Micro-blog

Micro-blog

Overview

A micro-blog is a web application that allows subscribers to send short informational updates which can either be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group chosen by the user. Similar to blogs, content is displayed in reverse chronological order (i.e., newest items first). The purpose of a micro-blog is similar to that of a traditional blog, except that individual pieces of content are much shorter (typically 140-200 characters). Twitter is a well-known example of a micro-blog.

Strengths

The major strength of micro-blogs is the simplicity with which users can add new content. The relatively short time commitment required to create and post content on a micro-blog often results in many more users contributing content more frequently than on blogs or other websites. Virtually all micro-blogs also have web feeds (also known as news feeds or rss feeds) which allow other websites to automatically gather content from multiple related micro-blogs. Many micro-blogs allow for the attachment of documents, images, and videos.

Weaknesses

While presenting the latest content items first is ideal for regular website visitors, less frequent visitors looking for general information can be intimidated by the large amount of content on most micro-blogs. Additionally, access to many microblogging sites is blocked by state and federal agencies. Some microblogging sites, like FriendFeed, allow users to interact with microblogs directly through email thus providing a simple way to bypass state or federal blocks on microblogging sites.

Examples

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology team that works on eBird uses Twitter for sending out short informational updates (http://twitter.com/Team_eBird). Southeast Partners in Flight is experimenting with FriendFeed as a new communication tool (http://friendfeed.com/partnersinflight).

Tutorials

Both FriendFeed (http://friendfeed.com/) and Twitter (http://help.twitter.com/portal) have video tutorials of how the sites work.

Further reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging

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