Twitter, a popular microblogging website, calls its 140 character blog posts "tweets".

Microblogging is a broadcast medium in the form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically smaller in both actual and aggregate file size. Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links".^[1] These small messages are sometimes called microposts.^[2][3]

As with traditional blogging, microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as "what I'm doing right now," to the thematic, such as "sports cars." Commercial microblogs also exist, to promote websites, services and/or products, and to promote collaboration within an organization.

Some microblogging services offer features such as privacy settings, which allow users to control who can read their microblogs, or alternative ways of publishing entries besides the web-based interface. These may include text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, or digital audio.

Services[link]

The first microblogs were known as tumblelogs. The term was coined by why the lucky stiff in a blog post on April 12, 2005, while describing Christian Neukirchen's Anarchaia.^[4]

Jason Kottke described tumblelogs on October 19, 2005:^[5]

However, by 2006 and 2007, the term microblog came into greater usage for such services provided by Tumblr and Twitter. In May 2007, 111 microblogging sites were counted internationally.^{[citation needed]} Among the most notable services are Twitter, Tumblr, Cif2.net, Plurk, Jaiku and identi.ca. Varieties of services and software with the feature of microblogging have been developed. Plurk has a timeline view which integrates video and picture sharing. Flipter uses microblogging as a platform for people to post topics and gather audience's opinions. Emote.in has a concept of sharing emotions, built over microblogging, with a timeline.^{[citation needed]} PingGadget is a location based microblogging service. Pownce, developed by Digg founder Kevin Rose among others, integrates microblogging with file sharing and event invitations.^{[citation needed]} Pownce was merged into SixApart in December 2008.^[6]

Other leading social networking websites Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Diaspora*, JudgIt, Yahoo Pulse, Google Buzz, Google+ and XING, also have their own microblogging feature, better known as "status updates".

Services such as Lifestream and Profilactic will aggregate microblogs from multiple social networks into a single list while other services, such as Ping.fm, will send out your microblog to multiple social networks.^{[citation needed]}

Internet users in China are facing a different situation. Foreign microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, and Google+ are censored in China. The users use Chinese weibo services such as Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo. Tailored to Chinese people, these weibos are like hybrids of Twitter and Facebook, they implement basic features of Twitter and, allow users to comment to others' posts, post with graphical emoticons or attach image, music, video files.^{[citation needed]}

Usage[link]

Several studies, most notably by Harvard Business School and Sysomos, have tried to analyze the usage behavior of microblogging services.^[7][8] Many of these studies show that for services such as Twitter, there is a small group of active users contributing to most of the activity.^[9] Sysomos' Inside Twitter ^[8] survey, based on more than 11 million users, shows that 10% of Twitter users account for 86% of all activity.

Twitter, Facebook, and other microblogging services are also becoming a platform for marketing and public relations,^[10] with a sharp growth in the number of social media marketers. The Sysomos study shows that this specific group of marketers on Twitter is much more active than general user population, with 15% following more than 2,000 people. This is in sharp contrast to only 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people.^[8]

Microblogging services have also emerged as an important source of real-time news updates for recent crisis situations, such as the Mumbai terror attacks or Iran protests.^[11][12] The short nature of updates allow users to post news items quickly, reaching its audience in seconds.

Microblogging services have revolutionized the way information is consumed. It has empowered citizens themselves to act as sensors or sources of data which could lead to important pieces of information. People now share what they observe in their surroundings, information about events, and what their opinions are about certain topics, for example government policies in healthcare. Moreover, these services store various metadata from these posts, such as the location and time of these shared posts. Aggregate analysis ^[13] of this data includes different dimensions like space, time, theme, sentiment, network structure etc., and gives us an exciting opportunity to understand social perceptions of the people about certain events of interest, for tapping the pulse of the populace, or a platform for situational awareness and, as correctly pointed out above- a perfect medium of communication during crisis management. Such analysis can help us answer key questions that could have been asked during recent events for improving situational awareness: During the Mumbai terror attacks, what were the main topics (key phrases) that were discussed in the tweets originating from Mumbai during each of the three days of carnage? During the Haiti earthquake, or recent Pakistan floods, what were the primary immediate requirements in rescue situations, where were the possible locations for supplies that matched requirements, and many more queries like these.

The findings of a study by Emily Pronin of Princeton University and Harvard University's Daniel Wegner have been cited as a possible explanation for the rapid growth of microblogging. The study suggests a link between short bursts of activity and feelings of elation, power and creativity.^[14]

Microblogging for organizational usage[link]

Users and organizations can set up their own microblogging service: free and open source software is available for this purpose.^[15] Hosted microblogging platforms are also available for commercial and organizational use.

Microblogging has the potential to become a new, informal communication medium, especially for collaborative work within organizations.^[16] Over the last few years communication patterns have shifted primarily from face-to-face to more online communication in email, IM, text messaging, and other tools. However, some argue that email is now a slow and inefficient way to communicate.^[17] For instance, time-consuming 'email chains' can develop, whereby two or more people are involved in lengthy communications for simple matters, such as arranging a meeting.^[18] The 'one-to-many' broadcasting offered by microblogs is thought to increase productivity by circumventing this.

Another implication of remote collaboration is that there are fewer opportunities for face-to-face informal conversations. However, microblogging has the potential to support informal communication among coworkers. Many individuals like sharing their whereabouts and status updates with microblogging.^{[citation needed]}

Microblogging is therefore expected to improve the social and emotional welfare of the workforce, as well as streamline the information flow within an organization.^[16] It can increase opportunities to share information,^[19] help realize and utilize expertise within the workforce, and help build and maintain common ground between coworkers. As microblogging use continues to grow every year, it is quickly becoming a core component of Enterprise Social Software.

Issues with microblogging[link]

Some issues with microblogging are privacy, security, and integration.^[16]

Privacy is arguably a major issue because users may broadcast sensitive personal information to anyone who views their public feed. Microblog platform providers can also cause privacy issues through altering or presetting users' privacy options in a way users feel compromises their personal information. An example would be Google’s Buzz platform which incited controversy in 2010 by automatically publicizing users’ email contacts as ‘followers’.^[20] Google later amended these settings.

Security concerns have been voiced within the business world, since there is potential for sensitive work information to be publicized on microblogging sites such as Twitter.^[21][22] This includes information which may be subject to a superinjuction.^[23]

Integration could be the hardest issue to overcome, since it can be argued that corporate culture must change to accommodate microblogging.^{[citation needed]}

Related concepts[link]

Live Blogging is a derivative of microblogging that generates a continuous feed on a specific web page.

Instant messaging systems display status, but generally only one of a few choices, such as: available, off-line, away. Away messages (messages displayed when the user is away) form a kind of microblogging.

In the Finger protocol, the .project and .plan files are sometimes used for status updates similar to microblogging.

See also[link]

• Blauk
• Blogging
• Comparison of microblogging services
• Facebook
• Geosocial networking
• Google+
• Heello
• imaHima
• Jaiku
• myYearbook
• Plurk
• Social networking
• Tumblr
• Cif2.net
• Twitter
• StatusNet
• Microblogging in China
• Microblogging novel

References[link]