The rise of Microblogging

"It's a blog... but it's an sms... kind of strange mix, actually"

What an interesting thing, I said. It's going to be a complete failure, I thought. But, as you can see in Twitter, maybe micro-blogging and me just had a bad first impression.

But... what is really with it? A strong business model? A fantastic interface? Something revolutionary? Well... it's not more than redesigning the ancient concept of communication, actually... Just another perspective and another possibility that people have to keep in touch with their beloved ones (or the hated ones ;-) )

Professor Enrique Dans writes about Twitter it in its early stages (sorry, in Spanish; a good English introduction is in MediaShift). It is really a different thing, in which you can not only express you opinion about something, but keep in touch with someone that is far away (as I do with my girlfriend), let your mum what you are doing ;) or inform about something (BBC or NYT in journalism, Los Angeles Fire Department informs you in twitter: LAFD). So... what's all this buzz about?

The incredible thing is that, while laughing at their lack of business model, we have witnessed how it has grown more than anyone had expected. Communication in one way, asynchronous, primitive. But an easy way to communicate, an open door to express what you need when you need in less than 30 secs...

And... you know what? Tell me how many competitors are trying to copy you, and you will tell me how successful and how many possibilities (as well as threats, of course) are in front of you. And taking a look at:

Rejaw (with a Chat included)
koornk (personal shouting)

Utterly (with photos and media)

kwippy (thoughts)

BrightKite (where are you)
identi.ca (free software)
Jaiku (geographical microblogging)
Twingr (microblogging communities)

And what about its Spanish counterparts? Xmensaje and Khaces

Amazing. Maybe it's worth to take a close look at it... and wait until the discovery of the business model... or the new funding round!!!!

New technologies and education

When Enrique Dans told us his thought of a collaborative environment for his 2.0 class, it seemed a great idea. Taking the class actually out of the class is something that I have never done before.

Sure, some professors in the University (specially those involved with Creative Commons licenses or even GNU licenses - not just following trends, but creating them;don't worry, I'll talk about the licenses in following posts) tried to make a collaborative environment to try to enhance innovation, discussions, human relationships.

But this is new, because not only we have to write of some defined topics as this same one (the introduction of blogs, microblogging, a "virtual me"), but to expand our scope and start to express our opinion, our vision of the future, of the trends and our lives in the unknown and feared arrival of the web 3.0.

I think this experience is going to improve the learning process and also the learning curve, as it is not the same to be told what the new trend are than experiencing it by yourself.

Welcome, virtual me. Welcome, Virtual World, or better, Real Virtual World.

See you soon,

Carlos