Twitter Is Blogging, Twitter Is Not Blogging

Twitter started as a communications tool that enabled people to quickly send chat-like messages to one another, or at least to the community that made up Twitter. The system has become more complex, taking on new methods of sharing and distributing the “tweets,” especially through third-party sites.

Today, the people who use it often consider themselves bloggers. In some ways, they are. In others, not so much.

Let’s take a look at what makes up the core of blogging and how this whole process relates to Twitter. Now, more than ever, there are fewer gaps between the terms that people use to distinguish the services apart.

In Defense Of: Twitter Is Blogging

Ease of Starting – Both blogs and Twitter accounts are both easy to begin. The difficult part is staying on board with posting daily and updating your readers or followers what is happening, through updates and new content.

Sharing of Information and Ideas – Both blogs and Twitter accounts can help you share ideas on the web with others. When you don’t share any useful, new information with your fellow Twitter users, you’ll find that the number of followers will stagnate, and you’ll thus be left with an account that others don’t want to follow or subscribe to.

Connecting with Others – Sharing your thoughts with others is a great way of creating connections and networking with others. People will grow attached to you if you share some of their same thoughts and you can promote yourself and your products/ideas through this network.

It’s Social – The “social” web has been here for quite some time, but we’re beginning to see a new era of it, through Twitter and the connections between the various social networking sites. No longer do people focus on a single site for growing their network. Instead, we’ve branched out to a number of sites that together can help promote our purpose.

Problems with Spam – Initially, links weren’t that popular on Twitter, but more and more lately, there have been accounts of huge amounts of spam on Twitter. For some, these links are spam, while others find it a great way to deceive others and make money. At this time, unless we eliminate the millions of “fake” accounts and the ability to post URLs (which won’t come easily), spam will continue to grow.

Relatively Low Entry Point – You can start a blog and a Twitter account for free. Both are limited, at least in some respects, to the number of posts/content that can be inserted and uploaded for the world to see. Using Twitter on your own domain will cost the same as a blog domain.

You Can Become Famous - There have been people on Twitter that have effectively become famous, whereas they weren’t previously. Some of that has to do with multiple efforts combined with blogging. There are people who never would have gotten noticed if it were not for a blog/Twitter combination.

In Defense Of: Twitter Isn’t Blogging

Starting a Twitter account can lead some experienced bloggers and those who have never used any type of social networking to proclaim that they are now bloggers. Within days, they stop Twittering, although they continue to refer to themselves through this newfound title. There are some reasons why this shouldn’t happen.

Twittering is So Basic – Much like chat, anyone can create a Twitter account. It doesn’t involve the same level of promotion to get your name out like a blog. Send ten tweets per day that are noticed, and you can become quite famous at a rapid pace.

Nearly Everything is Managed by Twitter – You don’t have to moderate comments, and releasing a new Twitter “post” only takes a few seconds. No coding is required. Links are created automatically, and hosting costs are non-existent, especially if you diversify where you upload “images” to the service (linking to them).

You Don’t Have any Control – Like the previous idea, you have no control beyond what you place on your profile and the background design. Yes, you can shorten your own URLs, but most people instead resort to outside services. It’s much harder to gauge the success of a Twitter profile, at least in respect to the efforts that you put into a blog.

140 Characters – Including links, you have 140 characters to present your message. Yes, you could span multiple tweets, but they are broken up instantly if you decide to post information in-between or someone else posts something (through search). If you have used the service, the limit can really work to your advantage sometimes, while other times, it can just be a nuisance.

Conclusion

Twitter may not be “blogging,” but more along the lines of sharing your ideas. The nature of the site prevents it form being a fully-featured weblog solution like Blogger or Tumblr, but it does contain features that have opened blogging up to people who haven’t tried it before.

Like many other web services, it takes time and effort to maintain a Twitter account and until you are able to promote it effectively, you will find yourself blending in with everyone else.