Micro-blogging! MBlogs useful for Garden blogging?
I just read an article about the Micro-bloggging site Twitter. Apparently posts/messages are limited to 140 characters (characters, not words) and can be posted through the website, text messaging, email, IM or MP3. Seems pretty lame but who knows what it can become. I notice Senator Obama uses it to post short messages.
There two other competitors whose website are easier to navigate and you can actually see some blogs or is it mblogs on the intro page. Of the two, Jaiku and Cromple, Cromple seems a bit easier to navigate but Jaiku is now part of Google so I'm sure it will become the more popular mblog vehicle. Also, check out Pownce.
Will this become a useful device to jot down gardening thoughts? For me garden photos are important and my time is so stretched, I don't foresee doing a mblog in the near future but maybe someone will give it a shot? Please let me know if you do!
There two other competitors whose website are easier to navigate and you can actually see some blogs or is it mblogs on the intro page. Of the two, Jaiku and Cromple, Cromple seems a bit easier to navigate but Jaiku is now part of Google so I'm sure it will become the more popular mblog vehicle. Also, check out Pownce.
Will this become a useful device to jot down gardening thoughts? For me garden photos are important and my time is so stretched, I don't foresee doing a mblog in the near future but maybe someone will give it a shot? Please let me know if you do!
posted by Ki at
6:03 PM
13 Comments:
I'd heard of Twitter, but wasn't aware of their competitors. It sort of looks like a merging of text messaging, instant messaging, and blogging?
I can't see myself using it, but just a few short years ago I couldn't envision having a cell phone either. <kidding>I mean, who wants to be on call to everybody, all the time.</kidding>
Hi Entangled,
After having the car battery die where no phones were nearby, we bought cell phones just for emergency use. I hate talking on phones (not kidding) and will screen calls via answering machine at home almost all the time. The cell phone has proven to be useful after we hit a deer several years ago and when I got a flat at 70 mph in slushy snow. Quite interesting trying to stop without losing complete control of the car.
Who would have thought I would be a blogger today? I guess anything can happen but you're right about being on call. I can't even seem to find time to visit all the blogs I want to read. I just can't see reading the inane minutiae of someone's life - although I seem to have posted some in this reply. ;?
Ki, I don't think getting a flat at 70 MPH is minutiae :-(
We didn't get a landline phone put in our new house - so it's cell phone or nothing there. It's worked out well enough, except when the cell site has gone down in power failures.
Entangled,
Luckily there was no traffic on the 6 lane turnpike early Sunday morning. The snow made stopping kinda squirrely though.
I wouldn't have thought a cell would go down. Quite interesting. My brother-in-law was trying to explain how you could easily make cell phone calls on an airplane. For some reason I always thought it was too high but there are no obstructions so the signal is apparently very good and 30,000 feet is less than 6 miles up.
I guess a lot of people have only
cell phones now. For my daughter's generation, a land line is old fashioned but I need it for my DSL connection since I haven't succumbed to fiber optic cable...yet. I have yet to text anyone let alone use IM. I wouldn't have the vaguest idea how you would go about using your MP3 device to post messages. I thought MP3 was only a receive (podcast) and read/view device?
My niece got an iPod Touch for Christmas - maybe that's what they mean when they say you can post with an MP3 device?
We were surprised by the local cell site downtime too. You'd think it would be on backup power of some kind, but whenever the electricity goes out at the new house, the cell phone signal also disappears. It takes hours for it to come back up after power has been restored - they must have to send somebody out to reset something.
Entangled,
I try to keep up with a lot of the tech stuff but I'm so far behind the curve it's not funny.
A group of hysterical people are trying to prevent a cell phone provider from attaching 7 foot antennae to a water tower. They are afraid the "radiation" emanating from the antennae will harm their children with "lower my property value" added on as a after thought. I think the latter is the hidden adgenda but harming kids gets the most attention and sympathy. The feds have stated that people cannot block the installation of cell phone antennas to existing tall structures using the radiation argument. Radio waves fill the air in any case without apparent harm...or maybe that's the reason we're all daft. Anyway, the question to ask all these hysterical people is: do you own and use a cell phone? If you do, how can you put such a deadly device so close to your brain or allow it to be used in such close proximity to your children? The closest house is several hundred feet from the tower. I bring this up because they also wanted to ban the small housing of back up batteries beneath the tower. It's interesting that you don't have back up batteries for your cell tower.
Hi Ki,
Your exchange with Entangled was interesting - I was a late convert to the cell phone and don't use it much.
I am experimenting with Twitter and am of two minds about it. If more people were doing it in the gardening community, I think it would be more interesting. I don't follow many people and I doubt that I'd want to follow many more. I will give it a few months and decide whether or not it is worth keeping.
I can see it having value if your posts contain information that would form a record of some sort.
I haven't put much time into it although I can see that it could become a real time waster.
Will let you know more in the next few months ...
Hi Kate,
Your experience with Twitter so far, confirms my initial impression of the service after reading the information on the site. Unless you were on the computer all day and had nothing else to do than follow people's "quotidian" remarks, it could be a fruitless and time consuming endeavour. Although, I can imagine it could be a useful tool if a lot of garden bloggers were discussing an interesting subject and many were logged on, say, on a Sunday evening. Thanks for your impression.
Hi Ki,
I thought Twitter was a waste of time until I started using it. It's useful once you start following a group of people. I follow a bunch of tech/web industry people because it related to my job. Not a lot of gardeners on there though.
Feel free to follow me
http://twitter.com/compostman
Once spring comes, I'll have more gardening related content.
You can tweet using SMS or sometimes I do it from my iPhone.
I came across your blog while trying to track down some garden bloggers to follow on twitter and thought I'd jump into the fray!
I have been using it a few months now and find it intriguing but unless you are in front of a computer all day, it is quite hard to really give much input to it. But if you do decide to give it a to, be sure to get an application like twhirl. It's a desktop app that allows you to log into multiple accounts at once and you can also see when someone you "follow" posts any sort of new tweets...or responds to one of your own tweets. Very hand and without something like that I really couldn't foresee going on with twitter.
If anyone would like to follow me, please look me up on twitter
http://twitter.com/txblond
I write about my blog posts on my home & garden blogs among other random things that I manage to remember to tweet about ;-)
Tiffany
If you use Firefox, there is also an easy add-on called 'Twitbin' - it opens up a long, narrow window to the left of Firefox and updates frequently.
Hi Tiffany,
Sorry for the delay in responding to your comment. Thank you for the information and how to make twitter more useful. Another blogger used twitter as a memo or notebook to jot down things in the garden. More for herself than using it as a communication tool. I though this was an inventive use of the app. Thanks for your comment.
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Hi Kate,
I do use FireFox and didn't know about Twitbin. Maybe it's because I'm using the Firefox beta testing browser and not the actual Firefox. Or I may have overlooked it which wouldn't be surprising being unawares most times. I will look into it. Thanks for the information.
Ooops, Sorry Anthony, I missed your post. I guess if more gardeners started using it, it could be a useful tool. The only trouble is I'd hate to be tied to the computer all day and I absolutely hate phones.
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