Comments on: The Future of Microblogging

By: Molly

Molly — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:07:18 +0000

@ Stubbornmule
You’re right. In the end it is a microblogger in the sense that the technical workings behind the service is a twitter clone, but by customizing it and making the messages almost always private, it desocializes the microblog.

The communication is site owner -> user/ user ->site owner, but never user -> user. I was afraid if we made user comments public, the service would turn into a sort-of trip advisor where everyone gives their two cents about the establishment (these reviews could be phony or vulgar and would need moderation).

Instead, all user comments are either private notes for themself or direct questions/requests to the hotel (only the hotel owner sees these requests, they are not public).

As far as using the structure of a discussion forum, I was thinking that since the comments are taggable, the entries will be organized into subjects in this way. I thought this would be better than setting up a mini-forum for each hotel structure in which the users have to respond to a particular thread. (though they could also create a new thread…) I like the freedom of the microblogger better. Do you think more structure would be better?

It will also be possible to rank comments according to their importance so users can remember which comments are more important.

Perhaps we could add some suggestions about what to write/ask the hotels so that users have some focus.

I am considering expanding the service so that it can be used on any site, not just for hotels, and so at first didn’t want to limit the scope. But maybe you’re right, users need some direction (like there is in a forum).

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:05:42 +0000

@Molly: In that case, it sounds like you’d be using it more like a discussion forum. While a microblog can certainly work like that, you may want to consider whether you want some of the other features that a more traditional forum would offer, such as thread topics. In a forum, people can zero in on the particular topics of interest to them, while a microblog is a less structured conversation. If you don’t feel that you need the structure, microblogs do have the advantage of being flexible for users: they can dip in and out, subscribe to rss feeds, search etc.

By: Molly

Molly — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:31:50 +0000

@ stubbornmule Thanks for your input! Good points about having a strong community to base the new venture on. I hadn’t considered the community aspect from that perspective. And now that I think about it, the service I’m planning isn’t really meant to be community based. In the sense that each hotel sees only responses/comments they’ve made and comments users have sent directly to them. Every user will see only the comments they sent to hotels and all the comments they received from hotels. (In reality it’s the same microblog that everyone is using, but the comments are private so that only the two people involved in the communication see them. There is also the option to make a post public, but I think the majority of the dialog will be private). Do you think this type of microblog could perhaps be too individualized/too niche?)

By: stubbornmule

stubbornmule — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 01:02:34 +0000

@Molly: I certainly think that niche microblogs have a lot of potential and the TWiT Army microblog is a good example. Of course, the key to success is to have a core group of people who are enthusiastic, motivated contributors who feel some sense of belonging to the community in question. To maximise the chances of this happening, it would help if there is already a community in some form (e.g. in the TWiT case these were regular listeners to the TWiT podcast) and then the microblog becomes a natural forum for these people to begin communication with one another.

By: Molly

Molly — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:30:44 +0000

I enjoyed reading your article, especially because I’m thinking about starting an OpenMicroBlog especially designed for hotels. You say that you think open microblogs are the way of the future, but do you think an open micro blog specifically geared towards a particular genre of people (mine would be used by hotels & their clients) could work? Or that it could stand a chance of being as successful as the more generic (unselective) microblogs? My service would be free (using publicity to pay for the relatively small amount of money put into making the service). I’d love to hear your opinion/thoughts on such a project! Thanks

By: Deeta

Deeta — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:01:14 +0000

You mentioned that IM never succeeded to move beyond its initial fragmentation. An attempt was made though. The jabber project released a federation-able IM server in 2000. (which lead to the XMPP standard). But since then user awareness of freedom issues have increased. So let us hope identi.ca and jabber subscriptions increase in the future and eclipse their closed counterparts ^-^

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By: Randal L. Schwartz

Randal L. Schwartz — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:32:05 +0000

Thanks for mentioning FLOSS Weekly! And http://army.twit.tv/ is alive and well and being used by many people.

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