World Comment Day: What did I comment about? Twitter Conversation Metrics

Chris Brogan reminded us that he declared today as World Comment Day.

Ironically, I read a post from a month ago by Stowe Boyd called "Beyond Blogs: The Conversation Has Moved Into Flow" where he stats that conversation is moving from blog comments thread which is slow and static to a more fast form of conversation - the flow in Twitter, Friendfeed, and other places.

Boyd goes on to describe how Twitter and other similar apps are based on the web of flow - where information of interest comes to you, not the other way around.  He describes this as a move away from hunting and gathering and into "relationship agriculture" - information grows in our flow applications instead of us spending hours hunting it down.

Does this mean blogging or reading blogs is not longer relevant or useful?   I think people will continue to use blogs as Boyd mentions as a place to archive or organize their content so other people can still find it when they need to search. Having a format for longer thoughtful expression will not go away and I know personally, having a central archive (or personal learning space) for thinking around a particular subject matter topic works well for blogs.

I'm thinking, for example, of the roundup of Arts 2.0 examples.  Almost all this information came to me via Twitter (or Facebook).  I had to do very little hunting and gathering.   For me to analyze it and see any useful patterns, I had to summarize the fragmented information in one place.

There more and more posts (and comments) on blogs about the new form of fast conversation taking place on Twitter.   I love Boyd's Twitpitch -not an elevator, but escalator.  And a post from Commetrics about Developing Metrics for Conversation for Twitter

So, is conversation dead in blogs?  Has it and will move to Twitter and other places?  Conversations are fragmenting .. what gets lost with this fragmentation and faster form of conversation?   What are the gains?

Well, off to comment on some blogs ...

Comments

[Sarah Stewart]

Hi Beth

Funnily enough, since I have got into Twitter, I am doing more commenting because I am reading more blogs - twitter leads me to blogs I would otherwise not have come across.

[Chris Brogan...]

Blogs are still a great place for comments. But they're no longer the only place. See how that goes? Crazy, eh? We used to call blogs the new place for the conversation. Now it's ONE place for it. Atomization. Some days, I think big media is over there laughing at us for atomizing.

[Beth Kanter]

Chris:

Got it .. it isn't an either/or - it's both/and. But not everyone has to be in all places. I noticed the atomization a year ago while doing the nptech tag roundups - which was about finding conversation fragments. In the nonprofit community - we have them scattered in litservs, forums, blogs, twitter, facebook, myspace, and other digital nooks and crannies.

Thanks for the conversation - helps with the learning. Now, could you have conveyed that idea in 140 characters?

[Chris Brogan...]

Heck no. That whole 140 characters thing makes a big mess of it, but I see what you are saying. Spreading all over the place, and yet, we've got to find ways to pull it all together.

[Urs E. Gattiker]

Dear Beth

Thanks for referring to our blog http://commetrics.com/?p=99

I still believe that Twitter is not a conversation but maybe just a different type of chatting and airing/sharing one's thoughts.

Adrian Chan put it nicely in his comment this morning here: http://commetrics.com/?p=99#comments

"... It’s a discontinuous form of talk and a disaggregated audience, through a channel that disintermediates — anyone is immediately proximate to anyone else..."

One thing is for sure, it can take up a lot of time and deprive some people of sleep as another comment made following Adrian shows.

Thanks for listening.