A lot of people have trouble explaining Twitter. The people at Common Craft, a series of short explanatory videos, do the job with Twitter in Plain English. I do NOT need one more (micro) blog to care for but I’m test driving Twitter.
A couple of weeks ago I wondered if we’d see any live blogging from the local precincts that make up the Iowa Caucuses. I figured someone must be trying to pull this together and found this post by Patrick Ruffini at Hugh Hewitt’s Townhall.com:
“On Iowa Caucus night, I’d like to launch a little experiment in citizen journalism. Mobile technology allows anybody to communicate from anywhere, including from inside a caucus. Any caucus goer can become a citizen reporter, relaying key facts to the outside world instantaneously. I’d like to recruit an army of caucus insiders — both Republicans and Democrats — to report results instantly and share tidbits on what the campaigns are doing to sway last-minute undecideds.”
Caucus bloggers can participate via Twitter, email or by texting.
Not sure how busy I’ll be helping with RadioIowa.com, but I’ll try to keep an eye on this experiment.
Have you been following the Twitter thing? Ian Curry at frog design describes it better than I can:
“Twitter is perhaps the best example of a new kind of blog that some are calling a “tumblelog.” The tumblelog is a bit like the old link lists: quick one or two-line entries – sometimes just a picture. Twitter in specific allows you to post, through a variety of means (IM, phone, web), short messages meant to describe what you are doing at any given moment. By establishing contacts on the site, you can also get a collected list of what all of your friends are posting.”
I set up a Twitter page, just to get a feel for the tool and I almost get it. There are times when I’d like to just post something that doesn’t quite fit on smays.com. I can see how this could be even more useful for texting.
And handy for live-blogging something like a basketball game or debate in the state legislature. Some have used the term “microblogging” to describe this. Looks like something to watch.