Is microblogging something new? Young services like Twitter and Tumblr are seen by some as a natural evolution of personal presence on the Internet, filling a gap between blogging and social networking. Some say it is in the process of obsoleting email.
Visualizing the information stream
Not so long ago, Digg challenged its community to a contest to make use of the Digg API to feed creative and dynamic Flash visualizations. Digg Radar, a visualization of new diggs created by Brian Shaler and profiled here in the summer, was one of the entries that tried to move the news stream out of the standard most-popular list format that is the default of the site. Although Twitter has not yet issued a similar challenge, their open API is already being used by some developers to examine the information stream in new ways.
Innovating Twitter
One of the genius moves that made Twitter so potent was a decision to maintain a simple, open API. By granting access to the most interesting parts of the system—the members and content—Twitter has inspired widespread development of third-party applications that cross platforms, integrate with other systems, and contribute new ways for members to interact with the information stream.
Twitter utilitarianism
How do people use Twitter? Themes of marketing, news, networking and efficiency clearly provided the foundation of the service’s appeal. We’ve posted several specific examples of utilization that have appeared since last spring.
A brief history of microblogging
Microblogging—the term given to short status messages reporting on the details of one’s life—arrived on the scene as a major communication channel in March 2007 when Twitter became the hit of the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas. The young company set up large screens to display content provided by conference attendees, who signed up for the service in droves. Site creator Evan Williams didn’t invent communication through text, but his company did construct a scaffolding that gave new power to short messages.
Home Tweet Home
I have been tweeting since early March, just before Twitter exploded into the mainstream Internet with a strong showing at the South by Southwest conference. Since that time, I have followed the growing interest in the service and saving hundreds of links that I will try to process over the course of the next week. Over the next week, BlogSchmog will explore different aspects of Twitter based on eight months of use.
Hidden communities
Two examples of how latent readership can become real-world interaction, courtesy xkcd and Homeless Man Speaks. When we are able to connect the little things we read with the humans behind them, the world grows significantly smaller.