Micro-blogging as Stepping Stone: Blame Twitter For Getting Me To Slow Blog

I am starting this personal blog, because 140 characters aren’t always enough to express my shallow thoughts on Twitter.

Actually Robin Wauters is to blame for hooking me up on that vile micro-blogging drug. He advised me to try some of that addictive conversational stuff last year. Beware, because these types of interactive dealers call themselves social media consultants nowadays. After pushing hash tags at those fashionable meetings & conferences, Robin would hiss the ‘Hey dude, still not on Twitter?’-mantra.

<confession>I only wanted to give Twitter a quick curious try, just to make sure I was not missing out on any BIG new trend. </confession>

A few days after signing up and much to my surprise, I had to admit Twitter was a great new way to reach out, interact and get valuable information & contacts. Did I mention its addictive nature yet? Feed me a fail whale and I start to itch.
My mind works in many ways like Twitter (signal <-> noise, focus <-> distraction & no clear business model, but always passionate). I tested several ways to remain efficient at my usual entrepreneurial tasks. I ended up by limiting Twitter to a browser tab on my laptop. I treat myself to some twitted distraction, when I finish a ‘real’ task from my To Do list.
968 Tweets down my public timeline, I am still amazed that over 262 ‘followers’ find my daily brain farts interesting enough. Having build websites since 1995 and operated a few ‘portals’ since, I remain uncertain about my writing skills. I also badly judged that I was too busy for that blogging hype anyway.
When Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jason Calacanis retired from blogging in July and limited his thoughts to a closed mailing list, I saw this as the ultimate proof of my position. After all ‘conversation by e-mail’ is what I have been doing since 1991 and largely got me to where I am today.
Today I stand corrected and admit to have underestimated the power of social interaction experienced on Twitter. It proved useful to me in several ways: as a matchmaker with other entrepreneurs, to keep a pulse on the digital newswire, hooking up new friends and reconnect with many old friends. I laugh more behind my screen (a healthy side effect), but above all I converse with my followers, reply to their tweets and learn by sharing. As a subscriber to Calacnis newsletter I even had to observe how he went back to making the odd post on his officially abandoned blog.
In some pathetic way, I feel digitally crippled for not having a personal platform to archive, elaborate & develop my largely unfocussed thoughts, while consolidating feedback and comments. I tried FriendFeed, Twitpic and was an instant Vimeo fan. However a blog seems a more appropriate place to interact and express my views mixed with links, video, pictures and text beyond 140 characters.

Being fluent in three languages, I will probably blog in Dutch and French too. I hope blogging will elevate my views, raise interaction and teach me how to weigh my words more carefully.
Let me know if you enjoy my attempt at slow blogging and how to improve my posts. I look forward to your comments.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Fun, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.