While browsing through the comments on OnSoftware, I discovered the blog of one commenter who had written a post called Twitter is killing my blog and it got me thinking. One of the main reasons for his preference for Twitter was that it’s an “easy avenue to be connected” that he felt “a sense of participation” and that he got instant feedback when asking for opinions.
Some of this rings very true. I’ve also noticed a drop-off in blogging from blogs I follow whose writers have concentrated more on using Twitter. Communications consultant Mark Evans claims he also noticed the same thing a while back.
I think there’s several reasons for this:
- Tweeting is quick and easy. Using a Twitter client involves far less fuss than a blogging interface such as WordPress or Blogger. Perhaps most importantly, issuing a tweet cuts far less into your working day than putting together a well thought-out blog post.
- Twitter provides a greater sense of being connected. Because it’s so easy to update, regular tweeters tend to do so much more frequently than they blog fostering a greater sense of inter-communication. Searching by keywords also instantly puts you in touch with people with shared interests.
- There’s no waffle in tweeting. It’s easy to wax lyrical in a blog post but you simply can’t afford to do that in a 140 character tweet. People have to get to the point immediately (even if it’s only to say, “I just went to the bathroom”).
- It’s ideal for short attention spans. We’re bombarded with so much information everyday that attention spans are inevitable getting shorter. The brevity of tweets means that Twitter is the perfect outlet to tap into this.
Maybe then it should be no surprise if more bloggers are moving towards Tweeting. However, what I’d prefer to see is more bloggers using Twitter to promote things they’ve written on their blog or complement their blogging in some way. Tweeting can never allow the degree of expressiveness, discussion and analysis that blogging does and it would be a shame to see the better bloggers out there ditch their blogs in the name of quick tweet.
