Last week I ran a story about Wayne Sutton and his journey on Microblog Week. He asked his friends on Plurk what they thought of the week, which was received with mixed reactions. Some users noticed that it seemed like Sutton was talking to himself quite a bit. One user says he gained a new respect for Pownce and used Identi.ca “more than ever”. Another user on Twitter called the week “silly“.
I’m still awaiting Sutton’s official reflection on the week, but I’ll forge ahead with my promised follower metrics. To recap follower numbers at the beginning of the experiment (as of August 12):
Checking those numbers again today yields the following numbers:
There was a definite gain in followers for both Rejaw and Identi.ca, but they were marginal gains. Over the last two months, Sutton has gained an average of 27 followers per day on Twitter (source). This leads me to the impression that, in terms of followers, the week was unsuccessful.
The feature that was most dearly missed was mobile capability. Of the five networks that Sutton used last week, only Twitter has mature mobile features. From what I can tell, none of the other networks support SMS, and only Plurk and Pownce even have a mobile-friendly site.
I have no doubt that Sutton’s goal wasn’t to gain followers, but to better educate himself on other networks and what they have to offer. It’s even got another user anxious to do the same thing. My initial reaction is to say that the experiment returned successful results. In my opinion, having a solid grasp on the competition’s offerings means the week was successful. I, like others, anxiously await Sutton’s official reaction.
