To Tweet or To Blog - that is the Question

Can Tweeting / micro-blogging truly be the next "In" thing that is set (perhaps it already has) relegated blogging to the "Has Been" category along with the Sony Walkman and the Floppy Disk?

For the uninitiated, the word "Blog" is the result of putting the words "Web" (as in World Wide Web a.k.a. Internet) and "Log" (as in journal. Think "Captain's Log" from Star Trek). Of course, when you do that, you end up with "Weblog" which over time, gets shortened to "Blog".

Other shortened words include:-
1. "Telephone" to "Phone" - 44% reduction
2. "Refrigerator" to "Fridge" - 50% reduction
3. "Influenza" to "Flu" - 67% reduction
4. "Gymnasium" to "Gym" - 67% reduction
5. "Advertisement" to "Ad" - 85% reduction

Hmm, I wonder if one day, Twitter will get shortened to Twit (or Tweet as the current verb for Twitter)...? :)

While blog is a common verb, tweet, on the other hand, is the act of making a post on Twitter, just one of a few micro-blogging services. Sites like Facebook calls them "Status Updates". For the sake of simplicity, I'll use the term tweet in general for the rest of this article.

A blog post is limited only by the writing ability of the author, and the particular system architecture of the CMS (Content Management Software) or Blog Host used. Just like websites, blogs require a host system and supporting software, which can be paid for or part of a free service offered by the likes of Multiply or Blogger / Blogspot. Of course, free blogs have their own particular restrictions, like space limits (especially for hosting attached photos) and ads everywhere. Regardless of the form, the emphasis of any blog post should be the content. Typically, there are several genres of blogs, from personal blogs that serve as online diaries, to corporate blogs which dish out news especially regarding new products and services.

Writing a blog does require some planning and structuring, just like writing an article for journal / newspaper. While not as formal as, say, an Engineering Report, a blog entry should be well written and properly checked before publishing (unless you have a niche reader base with special tastes). Shoddy writing, typo errors and spelling mistakes are best avoided if the author is to give a good impression to a potential reader base. Of course, one problem here is if a blog post gets too long, so if a post starts to resemble the Lord of the Rings saga, consider splitting it into several parts instead of posting a online novel.

Blogging can be spontaneous, but is best to hold back and do some thorough research on the subject matter. And of course, if time permits, some proof-reading and sanity checks should be done before hitting the "publish button". There are some offline blog editors available (unfortunately, nothing that works with Multiply) but in a pinch, as I'm doing now, you can type into Notepad and cut-and-paste it later.

One problem with blogging is that one can get too carried away. In general, besides the online privacy bit, certain sensitive information should not be posted on a blog, even though it's restricted to friends only (accounts can and do get hacked from time to time).

Micro-blogging, on the other hand, is in essence a one-liner or series of one-liners, that are best for conversation or news. For conversation, as in real life, it makes sense if replies are in real-time. For instance, reading a tweet "I'm at McDonald's now, anyone want to join me?" from last night would have very little value to me (unless I'm interested to know what you ate last night). It works best if you have practically have a real-time 24-hour internet connection, so that tweets come in and go out in, well, real-time. Good business for those telecoms providers....

Great too if you have something happening that is worth reporting as it happens (sports events make great tweets). As good as listening to the game on the radio. Of course, you can listen to the radio while driving but not follow tweets (this is a free public safety announcement, don't tweet and drive). Other than that, for the average Joe like myself, life is relatively dull and monotonous (living safely is sometimes boring), so often there's not enough going on to generate some good tweeting traffic. Better to add value than to spawn streams of spam....

Micro-blogging posts are text-only with a strict 140 character limit. This limit was originally introduced for compatibility with SMS messaging. Though these days while you can string a few SMS-es together to form a complete longer SMS, I'm not sure if the micro-blogging architecture can facilitate this.

With a maximum of only 140 character limit per tweet is that one liners on their own can be extremely misleading. If one has a wild imagination, or makes assumptions, an innocent "tweet" can be misconstrued to one with malicious intent. I cite here a real case where a Malaysian politician caused quite a stir when he tweeted "OMG! Real culprit freed", which coincided with some other real life event. Apparently, he was referring to a character in a Chinese movie that he was watching 14 Blades (Jin Yi Wei). Source : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/8/12/nation/20100812165411&sec=nation

My pet peeve with micro-blogging, same as with SMS, it the atrocious amount of shortening that is done, just to keep messages "under the limit". While there are some legitimate means to cut down on the clutter when it comes to posting URL's (like TinyURL, for example), there is no mercy when it comes to the rest of the English language.

To illustrate my point, how many seconds does it take you to read the following? : "My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :- kids FTF. ILNY, it's a gr8 plc."

I'm not sure if "young people" these days find this normal and acceptable (perhaps another sign that I am getting old). Back in those days, it was the Queen's English, as thought by my English teachers (Puan Talha, Mrs Segaran, Ms Janet Low(or was it Loh?) and "Auntie" June Yong - did I miss out anyone?). Isn't it ironic that, these days, people are complaining about the declining standard of English, and at the same time push to embrace "bleeding edge" technology which steer us in the opposite direction?

Well, in short, blogging is suitable for writing articles, reports and journals to tell tales of travels, breaking news and / or of trivial things. With all means of text formatting and inline pictures to augment it.

Micro-blogging, as I see it, would be more suitable for real-time communication (as it's namesake "SMS of the Internet" implies), or if you have some good one-liners (streaming loads of them, less you leave your "followers" hanging dry). With a real-time internet connection that is (as some of the telecoms plans these days seem to bank on).

Call me old-school / dinosaur, but I think I'll stick to blogging for the time being, at least until my kids are old enough to carry on the online legacy (and maybe spark off the next evolution - who knows what new technology will pop out in 10 years' time?).

By the way, have you figured out how to read the "SMS text" 5 paragraphs above this one yet? Here's the full message, in the Queen's English : "My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York. It's a great place." (I got it from : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2814235.stm) :)