What is micro-blogging? Lifestreaming
Micro-blogging, and more specifically, micro-blogging services (like Twitter, Jaiku, Plurk) are all forms of lifecasting, also known as lifestreaming. Put simply:
Lifestreaming is the continual (or regular) broadcast of one’s life and or activities through a digital medium.
So what should micro-blogging mean to you? I often get asked about the point of it all, or more recently ‘how do I make this useful for me?’. The question is always asked as if there’s something different about me and fellow Twitters that make it useful only for us. That’s just wrong.
It’s up to the user to make this services useful. And very useful they can be. As long as you understand what you want to get out of it. It comes down to how you break your audience down (work, life, social, spiritual etc) and then you begin to find voice and voices to talk and listen to about your focus.
Some users utilise Twitter and other micro-blogging services like Jaiku, purely for work streams – answering questions about digital media, recruitment. Others, for news and current affairs – getting opinions as they stream recent news. Then there are combinations. Where, between ‘Coffee number 3′ and ‘Any thoughts on open source mobile OS?’.
As we social media enthusiasts take up the early adopter positions, we encourage people to try the services out for themselves. You shouldn’t need worry about existing friends being in these networks, but look forward to making new networks.
As my list of social media memberships increases, and the beta testings continue, it’s very interesting to watch the landscape evolve.
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[...] by Evan Smith prompted me to ask the same question. How did we all find our way onto this microblogging [...]