Full disclosure: I’m way behind in blogging while my offline move to a new house (and office) continues to unfold. Feeling very guilty about it. But it’s a temporary hiatus. Or is it? See below for for a few thoughts about Twittering.
In case you missed it, Business Week has updated its by now iconic May 2005 article: Blogs Will Change Your Business. The new version is called Social Media Will Change Your Business.
Writer/editors Stephen Baker and Heather Green spent a month updating the article, re-interviewing some of their sources. In an appropriate crowdsourcing tactic, they also asked readers of their Blogspotting blog to weigh in with suggestions.
Bookmark the updated article and then brew up a pot of coffee and sit down for an online read. Be sure to click on the little blue “info” icons. You’ll get pop-ups that give you updates on stats, trends, phenomena, etc.
Here is some of what you will learn:
– There are now 120 million blogs (according to Technorati), instead of 9 million. But only 11% of those have posted in the past two months. Interesting.
– According to once uberblogger Steve Rubel, twittering is a better way to stay in touch and to communicate. He’s got over 3,900 “followers” for his 140-character Tweets.
Why Twittering is significant
During his re-interview for the updated article, Rubel tweeted “Sitting with Steve Baker of BW, wants to know why tweet?” Within 10 minutes, 20 responses came in. Baker was so inspired he’s now twittering himself.
BTW, I tried to find this tweet (and the responses) on Steve Rubel’s Twitter page. But apparently you can’t search for past tweets, unless I’m missing something.
Update: Here is Steve Rubel’s tweet (mentioned above), written while he was sitting with Steve Baker. I found it through a Google search: “Steve Baker” site:twitter.com
But I don’t have time to track down the 20 responses. All by way of pointing out that tweets, technically, are searchable and findable via Google (each has a unique URL). In practice, however, they are ephemeral and synchronous.
It’s much harder to reconstruct later the give and take of tweets and responses. At this point, it’s easier to “follow” a conversation on a blog, where the comments stay attached to the original post and where they can be posted asynchronously.
Useful Links
Howard Rheingold on Why I’m Hooked on Twitter