Cyberbaguioboy

Okay, I’m “addicted” to plurk, twitter and whatnot. No, they’re not cartoon characters in the latest Japanese anime flick. They’re services that allow people to micro-blog (I believe this will soon land in Oxford as a noun or a verb). As I was browsing through some stories, I found interesting tidbits about micro-blogging.

Why do we do it?

First off, how different is blogging from micro-blogging? The latter involves burst of short messages — 140 characters to be precise. Imagine how many words you can fit into that? For having 20,000+ followers, Techcrunch is perhaps the best example of an effective Twitter.

Micro-blogging is not a fad. It has emerged as a natural way to reach out to people. By that I mean interaction, sometimes in real-time. For instance, have you ever read a real-time blog about travel on Twitter? Well, we have one local example and currently, I’m following it. Tales of the Nomad (run by INQUIRER.net which is a company I work for) provides an example of the power of micro-blogging.

Perhaps you’ve heard about Plurk. It’s just like Twitter but with a twist. Instead of the usual chronological interface where the latest Tweets go on top, Plurk follows a timeline. All updates are posted in a public timeline for the whole universe to see. Look at this example, my plurk account. Plurk takes some getting used to. But it becomes really addictive once you start. One plurker (yes, another new noun to land soon on Oxford haha) says that Plurk is the new YM, short for Yahoo! Messenger. I think this explains it a lot. We love to chat with people. Micro-blogging is one way we can connect or even re-connect with people. For media, it’s another way of getting immediate feedback or even ideas from readers. This is perhaps the most direct medium by which you can give your two cents’ worth on certain issues, vice cersa.

So why do we do it? Well, why not? It’s there. People are there. And we want to be a part of it, this social world of micro-blogging. If you don’t get it, then you’re missing out on the fun.