It’s been an interesting few months for microblogging service Twitter. Launched in June 2006, the concept is almost too simple – answer the question “What are you doing?” in less than 140 characters and all your friends and contacts get updated on your status. At first it received mixed reviews, with the general response being “but what would I use that for?” However, earlier this year, a number of national journalists and online organisations started experimenting with the service, resulting in a peak of activity in March, which is when I joined.
Since then, the microblogging world has expanded and become a significant part of the social media spectrum. Pownce launched in June 2007, and in October Google bought Jaiku, both offering similar concepts. But Twitter has remained the most widely used of the bunch, innovating its offering to include working as a Facebook app, and then – almost inevitably – as a means of updating your Facebook status automatically.
So is this just another technology for social media professionals to talk amongst themselves? From the growing signs, it looks like microblogging will actually be a mainstream trend to watch in 2008. The BBC used Twitter for its coverage of the Rugby World Cup, the service was name-checked in US crime investigation show CSI, and even glossy mag Grazia has cited microblogging as “the Facebook of 2008″. Sometimes the most successful ideas are the simplest.
I hope you’re right. This would be the first time I could claim to have been in almost on the ground floor with something before it really went huge. Either that or it’ll just go broke! I think twitter is great though.
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