Have a Short Attention Span? Try Microblogging.

I came across a service called Twitter a few months back. At first I brushed it off thinking it was probably a fad that would slowly fade away. But after looking at it a bit more closely I think that this idea may have legs especially in a society where information overload has caused our attention spans to shrink.

Twitter is in a category called "microblogging". What is Microblogging? Basically it gives you the ability to send very short (less than 140 characters) messages to family, friends, co-workers, or other people in your network.

At first glance it looks like an instant messaging service for friends to find out what there doing at any particular time.

But it goes much further. There are other more interesting applications that can take advantage of a microblogging platform. Microblogging is a way of sending short but more frequent updates of events you're interested in to almost any digital device.

Some interesting use cases could include:
1) Posting emergencies. Things like Amber Alerts or current crimes in progress could be sent out via microblogging platform.
2) Quick news updates from around the world. It can become more of a news source than RSS feeds. Think of having small RSS feeds from your network of people.
3) Get quick answers from your network. For example you have a question on what digital camera to buy, or need an answer to a trivia question you may have a bet on.
4) Stay up to date on what your friend are doing around the world.
5) Tracking conference information in real time. Think of going to a large conference where there is too many sessions for one person. Well if others in your network are attending some of the other sessions you may be able to quickly find the best session for you to attend.
6) Marketing products or services. For example, you want to send a link update to a recent blog post. This link could instantly update numerous networks.
7) Having fun by telling jokes around school or in the office.

In conclusion Twitter and other microblogging platforms may address the need to get quick bits of information to the generation of information junkies who's attention span has slowly dwindled to about 140 characters.

billp
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http://www.outervillage.com
http://twitter.com/outervillage

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