Sunday, October 31, 2010

Why 'Micro' rules the blogosphere

After breaking my so-called 'blogger's block' for the umpteenth time last week, during my time in my thinking-box (also called a 'washroom' :) ) I reflected on why I would put up a few dozen Facebook status messages a week, but had stopped blogging altogether for many few months altogether ! To put the question more technically, why micro-blogging was wide gaining popularity among the masses nowadays as compared to conventional blogs :). And I realized, the reason was for this was probably...

Pure Damn Laziness !

Or has it just become too fast a world to stop
and write ?

Yea, it takes a bit of an effort to go and write out that post in a few hundred words :). More effort than it takes to flip channels in ur TV using a remote, or watch videos in Youtube by clicking on 'Related links' an infinite number of times. And definitely more energy than it takes to log on to Twitter, Facebook or Buzz and write the answers to questions like "What am I doing right now?" or "How do I feel right now?" or "What do I feel about this" etc etc etc....



Yea, a hundred words is definitely more than 140 characters :).

Some months ago, Google decided to enter the microblogosphere by introducing Buzz, trying to catch up to Facebook. When google decides to follow someone, you know they're really business :). Attaching it to the Gmail Window, they made it easier for us lazy ppl to speak to the world in a few quick sentences ! :) They got an immediate response of 9 million hits on the first day truly buzz-tling activity :). Google were in buzz-iness. Puns based on 'buzz' were so abuzzed and rampant, one of my friends even started a buzz of a list of all the hilarious puns he could think of !

It's a clear message - microblogging is here to stay. Whether you tweet or facebook or buzz, a few sentences spoken to the whole wide world can be an effective and addictive form of communication. Its really sad for me as a blogger though, cos I miss the feel of the detail I used to give in a conventional blog (which may not be dying out but is definitely nowhere close to the micro version now). But then, the easier it is to speak to more people, with the least effort and time, the better ! So no more point staying away from updating that status message of yours, or writing a whole new philosphic saying, or putting up ur latest corny joke.. microblogging Is the communication of the future !

( PS: I saw Social network, a movie based on Facebook. It was awesome ! Fast paced and drama-filled. Justin Timberlake came out well.)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree microblogging is here to stay...but somehow I just cant get used to it.
Though Im probably one of the most infrequent bloggers there are, I love the idea of writing a well drawn out post- the idea, justification, conclusion et al.
I feel it makes one actually reflect and think about stuff, and articulate thoughts better.
With microblogging, I feel the key objective becomes keeping it short and smart at the same time, which I find a big nuisance.

Hari Vishnu said...

ure right aditya. well put. i so sorely miss writing a full length post with no word length limits and character bounds. its soo satisfying ! after writing my latest i felt even more so. sometimes a half an hour writing a blogpost feels much better than a quick 2 sec status update ;)