What Micro-Blogging is All About?
Posted by Sebastien on the 2007/09/13 at 08:09
in Blogs, Douglas Coupland, FaceBook, Micro-blogging, Pownce, Twitter -
Many people wonder about the utility of micro-blogging using Twitter, Pownce or the Facebook Status Update. It’s difficult to explain but I’ve found a philosophical answer from Douglas Coupland, famous Canadian writer, in his book Life After God (published in 1994):
“And if we were to collect these small moments in a notebook and save them over a period of months we would see certain trends emerge from our collection– certain voices would emerge that have been trying to speak through us. We would realize that we have been having another life altogether, one we didn’t even know was going on inside us. And maybe this other life is more important than the one we think of as being real– this clunky day-to-day world of furniture and noise and metal. So just maybe it is these small moments which are the true story-making events of our lives.”
September 13th, 2007 at 08:25
103 words too many.
Because it’s easy.
September 13th, 2007 at 09:15
Microblogging will never go mainstream because people outside the digerati are not interested in multi-casting every moment of their lives.
IMHO, we die a little bit every time we twitter. We lose a little piece of our individuality that we sacrifice over to the collective, in the name of exhibitionism.
September 14th, 2007 at 09:09
That’s a place where we will agree to disagree Mat, because I see it exactly from the opposing viewpoint: sharing what you are about makes for a better life, not for a process of dying.
I won’t go as far a “publish or perish” but in a society where network communications are increasing, the fact that we have many options is good. For me Twitter is not a new activity, it’s just the displacement of certain social activities in new contexts (because of new tools).
Those who liked “light social interaction with a large group” (think cocktail parties or 5 à 7) before these new tools will appreciate these new contexts and those that didn’t… just won’t.
September 14th, 2007 at 09:42
[…] September 14, 2007 It seems I’m not the only one wondering where micro-blogging tools like Twitter fit into the social media mix. Thanks to Sebastien Provencher at The Priazed Blog, I now have the philisophical viewpoint of Douglas Coupland to consider. From his book, Life After God: And if we were to collect these small moments in a notebook and save them over a period of months we would see certain trends emerge from our collection – certain voices would emerge that have been trying to speak through us. We would realize that we have been having another life altogether, one we didn’t even know was going on inside us. And maybe this other life is more important than the one we think of as being real – this clunky day-to-day world of furniture and noise and metal. So just maybe it is these small moments which are the true story-making events of our lives. […]
September 18th, 2007 at 10:04
I like your lateral thinking on this. “In the beginning was the word” indeed!
September 20th, 2007 at 09:09
I liked this definition so much, I just micro-blogged it over on Twitter. Good find!