Microblogging
{{Short description|Social network with short posts}}
{{redirect|Status update|the 2018 film|Status Update}}Microblogging is a form of blogging using short posts without titles known as microposts or status updates.{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Dayter |first1=Daria |title=Microblogging |encyclopedia=The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology |date=2019 |pages=1–3 |doi=10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosm153.pub2 |isbn=9781405165518}} Microblogs "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links", which may be the major reason for their popularity. Some popular social networks such as X (Twitter), Threads, Tumblr, Mastodon, Bluesky and Instagram can be viewed as collections of microblogs.
As with traditional blogging, users post about topics ranging from the simple, such as "what I'm doing right now", to the thematic, such as "sports cars". Commercial microblogs also exist to promote websites, services, and products and to promote collaboration within an organization.
Some microblogging services offer privacy settings, which allow users to control who can read their microblogs or alternative ways of publishing entries besides the web-based interface. These may include text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, digital audio, or digital video.
Origin
File:Microblog screenshot (cropped).jpg
The first micro-blogs were known as tumblelogs. The term was coined by programmer why the lucky stiff in a blog post on April 12, 2005, while describing Leah Neukirchen's Anarchaia.
{{cquote|Blogging has mutated into simpler forms (specifically, link- and the mob- and AUD- and vid- variant), but I don't think I've seen a blog like Chris Neukirchen's [sic] Anarchaia, which fudges together a bunch of disparate forms of citation (links, quotes, flickerings) into a very long and narrow and distracted tumblelog.}}
Jason Kottke described tumblelogs on October 19, 2005:
{{cquote|A tumblelog is a quick and dirty stream of consciousness, a bit like a remaindered links style linklog but with more than just links. They remind me of an older style of blogging, back when people did sites by hand, before Movable Type made post titles all but mandatory, blog entries turned into short magazine articles, and posts belonged to a conversation distributed throughout the entire blogosphere. Robot Wisdom and Bifurcated Rivets are two older style weblogs that feel very much like these tumblelogs with minimal commentary, little cross-blog chatter, the barest whiff of a finished published work, almost pure editing...just a way to quickly publish the "stuff" that you run across every day on the web}}
Manton Reece, founder of Micro.blog, defines Microblogging thus:
{{cquote|A microblog post should have these qualities:
- Should have a feed, usually RSS or JSON Feed
- Does not have an RSS item title.
- Contains short post text, usually 280 characters or less.
}}
However, by 2006 and 2007, the word microblog was used more widely for services provided by established sites like Tumblr and Twitter, some of which do not have RSS-like feeds.
File:My first tweet! (3344952812).png" posted to Twitter in 2007]]
As of May 2007, there were 111 microblogging sites in various countries.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}} Among the most notable services are Twitter, Tumblr, Mastodon, Micro.blog, FriendFeed, Plurk, Jaiku and identi.ca. Different versions of services and software with microblogging features have been developed. Plurk has a timeline view that integrates video and picture sharing. Flipter uses microblogging as a platform for people to post topics and gather audience's opinions. PingGadget is a location-based microblogging service. Pownce, developed by the Digg founder Kevin Rose among others, integrated microblogging with file sharing and event invitations. Pownce was merged into SixApart in December 2008.
Other social networking websites Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Diaspora, JudgIt and XING, also have their own microblogging feature, better known as "status updates". Status updates are usually more restricted than actual microblogging in terms of writing.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}} Any activity involving posting short messages can be classified as microblogging although it is usually not considered a microblogging "site" or "service" if it is a secondary, rather than principal service, provided there.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}
Services such as Lifestream and Snapchat will aggregate microblogs from multiple social networks into a single list, but other services, such as Ping.fm, will send out the microblog to multiple social networks.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}} Services such as Instagram and Whatsapp showcase 'status update' features for users to quickly engage with one another {{Cite web |last=Fielding |first=Sarah |date=31 May 2024 |title=Instagram makes its status update feature more interactive |url=https://www.engadget.com/instagram-makes-its-status-update-feature-more-interactive-160057778.html}}{{Cite web |last=Pathak |first=Khamosh |date=29 August 2023 |title=How to Use WhatsApp Status: 11 Things You Need to Know |url=https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/whatsapp-status-guide/}}
Non-Chinese microblogging services, such as X (Twitter), Facebook, Plurk and Tumblr are censored in China. Chinese Weibo services such as Sina Weibo are available to the Chinese people, offering similar functionality to X (Twitter) and Facebook. They provide microposting, allow users to comment on each other's posts, allow posting with graphical emoticons, and support inclusion of images, music and video files.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}} A survey by the Data Center of China Internet from 2010 showed that Chinese microblog users most often pursued content that was created by friends or experts in a specific field or was related to celebrities.{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}
Usage
Several studies have tried to analyze user behavior on microblogging services. They include extensive studies on Twitter in 2009, by researchers at Harvard Business School and at Sysomos. Results indicated that for services such as Twitter, a small group of active users generate most of the activity. Sysomos' Inside Twitter survey, which was based on more than 11 million users, showed that in 2009, 10% of Twitter users accounted for 86% of all activity.
Twitter, Facebook, and other microblogging services have become platforms for marketing and public relations, with a sharp growth in the number of social-media marketers. The Sysomos study shows that this specific group of marketers on Twitter is much more active than the general user population, with 15% of marketers following over 2,000 people and only 0.29% of the Twitter public following more than 2,000 people.
Microblogging has also become an important source of real-time news updates during socio-political revolutions and crisis situations, such as the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks or the 2009 Iran protests. The short nature of updates allow users to post news items quickly, reaching an audience in seconds. Clay Shirky argues that those services have the potential to result in an information cascade, which prompts fencesitters to turn into activists.
Microblogging has noticeably revolutionized the way information is consumed. It has empowered citizens themselves to act as sensors or sources of information that could lead to consequences and influence, or even cause, media coverage. People share what they observe in their surroundings, information about events, and their opinions about topics from a wide range of fields. Moreover, these services store various metadata from these posts, such as location and time. Aggregated analysis of this data includes different dimensions like space, time, theme, sentiment, network structure etc., and gives researchers an opportunity to understand social perceptions of people in the context of certain events of interest. Microblogging also promotes authorship. On the micro-blogging platform Tumblr, the reblogging feature links the post back to the original creator.
The findings of a study by Emily Pronin of Princeton University and Daniel Wegner of Harvard University may explain the rapid growth of microblogging. The study suggests a link between short bursts of activity and feelings of joy, power, and creativity.
{{clear}}
Issues
{{Original research|date=July 2023|section}}
Microblogging is not without issues, such as privacy, security, and integration.
Privacy is arguably a major issue because users may broadcast sensitive personal information to anyone who views their public feed. An example would be Google's Buzz platform, which incited controversy in 2010 by automatically publicizing users' email contacts as "followers". Google later amended those settings.
On centralized services, where all of the microblog's information flows through one point (such as servers operated by X (Twitter), privacy has been a concern in that user information has sometimes been exposed to governments and courts without the prior consent of the user who generated such supposedly private information, usually through subpoenas or court orders.{{Original research inline|date=July 2023}} Examples can be found in Wikileaks related Twitter subpoenas, as well as various other cases.
Security concerns have been voiced within the business world since there is potential for sensitive work information to be publicized on microblogging sites such as Twitter.{{Failed verification|date=July 2023}} That includes information that may be subject to a superinjunction.
Integration could be the hardest issue to overcome since it can be argued that corporate culture must change to accommodate microblogging.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} An internet architecture called OStatus has been developed so that microblogging can occur seamlessly across multiple corporate platforms. This protocol has evolved into ActivityPub, on which many platforms making up the Fediverse are based.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}} Users of these platforms are members of a specific instance running one of the software of the Fediverse, which can interoperate as a federated social network, allowing users on different nodes to interact with each other.
Related concepts
Live blogging is a derivative of microblogging that generates a continuous feed on a specific web page.
Instant messaging and IRC display status but generally only one of a few choices such as available, off-line, away, busy. Away messages, which are displayed when the user is away, form a kind of micro-blogging.
In the Finger protocol, the .project and .plan files are sometimes used for status updates similar to microblogging.
See also
= Articles =
{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}
- Blogging
- Comparison of microblogging services
- Emoticon
- Fediverse
- Geosocial networking
- Microblogging in China
- Microblogging novel
- Online Journalism
- Social networking service
- Social news website
{{div col end}}
= Protocols =
= Server software =
= Services =
{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}
- Bluesky
- Gab
- Gettr
- MeetMe
- micro.blog
- Plurk
- Solaborate
- Threads
- Tumblr
- Twister
- X (Twitter)
{{div col end}}
== Defunct ==
References
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em|refs=
|url=http://www.vis.uni-stuttgart.de/~lohmansn/publications/MicroblogAnalyzer.pdf
|title=Visual Analysis of Microblog Content Using Time-Varying Co-occurrence Highlighting in Tag Clouds
|author=S. Lohmann
|year=2012
|work=AVI 2012 Conference
|display-authors=etal
|access-date=2012-05-30
|archive-date=2017-10-18
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171018164812/http://www.vis.uni-stuttgart.de/~lohmansn/publications/MicroblogAnalyzer.pdf
|url-status=dead
}}
|last1=Reece
|first1=Manton
|title=Indie Microblogging
|url=https://book.micro.blog/
|website=micro.blog
|publisher=Manton Reece
|access-date=2023-01-01
|archive-date=2022-12-22
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221222030050/https://book.micro.blog/
|url-status=live
}}
|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223080854
|title=The early bird catches the news: Nine things you should know about micro-blogging
|author1=Kaplan Andreas M.
|author2=Haenlein Michael
|year=2011
|work=Business Horizons |volume=54 |issue=2
|access-date=2023-01-02
|archive-date=2023-01-02
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102073711/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223080854_The_early_bird_catches_the_news_Nine_things_you_should_know_about_micro-blogging
|url-status=live}}
|author=Aichner, T.
|author2=Jacob, F.
|title=Measuring the Degree of Corporate Social Media Use
|journal=International Journal of Market Research
|date=March 2015
|volume=57
|issue=2
|pages=257–275
|doi=10.2501/IJMR-2015-018
|s2cid=166531788}}
|url=http://www.kottke.org/05/10/tumblelogs
|title=Tumblelogs
|publisher=kottke.org
|date=2005-10-19
|access-date=2013-11-27
|archive-date=2013-11-13
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131113180521/http://www.kottke.org/05/10/tumblelogs
|url-status=live
}}
|last1=Reece
|first1=Manton
|title=What is Microblogging? In Indie Microblogging
|url=https://book.micro.blog/what-is-microblogging/
|website=Micro.blog
|publisher=Manton Reece
|access-date=2023-01-01
|archive-date=2022-10-18
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221018214628/https://book.micro.blog/what-is-microblogging/
|url-status=live
}}
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130108201549/http://www.pownce.com/
|url=http://www.pownce.com/
|title=Pownce website
|publisher=Pownce.com
|archive-date= 8 January 2013
|access-date=2013-11-27}}
|url= https://hbr.org/2009/06/new-twitter-research-men-follo
|title= New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets
|magazine= Harvard Business School
|date= 2009-06-01
|access-date= 2022-01-29
|archive-date= 2022-01-29
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220129161919/https://hbr.org/2009/06/new-twitter-research-men-follo
|url-status= live
}}
|url= http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/
|title= Inside Twitter: An In-depth Look Inside the Twitter World
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190410174301/https://www.sysomos.com/inside-twitter/
|archivedate=2019-04-10
|work= Sysomos
|date =2009-06-10
|access-date= 2009-06-23}}
|url= https://techcrunch.com/2009/06/10/the-more-followers-you-have-the-more-you-tweet-or-is-it-the-other-way-around/
|title= The More Followers You Have, The More You Tweet. Or Is It The Other Way Around?
|work= TechCrunch
|date= 2009-06-10
|access-date= 2010-06-23
|archive-date= 2010-06-20
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100620190521/http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/10/the-more-followers-you-have-the-more-you-tweet-or-is-it-the-other-way-around/
|url-status= live
}}
|url= http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09172/978727-96.stm
|title= Businesses using Twitter, Facebook to market goods
|work= Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
|date= 2009-06-21
|access-date= 2009-06-23
|first= Liyun
|last= Jin
|archive-date= 2009-06-24
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090624003943/http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09172/978727-96.stm
|url-status= live
}}
|url= https://techcrunch.com/2008/11/26/first-hand-accounts-of-terrorist-attacks-in-india-on-twitter/
|work= TechCrunch
|title= First Hand Accounts Of Terrorist Attacks In India On Twitter, Flickr
|date= 2008-11-26
|access-date= 2009-06-23
|archive-date= 2009-06-15
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090615045939/http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/26/first-hand-accounts-of-terrorist-attacks-in-india-on-twitter/
|url-status= live
}}
|url= http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/technology/2009/June/Twitter-on-Iran-a-Go-to-Source-or-Almost-Useless.html
|title= Twitter on Iran: A Go-to Source or Almost Useless?
|date= 2009-06-22
|access-date= 2009-06-23
|archive-date= 2011-04-03
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110403153836/http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/technology/2009/June/Twitter-on-Iran-a-Go-to-Source-or-Almost-Useless.html
|url-status= live
}}
|last1= Shirky
|first1= Clay
|title= The Net Advantage
|url= http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-net-advantage
|work= Prospect Magazine
|access-date= 2014-10-24
|archive-date= 2014-11-04
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141104225316/http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-net-advantage
|url-status= live
}}
|journal=School of Computer Science and Technology Wuhan University of Technology
|series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science
|date=2013
|doi=10.1007/978-3-642-40270-8_16
|last1=Chen
|first1=Xing
|last2=Li
|first2=Lin
|last3=Xiong
|first3=Shili
|title=Database Systems for Advanced Applications
|chapter=The Media Feature Analysis of Microblog Topics
|volume=7827
|pages=193–206
|isbn=978-3-642-40269-2 }}
|url= http://knoesis.wright.edu/library/resource.php?id=00559
|title= Spatio-Temporal-Thematic Analysis of Citizen-Sensor Data — Challenges and Experiences
|author= M. Nagarajan
|display-authors= etal
|work= WISE 2009 Conference
|access-date= 2010-12-27
|archive-date= 2011-04-12
|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110412172648/http://knoesis.wright.edu/library/resource.php?id=00559
|url-status= dead
}}
|title= The Potential of Microblogs for the Study of Public Perceptions of Climate Change
|author= M. Auer
|display-authors=etal
|journal= WIREs Climate Change
|doi= 10.1002/wcc.273
|volume= 5
|issue = 3
|pages= 291–296
|year = 2014
|bibcode= 2014WIRCC...5..291A
|s2cid= 129809371}}
{{cite web
|url= http://thelaughingbuddha.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/could-this-be-a-factor-in-the-allure-of-microblogs/
|title= Could this be a factor in the allure of microblogs?
|date= 2009-04-19
|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120719004456/http://thelaughingbuddha.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/could-this-be-a-factor-in-the-allure-of-microblogs/
|archive-date=2012-07-19
}}
|chapter-url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1531710
|pages=243–252
|author1=Dejin Zhao
|author2=Mary Beth Rosson
|title=Proceedings of the 2009 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work
|chapter=How and why people Twitter: The role that micro-blogging plays in informal communication at work
|name-list-style=amp
|date=May 2009
|doi=10.1145/1531674.1531710
|isbn=9781605585000
|s2cid=207172321}}
|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7240754/Google-Buzz-redesigned-after-privacy-complaints.html
|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7240754/Google-Buzz-redesigned-after-privacy-complaints.html
|archive-date=2022-01-12
|url-access=subscription
|url-status=live
|title=Google Buzz redesigned after privacy complaints
|date=February 15, 2010
|work= The Telegraph
|access-date=March 25, 2010
|location=London}}{{cbignore}}
|first=Zack
|last=Whittaker
|title=US Subpoenas Wikileaks Tweets, and Why This Could Affect You
|date=8 January 2011
|publisher=ZDNet
|url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-subpoenas-wikileaks-tweets-and-why-this-could-affect-you/
|access-date=12 January 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110112193713/http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/us-subpoenas-wikileaks-tweets-and-why-this-could-affect-you/7610
|archive-date=12 January 2011
|url-status=live }}
|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704482704576072081788251562
|title=U.S. Asks Twitter for WikiLeaks Data
|work=The Wall Street Journal
|author=Sonne, Paul
|date=10 January 2011
|access-date=10 January 2011
|archive-date=14 September 2015
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150914132816/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704482704576072081788251562
|url-status=live
}}
|url=http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/07/twitter
|author=Greenwald, Glenn
|author-link=Glenn Greenwald
|title=DOJ Subpoenas Twitter Records of Several WikiLeaks Volunteers
|work=Salon
|access-date=10 January 2011
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110112011917/http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/07/twitter
|archive-date=12 January 2011
|url-status=live }}
|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jan/08/wikileaks-calls-google-facebook-us-subpoenas
|title=WikiLeaks Demands Google and Facebook Unseal US Subpoenas
|work=The Guardian
|author=Beaumont, Peter
|date=8 January 2011
|access-date=10 January 2011
|location=London
|archive-date=21 September 2013
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921002742/http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jan/08/wikileaks-calls-google-facebook-us-subpoenas
|url-status=live
}}
|url=https://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/07/justice/new-york-twitter-subpoena/index.html
|title=NYPD to subpoena Twitter over theater threat
|agency=CNN
|access-date=January 31, 2013
|author=Remizowski, Leigh
|location=New York
|archive-date=January 26, 2013
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130126155825/http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/07/justice/new-york-twitter-subpoena/index.html
|url-status=live
}}
|url=https://www.chillingeffects.org/weather.cgi?WeatherID=703
|archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20130404102552/http://chillingeffects.org/weather.cgi?WeatherID=703
|url-status=dead
|archive-date=April 4, 2013
|title=French Court Orders Twitter to Disclose User Identities.
|publisher=Chilling Effects
|date=January 24, 2013
|access-date=January 31, 2013
|author=Holland, Adam}}
|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18002548
|title=Twitter resists US court's demand for Occupy tweets
|date=May 9, 2012
|access-date=January 31, 2013
|archive-date=October 9, 2013
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131009230253/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18002548
|url-status=live
}}
|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21179677
|title=French court orders Twitter to reveal racists' details
|date=January 24, 2013
|access-date=January 31, 2013
|author=Jackson, Patrick
|archive-date=January 27, 2013
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130127144116/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21179677
|url-status=live
}}
|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/7482116/Have-business-networking-sites-finally-come-of-age.html
|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/7482116/Have-business-networking-sites-finally-come-of-age.html
|archive-date=2022-01-12
|url-access=subscription
|url-status=live
|title=Have business networking sites finally come of age?
|author=Emma Barnett
|date=March 20, 2010
|work= The Telegraph
|access-date=March 25, 2010
|location=London}}{{cbignore}}
|url=http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15351002
|title=A world of connections
|date=Jan 28, 2010
|newspaper=The Economist
|access-date=March 25, 2010
|archive-date=March 25, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100325041051/http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15351002
|url-status=live
}}
|url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-superinjunctions-twitter-idUKTRE7481YV20110509
|work=Reuters
|title=Twitter outings undermine "super injunctions"
|date=2011-05-09
|access-date=2021-07-05
|archive-date=2019-08-15
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190815114238/https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-superinjunctions-twitter-idUKTRE7481YV20110509
|url-status=dead
}}
|url=https://indieweb.org/ActivityPub
|title=ActivityPub IndieWeb
|website=indieweb.org
|access-date=30 March 2021
|archive-date=10 March 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310000611/https://indieweb.org/ActivityPub
|url-status=live
}}
|title=Show HN: Twtxt – Decentralised, minimalist microblogging service for hackers
|url=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11045638
|access-date=13 March 2016
|date=2016-02-06
|archive-date=2016-06-24
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624070015/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11045638
|url-status=live
}}
}}
{{microblogging}}
{{Blog topics}}
{{Authority control}}