Ok so I promised a few days ago to blog about the various social media thingies (that's a technical word!) I've been playing with and here's the first... microblogging!
As it sounds, microblogging is blogging on a small scale. Sort of. Small as in you don't need to type entire essays or articles - just one or two lines and maybe a link depending on which microblogging service you are using which lends itself to blogging from your mobile or pda. MySpace and Facebook both have 'status updates' built in and MySpace has the blog thing going on too, but surely the best known standalone service is Twitter. Others are Jaiku and Dodgeball for mobile - neither of which I have used - and the 'newest-comer' Pownce - on which more coming up in a moment. But first...
Have you tried Twitter yet? How do/did you find it? It's certainly an interesting idea. I signed up back in May, but I didn't really 'get it' and lost interest fairly early on. I just couldn't see how or who it could benefit, beyond people with JOBs who aren't closely monitored and the unemployed. Well...
I'm still not twittering v. much yet, but after listening to this Podcast Sisters podcast (brilliant as ever), I feel I should give 'microblogging' another go, in which case...
You may want to check out Pownce which IMHO is a much better experience and service.
For a start, you can send links which you can't in Twitter. And, even better, you can choose who you broadcast to - a single person, a group or the entire Pownce world. I'm certainly not alone in preferring Pownce to Twitter and many people are predicting that Pownce will 'kill' Twitter. However, there are also alternative views out there. My only complaints about Pownce right now are:
- Because it is so new and you can only get an account by invitation, my network there is miniscule so I'm not using it as much as I could - and
- I don't seem to be able to upload a photo - very annoying!
If you aren't microblogging yet, at least give it a go. And if you are convinced the by arguments for Pownce over Twitter and want an invite for a Pownce account, then either email me or hit 'comment' under this post and ask me for one.
