Social Internet

Short history of micro-blogging

Facebook got rid of the "is" from their status update today, aligning itself to it’s audiences demands and conforming to be more twitter-like. The facbeook ’status’ messages today are abuzz with news about the disappearance of "is." 

This fascination with our own lives and the desire to share it with strangers amuses me sometimes. Everyday I am reminded of the ‘celebrity’ I could morph into if I wanted to.
These social tools have helped us manifest our illusory popularity within our niche groups, subjecting those in our circles to continuous broadcasts about the trite and sometimes, intimate details of our lives. We call it micro-blogging.

Wikipedia defines micro-blogging as,

"Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user."

It bothers me that we think of it as a revolution when it simply is just an innovation, an iteration at the most. Lets revisit the IRC chat days. ICQ identified users with a unique number and allowed them change their handle and keep the screename dynamic. In the first month alone when I started using ICQ (1998/ 99 was it?) my screen-name changed every few hours depending on my colorful teenage moods and emotional beat.

MSN  Messenger too, allowed for the same and in addition to giving users the flexibility to keep dynamic screen-names, it also allowed them to customize their status messages which in my case, (and those of my friends) varied from laments about life, homework & college to song lyrics and my whereabouts. But the information was being broadcast to 80 some friends with whom I shared real, tangible, offline relationships.

AIM messenger gave users a static user name with the ability to customize messages, updates and even icons- little widgets and tools that allowed users to express themselves and share bits and pieces of their lives.

Cellphone ringers in India allowed me to choose my current favorite songs so when my friends called me, instead of hearing the phone ring, they would hear the ’song of the moment’ which in most cases was a direct reflection of my life.

I outline these instances because in each and every one - users like me and you have with precision been broadcasting our lives to our friends. And we’ve probably been doing this before the term blog was coined.
These options have simply enabled the frequency with which we now share these details — evolving into a more robust, almost pollutant iteration of what we grew up with.

This evolution of micro blogging offers users the ability to become active participants instead of being passive observers. So now, we aren’t only sharing, but also conversing and commenting via micro-tools with an intensity that wasn’t as palpable in the earlier versions. Also and perhaps the most intriguing facet of our current version is our ability and our open-ness to broadcast our life events to an extended and expansive social circle.

My opinion on micro-blogging fluctuates - I know we are fascinated with ourselves but my life (and the other 98% of people’s lives) are barely interesting. They are simple, ordinary lives and I don’t know how if that begets incessant broadcasts. That’s just my two cents. (All the same, I have been guilty of doing the same)

It bothers me sometimes. I see a lot of micro-blogging happening on facebook that is merely by professionals who instead of using facebook as a social utility tool which is what it is meant to be, use it to toot their professional horns. To me, this dilutes the essence of facebook and I almost wish I could take my friends and shift elsewhere. But who would follow me?! And where would I do?

I suppose, the next evolution…..