Blogging is, apparently, so very 2004. Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter are where you want to be.
Or so says Paul Boutin this week over at Wired.
And while he has some reasonable points, I think his motivation to blog and mine are a bit different.
(Spotted originally on Merle Kessler’s blog, which does not get the attention or the Google page ranking it deserves.)
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Umm..
no
Twitter holds about two sentences. Why would I even bother? I update my Twitter about once a week.
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140 characters. Try summarizing War & Peace, Proust, or your disdain for a given MMO mechanic in 140 characters.
And for the record, I do not have a Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr account.
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Twitter is for microblogging. With SMS delivery it’s more social. Blogging is more content driven, ideally.
Both have their use.
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*Looks at his recent blogs*
There is no way I could accomplish what I’m trying to do on any of those venues. I’ll stick with blogging thanks.
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Hush Winterblink! This is supposed to be a moment of coming together through righteous indignation at the assault on our medium, making us simultaneously closer and more detached from reality!
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Uh no thanks. Social networking is totally not my thing. Blogging suffices. :-)
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[Rightous Indignation]
No Facebook/Bebo/MySpace/etc here either….. [sudders at thought]
As for Twitter, just haven’t given it a go… But as Blinky says, it’s basically horses for courses….
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Aw, c’mon! Wired is so 1999!
= )
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Best Social Network = Blip.fm
If I must speak eloquently in as few sentences as possible…then I will say it with music instead!
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Thanks for pointing this out Wilhelm. You have prompted me to write a rebuttal in my own blog. I guess I agree that the time when you could “become famous” through blogging is probably over but there are many other reasons to keep blog.
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Flickr and Twitter are bonk (unless you have a smartphone) and Facebook is dangerous to your career. No thank you.
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Why are they still called wired? Who is connected by wire anymore? I’ll take brain cancer inducing radio waves, thank you very much!
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What has changed to Flickr ? Thought it was just a place to store pics / photos ? Or is my age showing ?
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Wired? You mean that little snaky thing that stick out of silicon boxes? Oh,… no? Ah, a magazine. Made out of a tree? Oh, you mean like a slimmed out version of the Gutenberg Bible?
That was done a few centuries ago right?
lol
Seriously though, saying blogs are passé, is like calling websites dead. Yes the novelty has died down, but it’s only now that the real benefits are being recognized. I can’t recall when was the last time I had a “conversation” with my newspaper, or my magazine, or my TV for that matter. I have that on a daily basis with the blogs I visit.
Blogging has it’s place in the vast array of communication technologies; has does the telephone, email, TV, blogging, twitter, Facebook and the rest that’s to come later.
[ Trying saying that on twitter!! :p ]
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Microblogging: in case blogging was insufficiently trivial for you!
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I like the idea of Twitter as a competitive medium. Express your feelings about 40 man raids in 140 characters. You have one minute. Go!
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Anyone else find it less than ironic that a Twitter entry is referred to as a “twit”?
Twitter and [anti]social networking attempt to substitute mere existence for expression.
Back to quill and bark, I say.
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Bark? Where is my stylus and wax tablet?
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Individual Tweeter entries are ‘tweets’. Those who post them, though…
I use both blog postings and tweets. But we have to be honest — the original purpose of blogs — Web Logs — was to point people to interesting things they found on the net. More or less a way to bookmark places for people with similar interests, with occasional commentary.
What we call blogs are really online journals or rant sites. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
For pointing people at web sites or make short commentaries on something — I DO use Twitter.
So it could be argued that tweets have replaced the original purpose of blogs (and the person who invented blogs definitely thinks we’re doing it all wrong now. We have perverted the true meaning of the blog!
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2007/12/blog_advice
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True enough Tipa, according to Jorn Barger we’re doing it wrong. He says that if we’re posting more text than links, we need to learn some humility.
Myself, I have little interest in that form of blog.
However, what Paul Boutin is calling a blog seems to be much more in line with what they have evolved into, the online journals, rant sites, humor and observation pages. And he thinks we should just give it up, at least if we think we’re going to make a splash, become famous, or get rich via them.
But that advice might apply to any activity. Most people who do anything, from sports to acting to writing to whatever, won’t make it to the “big time,” however one chooses to define it.
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