Feb 17, 2008

I have read recently that many Bloggers are worried about the state of Blogging because of the surge of MicroBlogging. I find such a worry to be not only unfounded but actually nonsense.

Such concerns about MicroBlogging are absurd because it don`t hurts the Bloggers or the Blogosphere just because more people are turning into MicroBlogging services like Twitter or Jaiku.

Why? because of the format. the format and the canvas is what makes conventional Blogging work right.

There are different levels of engagement, interaction and theme at play here.

MicroBlogging

Is all about the way you blog and the focus on what you blog being based on inmediacy, awareness and personal projection and the fact that the canvas where those opinions go is not important because what MicroBlogging did was getting rid of the canvas and place your voice into a river.

MicroBlogging is actually good for the state of the Blogosphere because it cuts out the noise and the crap.

People are no longer making as many blogs as before to say nothing or to say little, they have now rationalized that having a Blog is being able to not only say things but say them at a certain length and not just as bursts of Babble.

That is good right?. i think it is. then there is another perspective to have in count:

FastBlogging or Fast Blogging as you see fit say it is another kind of Blogging that does disrupts more into the regular Blogosphere that MicroBlogging does or ever will.

What is FastBlogging?

While being placed on the same view as twitter and Jaiku. services like Tumblr and Soup.io represent another new kind of Blogging (also referred as tumblelogging,just that in this very post i am judging them from a perspective of Blogging as the base from where they divert), because unlike Twitter and Jaiku where the way and the focus is based on inmediacy, awareness and personal projection and the canvas where those opinions go is not important because what MicroBlogging did was getting rid of the canvas (Your Blogging Platform, Your Blog Template, You Blog as online destination) and placing your voice into a River; FastBlogging is about changing the way and changing the canvas to refocus Blogging on a immediacy of use with a instantly flexible Canvas.

And even if FastBloggging posts are usually brief, they are not as brief as in microblogging or is implicit to them and they do can carry a theme just like any other blog.

I have used both Tumblr and Soup.io so i can see that they are not the same thing as having a Blog in a Blogging Platform like Blogger or Wordpress is.

They are FastBlogging Platforms because they have take away the complexities of entry even something we believed to be incredible as Blogger has. it leverages the way you blog content into it by serving Focused Functions into what you are blogging by giving you Automatic Post Templates. They let you decide what level of identity and representation you want to have in your Blog because the way you can edit a template in a instant to be just a River of Posts without Any Interaction or Add Modules, Widgets into it at the same speed,. something that is possible because the platform is designed to help you resolve most of the Blogging Work you have to do in a regular Platform like Blogger.

If you post a photo, thanks to the automatic templates, you only need the link of it, the same goes for the video that you usually embed into a post, or making a quote, sharing a link,etc.

FastBlogging Platforms also work more into the Social Web Idea because they are meant to let your merge services into them and then republish that content into your FastBlog.

And that is just if we refer to Tumblr. Soup.io is taking it even further by making possible to FastBlog without identity, without account, edit a template while you see it, let you do some Drag and Drop instant design, and the most important advancement in it is that there is not separated dashboard, your template is a live dashboard, the posts you write is moving WYSIWYG to be more literal than before as you see the post be filled into a post as you type it.

and finally the bending of the Rules of Blogetiquete, where in FastBlogging it is ok to Republish and Reblog what other said because the platform not only allows it but encourages it.


Back to Blogging

Of course that the advancements cited in MicroBlogging and FastBlogging will also get into regular Blogging platforms, but they will be integrated to a whole as a option in the same format we use now, not as the sole way to do so like in both MicroBlogging and FastBlogging.
So, these two new ways to Blog will not pose a threat to Blogging, Blogs will not go away as some say, and is more than Likely that regular Blogs will actually get to benefit from it in one way or another.

Even then, it is interesting to see how the Landscapes change and how Blogging Culture changes and adapt into new branches.

First there were Modular Blogging or Blogging Modules (where Blogging is a part of a larger platform and it only represented as a Scope or feature in it, like MySpace, LiveSpaces and even Facebook to some degree ) that reside in Social Networks and then this development of MicroBlogging and FastBloggging as a direct response or after effect to that.

But all of this means no change to you if your are already Blogging, as i said once and i will say again: "The Format is Everything" because everything else just revolves around it.




3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, thanks for your kind comments about Soup.io!
I think the analysis in this post is spot-on. Tumblelogging or "FastBlogging" is still in its infancy, and it's exciting to see the idea spread and develop!

Avatar X said...

@christopher:

Coming from you it does means a lot. that does gives me a respectable degree of right in my thinking to Tumblelogging. i put it as "FastBlogging" as a way to of an analogue on FastFiction.

FastFiction was movement in the eighties where writer produced and delivered work at a fast pace and it was based on the execution and delivery of the work.

A FastFiction Book was something that was written, printed and distributed in the same month.

in this case i see Tumblelogging as FastBlogging taking Blogging as the base from where this started.

i do have added a note to the post, but i will be doing single posts on Microblogging, FastBloggging and even Blogging Modules (the way fo blogging inside a Social Network or a platform where Blogging is not the main focus)

Now, i do love Soup.io, i like it even more than Tumblr for the very progressive ideas you and the Soup.io team have added to separate even more tumblelogging from conventional Blogging and the main Blogging Platforms.

but you already know that since i mention them briefly in this post.

Unknown said...

Thank you for your very informative post. I'm right there, exploring FastBlogging!

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