For Wayne Sutton, this is microblog week. Microblog week is a chance to experience microblogging sites that may otherwise go unused. The idea was conceived by Sutton and almost halfway through its execution. I’m not sure how many other people are participating, but I know for sure that he’s being diligent about it.
I like what Sutton is trying to do here. He has just under 6,000 followers on Twitter alone, so there’s a good chance that his idea is pretty well-known. There are numerous microblog sites out there competing for a chunk of the user base that Twitter holds. These other sites (Plurk, Identi.ca, Pownce, and Rejaw) could conceivably see an influx of registrations and usage due to Sutton’s nomadic use this week. Sutton calls himself a “Social Media/Technology Evangelist” — this is his chance to practice what he preaches.
The message I’m getting from this experiment is that the best way to learn what other sites have to offer is to use them for a day. This will tell you what you like and dislike about the current site in comparison to other sites. There are many other sites just like Twitter that are just as good, but lack the community Twitter has. Part of Twitter’s problems have been caused by its success, however, so there’s no telling if other sites will experience the same issues.
To gauge the success of this project, I’ll track the number of followers Sutton has. As of August 12, 11:30 PM CT, Sutton had these followings:
On Monday, I’ll compare the numbers above to the then current numbers to see what kind of headway has been made in terms of followers. Since those who know about it will likely follow him as they participate, his follower numbers should be indicative of his success.
If you want to participate in the week-long project, there are no obligations or “gotchas” involved. Just jump on the social network of the day and use it as exclusively as possible. Wednesday’s network is Identi.ca, Thursday’s is Pownce, and Friday’s is Rejaw. If you want to follow me on any of those, I can be found under the handle chewbocka.
1 comment so far ↓
August 14th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I love Wayne’s idea about testing each of the platforms and giving each of them a fair chance.
I think there probably are platforms out there that are better than Twitter, but most people won’t give them a look because they started on Twitter first and are now unwilling to look at anything else.
Twitter is in the forefront for good reason. It has a LOT of developer support, a few million users and several easy tools that allow people to interact with the service.
It will be interesting to see Wayne’s final impressions (and follower count, as you are tracking) after the week ends.
It’s also got me itching to do the same thing, if only to give each platform a chance and see what it has to offer.