post-sized comments.

Betty Carlson said...

Steve, that was my clever plan.

Randal Graves said...

I might have to pass on the tweeting thing, would get in the way of an aimless, incoherent ramble. ;-)

Anonymous said...

As Poppy, I don't get Twitter. I've got an account, but it seems so time consuming.
Maybe you can explain the upside to it?

Betty Carlson said...

Thanks for dropping in on the discussion, Dedene. I would say no, it is not particularly time-consuming unless you get addicted to it and spend all your time on it -- but that is true of any social networking activity.

Some people are under the impression that you need to tweet constantly, all day long, and that that is the point. Maybe a few people do that, and some news/content streams do, but the ones I keep up with just put up a few things a day.

I maybe write two or three tweets a day (although it is variable) and answer five or so. It really doesn't take much time -- which is why I was thinking this weekend that after spending some time on Twitter, writing a blog post seems like a big deal. But I will persevere!

Betty Carlson said...

Randal, I do find it hard to imagine your limiting yourself to a certain number of characters, much less 140!

Unknown said...

I know. I am really afraid that blogging is on its last leg and that saddens me because I think it is a great alternative to television. I've learned so much from my 'blog days'.

Betty Carlson said...

Angela, I too feel that blogging is no doubt on the downswing, but remember it was cutting-edge just a few years ago. I don't even have TV, so all forms of social networking are, to me, "a great alternative to television," as you put it.

I too have learned a lot from my blog days, which I don't think are over. But I do think something is going to give.

Thanks for dropping in on the discussion.

francetales.com said...

I started doing a challenge called 31 Days to Build a Better Blog on Problogger.net to revive my blog. One of the tasks was to write a list post. I did a bit of research and spent the time writing and editing. It took 2 hours and I thought the whole prcess was so long, indeed we are at a crossroads, where is it going? Facebook updates and Tweets do a lot of the same things blogs did. Maybe our blogs or sites will just contain in depth information and our updates will be the headlines to our lives.

Betty Carlson said...

Thank you for your insightful comment, francetales.com. I like the "headline/in-depth" idea.

I have been running three blogs over the years because I liked keeping different subjects separate, but I plan to undertake "blog convergence" soon. I think that's one step that will help me get my motivation back.