Twitter – Micro-blogging and the recent boost to Twitter traffic

Twitter is a a micro-blogging website. Micro-blogging, as described by Wikipedia is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micro-media such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web. What this actually means as a user experience is probably best explained by the video used an introduction to the Twitter service, ‘Twitter in Plain English’, which I have included below.

Twitter is closed, proprietary system. Of course, this does not matter to most of its users as it works fine as a fully integrated system. However, due to my advocacy of open-source software, I discovered and signed up to identi.ca, a very similar micro-blogging service to Twitter, but based upon the open-source micro-blogging solution laconi.ca. For several months now, I have actively been ‘tweeting’ on Twitter, and ‘Denting’ on identi.ca. You can follow me on Twitter, or subscribe to my updates on identi.ca if you so wish. I frequently micro-blog my opinions on events and often use micro-blogging as a promotional tool for this blog and other websites I’m interested in.

From speaking with many existing users of micro-blogging services, and those who have never used such a service before, it has become very apparent to me that there are two huge extremes of opinion regarding micro-blogging. What do you think about micro-blogging and the recent influx of users coming to services such as Twitter? Do you see it is a valuable addition to regular blogs or as something completely different? Alternatively, does keeping people up to date with daily events via micro-blogging services seem pointless and utterly futile?

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5. New Indicator Applet & Messaging Menu for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx