Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Why Blogging is Better than Twittering

I may break down and sign up for a Twitter account (a text-message like microblog where you submit 1-2 sentence posts at a time, especially relevant in a time where more and more people have smart-phones). I do like the idea of keeping track with friends via tiny and non-committal pithy comments. But Twitter cannot take the place of the context, color, theme, and nouns verbs and pronouns that you find on a blog.

Fake Twitter example:
Rob posts: “Made it to Shasta. No chains req’d”
Josh responds: “I told you. Next time trust me”
Brian adds: “Ah, you’re both whiners”
Rob responds: “Almost got in accident, I’m okay”
Brian adds: “Ha ha, too funny, probably got a buzz from that nasty mermaid coffee”
Rob responds: “No, seriously, I almost died.”
Josh responds: “Come on guys, why can’t we all get along… We settle this over Halo”

Huh? What happened? Why did Rob go to Shasta? Was bad weather expected? He almost died? Wow! How!? Are other people coming to visit him at Shasta? Some lodge or cabin where you can plug in Halo? I need more info! All of these questions could be answered, with pictures, charts, and context, in a blog. The other day I looked back at a post about some random weekend trip we took to College Station and thought, aww, that was a fun weekend! But I’m sure if I had a Twitter account at the time, my post would have been something like, “In Aggieland, Whoop!” ... Well whoop-dee-doo! What happened?

If only we had a blog during our treks in Romania and China. There are so many stories worth writing about that you will never know:
1) The 14-hour “hunger train” trip to Iasi
2) The trip to Dracula’s Castle
3) Rob gets in a fight with a drunk 60-yr old farmer in a coffee shop
4) Spelunking in a cave
5) Train ride to Vienna just to visit the nearest Starbucks

If we had a blog, you could find out all about each of these crazy adventures. But if we had a Twitter account, our post would have simply been a bullet point, ie “In Vienna, Starbucks… finally!”

4 comments:

Andrew and Joanne said...

haha Ohhh Rob.. :)

I just left twitter because I can't afford an unlimited texting plan. :) You'd be surprised how fast it adds up.

Smart man, Rob, smart man. Don't give in!

-Joanne

Sarah said...

Just get Facebook already.

Andrew and Joanne said...

Lame comparison. Facebook can replace your blog just as quickly -and it works seamlessly with twitter. Get with the times dino.

See all in under 140 letters.

Andrew and Joanne said...

Oh - BTW. You should get a photosharing tool that works with Facebook (Flickr). You can post charts on those, too. It ALSO works with Facebook! So many better options!