« Twitter and the ever-faster moving news landscape | Main | Who will provide the credibility ratings for the journalists of the planet? »

The border between blogging and Twittering

Ross Dawson, July 1, 2009 11:52 PM US PT

Shall I tweet it? Shall I blog it?

If you’re both a blogger and Twitterer, when you get an interesting thought you want to share, you have choices.

Do you tweet it? If it’s interesting enough to let people know, then sure – very easily done.

Or do you blog it? If it’s compelling enough, competing with lots of other stuff, and it’s time-sensitive, then yes. I have a list of over 60 blog posts I’d like to write, so something has to be compelling to get in front of that queue.

This decision changes over time. I’ve blogged for seven years, and was slow to get on Twitter because I thought I had plenty on my plate with blogging. Now more and more idea sharing happens over Twitter. Of course, there’s only so much you can say in 140 characters and sometimes you have to flow beyond that. Comments and blog posts can do that – they’re part of the content creation landscape.

I will explore this issue more later. I’m working on a blog/ Twitter framework that will show how they relate to each other.

It certainly seems to be an interesting topic to explore: what is the border between blogging and Twittering?

5 Comments

Ryan said:

I was having a similar conversation with a colleague the other day. I feel Twitter is perfect for awareness raising and knowledge sharing, and maybe adding your two cents' worth within the 140 character limit. Blogging is suited to a more in-depth exploration of the topic, a space for analysis. I always try to contribute something new in my blog articles; someone else has no doubt blogged about the topic generally already, so there's no point reinventing the wheel.

July 2, 2009 3:47 PM

Britta Bohlinger said:

Interesting question - but is this really an issue? Twitter is microblogging and won't allow us to go as much in depth on any chosen topic as a blogpost could. It seems you and I are among those who blog and microblog in an interative manner: weaving links between one's blog and microblog, linking with various audiences who've got differing levels of attention span available at different time of the day, week or month. We would need to start including RSS readers in this debate, after all, it's production AND consumption of content.

July 6, 2009 3:51 AM

Ross Dawson said:

It's an issue for now in that we use these channels differently over time - we are making dynamic decisions on how we share.

Brita, your comment does evoke for me a world in which all these channels will merge - thus my interest in the distributed commenting platforms... it will certainly be fascinating to watch this eveolve.

July 6, 2009 5:05 AM

Monique Amour said:

You can do both without overlapping...Twitter is a microblogging tool, so depends on the subject, the depth of approaching that subject, the time at your disposal...and a lot of other factors...

July 6, 2009 12:36 PM

Gireesh Sharma said:

When you have a serious thought blog it, when it is light or a joke or time pass - Twitter it.

July 16, 2009 11:29 PM

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: professional services and venture firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy consulting group Future Exploration Network, leading events firm The Insight Exchange, and influence ratings start-up Repyoot.

Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.