More Blog. Less Tweet.

Akiva has been badgered by Louis to blog more, tweet less. As he so eloquently puts it:

I am arguably the greatest writer of our (or any) generation. So much potential confounded by so much apathy, laziness, and lack of time management skills.

I, too, suffer from the same motivational discord when it comes to blogging (though not from the apparent overconfidence). I have tried, in the past, to force myself to write daily, with often disastrous consequences. Those posts were trite, meaningless, and ultimately forgettable (though, thanks to the long-term memory of the Internet, they will hang around my neck forever like the hickeys of a long-forgotten fling).

What was I saying?

Oh, yes, of course: more blog, less tweet. The fantastic success of Twitter has led me down the merry path of instant gratification and rapid response. FriendFeed has sated my thirst for recognition and relevance. And, yet, I remain frustrated by the limits—absolutely artificial limits—imposed by those tools. 120 characters is not enough to say anything of particular importance, especially if it involves some level of analysis. Even the lengthier threads of FriendFeed still fail when it comes to many topics.

Thus, I find myself deleting, hiding, or simply ignoring many posts, simply because I recognize that any substantive contribution will be lost in the overwhelming noise of the mob. My own intelligence and charm go unnoticed, and I’ve gained a reputation as a humorist, mainly because I can say something funny in 120 characters, but not something important (usually—it’s the exception that proves the rule, of course). Even this blog post, which started out as simply a, “Yeah, I hear you, man,” to Akiva, has lengthened beyond anything reasonable.

Blog more, tweet less. I’ll try to keep that in mind.

Here is a doughnut:

Doughnut.jpg

About Glen Campbell

Glen Campbell is a senior engineer and manager for Yahoo! and is often called upon to speak at conferences and workshops. He is also the developer of the Siteframe open-source content management system. You can learn more about him at his blog, on FriendFeed, or by following his Twitter stream. By the way, he is not a noted Country and Western performer and studio guitarist.
This entry was posted in Internet, Introspection, Social Media. Bookmark the permalink.
blog comments powered by Disqus