Depends on how you define microblog: as a dedicated app or a component within a
larger site? Facebook and MySpace have integrated "current status" into their
apps. LiveJournal and other blog sites use the "mood" field to create the same
sense of "right here, right now". Twitter and Plurk are focused solely on this
idea, and I'd argue that Twitter has first-mover advantage in the category, as
people now have their networks established (what else could explain why people
have stuck with the Fail Whale this often and this long?). I also think that
Twitter nailed the brand... what the heck does "plurk" even mean?
Here's why it works for me:
- Their open API means lots of people get to build new ways to interact with
it, and lots of people do... so I get to pick the experiences that work best
for me on my laptop and my iPhone.
- I love that I can follow someone without forcing them to follow me. It lets
me glean info from Jared Spool, Kathy Sierra and Jeremiah Owyang that I'd never
have access to if everything had to even-steven.
- When I'm alone in the airport and my plane is delayed and I'm tearing my hair
out, the constant, lightweight flow of tweets connects me to my home and my
people. Twitter calms me down.
- My tweetstream is made up of friends, colleagues and family; tweets aimed at
certain segments of my followers are likely irrelevant (and possibly even
annoying) to the rest. This raises interesting questions in my mind about the
nature of networks and of communication and about the relative value of the
info we release into the wild. Twitter, in its utter simplicity, feeds
complicated internal dialogues that I find valuable.
(Hi! I'm an Information Architect/User Experience Designer/Interaction
Designer/Call It What You Will with a faboo interactive agency in Portland, OR
called ISITE Design, and I've just joined IxDA.)
----- Original Message ----
From: Eric Scheid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: IxD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 7:20:24 PM
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] twitter and IxDA once again
On 20/8/08 11:48 AM, "David Malouf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So why does it work? What makes Twitter work? I'm not interested in
> what makes it fail. I'm interested in analyzing the positives.
>
> What makes twitter work where other micro-blogs fall short?
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