Maybe I’m just reacting to the tone of the article suggesting that Twitter is taking the place of blogging among elected officials in Utah (and elsewhere) but this quote by Ric Cantrell says it all:
”Maybe this is a sign of the times, but blogging got to be too tedious,” said Ric Cantrell, chief deputy of the Utah Senate, who blogs and uses Twitter on behalf of the Republican majority.
I’m sure that Ric’s view is much more nuanced than those 15 words, but it’s easy for people to get enamored wtih twitter and forget how limited 140 characters can be. Twitter has little if any effectiveness in substantive discussion – that’s where blogs can be a useful means of communication between people. For simple updates I have no problem with the use of Twitter.
Twitter is blogging for the ADD crowd. It has extremely limited utility other than making inane posts like “I’m standing in the check-out line at the grocery store” and “Man that was a good burrito”.
In other words, it’s good for announcements and soundbites, but not for substantive discussions.