I’ve got a new post up over at Wisdump about the top 4 mini-blogging options that are available, including a comparison chart to get a quick idea of what’s available. There are zillions more of course, allowing you to share your current mood and what you ate for breakfast, as if anyone cares, and I guess a lot of people do, given the popularity of these things. Whether you use them or not and how often really depends on where your friends are and what functionality you’re looking for.
What’s the point?
I personally have avoided things like Twitter, and didn’t care about getting a Pownce invitation and had never even heard of Jaiku until I went about writing this post. I had heard of Tumblr, but didn’t really see the need since I have a blog. I really saw them as a way of wasting a lot of time with things of relatively little value. However, for some the real value is just the ability to more easily connect with others.
Have I changed my mind?
Having tried them all in the last week or so, I think I at least get why people use them so much. And, though I have this blog, it’s just a small part of my online activities and having a way of aggregating them all in one place is a nice idea. Jaiku or Tumblr works best for this purpose. I decided to start a Tumblelog and maybe I’ll keep using it, maybe not – we’ll see. I do like the fact that you can pull all your feeds into one place there (I’m still working on that), and the ability to completely customize it really appeals to me, of course. I will probably also release a Tumblr theme sometime soon.
So, stop on over and read the post and either comment there or come back here and tell me what you think. Are you using any of these? I have some Pownce invites left, if anyone wants to try it.
Did you have any truble with tumblr adding multiple feeds? It keeps on coming up with errors on mine.
hey what a coincidence – yesterday I started a tumblr blog too!
I have both twitter and pownce and use neither. don’t know if I’ll stick to tumblr yet – I think it’s a nice option for stores and other online shops that want a way to communicate, but don’t need a full blog.
I guess it’s time I ad one as a companion site to my blog. I’ve been hearing a lot about this lately. Thanks for the Info.
I’m 24 days into what I’ve dubbed “my Twitter Challenge”. I have committed to Twittering away for the month of August — while confessing that I don’t understand the appeal of Twitter. At all.
At 24 days in, I can see some of its PR implications: businesses can use it to promote their news releases or blog posts, and potentially reach a new, twittery audience. And conference coordinators can do well to ask attendees to “follow” conference updates on Twitter.
But I’m not feeling the Zen-like qualities of the “here and now” simplicity of Twitter. So far, it’s just been one more item on the to-do list that fragments my day…
…but then again, I’m new at this. I have mucho to learn.
@Laura- what an interesting idea! I don’t really get it either, but I think, like anything else, it really just depends on what kind of person you are.
@Shaz – what’s your tumblelog address?
@Nicholas – I’ve successfully added my Flickr feed, and I tried my last.fm, but it didn’t work. I did add this blog’s feed at first, and then decided it was silly to have the content duplicating over there.
@Emma – let us know when you get one set up!
Randa, I would like to know if you would be interested into trying http://www.nonews.com
It’s slowly turning into a mini-blogging from your cell. A mix between, tumblelog, twitter and pownce
let me know
@Diego – thanks but I probably wouldn’t be interested in it. I don’t use my cell phone for stuff like that. Thanks for asking about it though.
I’ve used twitter.But I don’t think it is useful now.
Telling everyone that you are having breakfast makes no sense at all .
I signed up with Twitter but have barely used it. To be honest I find keeping one blog up to date is enough time and effort without being waylaid by other projects.
I have checked out these ‘networks’ too. I can see how Twitter can be useful, especially when you travel a lot and want the simplicity of being able to send quicxk, short messages through your cellphone and/or the Web.
I definitely see how these networks can be useful. Everyone has different needs when getting involved in the Web 2.0 environment, and these networks fulfill the desire of some folks to inform the world of their day to day lives.
However, I do think that the demand for these services is being exaggerated by all the networks popping up (as is reflected by most of these comments), and I anticipate a drop in the number of these type of services in the coming years. Just my prediction, but we will see!
Hi Ali,
Thanks for the message.
As for me, I’ve never used those mini-blogging thingy. I hardly find the time to publish a new post, let alone to tell everyone what I’m having for breakfast. Anyway, thanks for the head-up. Who knows, I might download one of those thingy and tell the www that I snore loudly in my sleep, lol!
Greetings and lotta loves from Malaysia.
I just don’t have time to play with these things. I love the web and make some of my living from it but it can be a MASSIVE sinkhole when it comes to time. I’ve never used Twitter but I can’t help feeling that someone is having a big laugh behind the scenes.
Having said all that, I AM interested in knowing what’s out there, without necessarily using it, and posts like yours Randa help me find out about this stuff.
By the way Randa, I love the new Sweetie header image on your site. Your last header was making me crave Summer drinks, this one is making me crave sugar! Can you put something healthy like an apple or low fat food on the next design?
Interesting post, got me thinking about the topic, thanks!
For my money though, I have to say that I’m really very much over the deluge of bloogy useless posts about nothing that seem to be the norm in most of the mini-blogging sites you mentioned (and others).
I think if someone goes to the effort of actually authoring an average (i.e. 150 words or more) sized post, they make some small effort to make it worth the time they take to edit and post it.
The new trend of just posting links or images or any other quick post crap that takes the fancy of the “mini blogger” is just filling the web up with yet more useless crap that we’re already over loaded with ;-(
Sorry, but honestly, we can throw out the junk tabloids we get in the post box each week full of paid advertising and house listings and they are gone for good to be recylced as pulp paper, but the bloogy internet stores this crap for ever and ever and we end up with more and more of it in search engine results and the value of what we can find and read in time is increasingly diluted
Cheers,
Dez
ps: please, if you think this comment is worth reading, visit my sites and click some google ads and help me put food on the table
Thanks!!
Dez- I deleted your multiple site links and I think you’ll find that if you continue to encourage people to click on your Google ads, which clearly violates their Terms of Service, that you could be tossed out of the Adsense program all together.
The best thing about Twitter and Tumblr is that it keeps me from blog posting the little blurbs and snippets that I find day to day. This satisfies the urge to, you know, share my found treasures, while not cluttering up my so-called main blog.
@Jennifer – sorry, your comment got caught by Akismet, though I can’t figure out why. Thanks for the comment about my new header. I already have the next one ready to put up when I get in the mood to switch, and there is no food at all, so you’re safe!
@Paul – I’m with you. I’ve enjoyed the Tumblelog so far, even though I seriously wonder if anyone will ever look at it!
I’ve done it all. I’m such a blog slut if you dont count xanga, blogger, wordpress. I’m on Twitter, pownce, jaiku, friendster, tumblr, meebo, stylehive, design related, designerid, behance etc. i lost count as well as all my login names and passwords.
Honestly, none of the above, except perhaps face book and my own blog that has any long lasting appeal. Also in reality, every single mini-blog out there is really un-necessary as you can recreate the same experience with your own blog.
I will however consider my tumblr (designsojourn.tumblr.com), though its only receiving my own blog feeds as with twitter, pownce, jaiku etc.
Strangely everything seems to be feeding into each other. I think we will eventually eat ourselves!
[...] the top 4 mini-blogging tools at Wisdump, and then continued the discussion here with more of a personal opinion post. It was a great way to maximize the time I had spent researching the [...]