Is Twitter Killing My Blog?

It’s a good question. I’m not the first to ask and I won’t be the last.

As kind of an object lesson, I’m posting this entry from my Blackberry. I can remember thinking all I really needed to become a more prolific blogger was a more portable, more immediate platform. Something that would put some activity behind the polite threat of “I’m blogging this” — you know, like the t-shirt.

But what I’m finding is a meeting of that immediate need through Twitter — which updates my Facebook status simultaneously. In seconds, I can act upon an observation, capture an associative thought and be on my merry way. And all of this done in under 140 characters.

Does this mean all of my previous posts were undeserving of the extra words and attention? Not necessarily. What this means to me is I’ve a choice to make. I can ask myself honestly “Is this thought worth the time and effort to give it flesh and muscle? Or is it enough to share only the skeleton?” I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the life of reply and retweet warranted by even the most mundane of my online comments.

So if I’m honest, Twitter is probably good for my blog and therefore good for my readers.

(But if that’s so, then why has it been a month or so since my last good post?)

July 23, 2009 – 1:51 pm | By Thomas | Posted in Geekery, social media | Tagged | Comments (5)
  • http://rustytanton.com Rusty

    Yeah. Back in the good old days, there were a lot of posts I wrote where I threw up a link or a blockquote, wrote a sentence or two about it, and called it a day. All of those posts have moved to Twitter, and now I write fewer blog posts, but most of them are well over 500 words.

  • http://www.mostlymuppet.com/ Seth

    I’ve discovered a similar trend/swoon on my blog but I’m trying to re-dedicate myself to longer-form stuff on the blog as well as “Ficly Friday” to augment my use of Twitter (and to a lesser extent, Facebook).

    Keep up all the good works. You’re an interesting and engaging fellow no matter the format.

  • http://www.duanemoody.com duane

    I have been having the same thoughts for a while now. However, I am trying to blog more lately, and I feel like I have been doing a much better job; although, when I was at my height, I blogged everyday.

  • http://www.grabbingsand.org Thomas

    Of course, these comments illustrate what Twitter is lacking. Twitter is collaborative, but only to an extent. And while Facebook allows comments, there is a definite imbalance there in the signal to noise ratio.

    Seth – I keep meaning to check out Ficly. Might have to do so.

  • Rebecca

    Without a doubt Twitter is slowly twisting the knot around your blog. The question of course is, do you care? I enjoy your mind when displayed in a thought out exposition on, well, just about anything, and Twitter just doesn’t do it for me.

    No hard feelings, its not your twittastylez, it IS twitterstyle that I can’t cozy up to. Its fast and brash, its zooming past incoherent billboards, struggling to piece together the story.

    I like the cozy story, the well appointed, the places set, my needs considered, standing by the fire, or out in the rain kind of story. Its a story that’s isn’t conveyed by running ,shreiking, through puddles, but standing unmoving while it pours.