I have tried many times, in many different places, to articluate the idea that micro-blogging reduces ones blogging output but Russell Beattie completely expresses my thoughts on the subject in this brilliant article.
‘Tweeting totally takes away that blogging urge from me… Once I tweet about something, it’s like it disappears from my mind completely.’
I can completely identify with this statement and another sentence also struck a resounding chord with me:
‘Tweets have no archival value of any sort’
I think this is so true. Occasionally, I may dig up an old blog post to refer to. Why sometimes, in a lonely hotel room, I may even just scan my blog archives - just for my own enjoyment.
However, I never, ever revisit any of my inane drivel posted on Twitter, Jaiku or even identi.ca. As I once (apparently) remarked to Michael…
I used to enjoy blogging a lot more and I actually have a couple of humourous blog articles that I am genuinely quite fond - no more than that - proud of.
Twitter is just the ultimate in ‘disposable’ blogging. All that crap posted from Heathrow T5 just fills my time in. It’s hardly earth shattering, is it ? God - I can’t remember any of those stupid tweets (apart from the lads in Yellow Lurex suits that was pretty funny) let alone be proud of all those throwaway one-liners.
That’s not to say micro-blogging doesn’t have a place or isn’t valuable, merely that proper, grown up blogging has more value and longevity which makes perfect sense. The more you put in, the more you get out.