Twitter's Not the Only Microblogging Game In Town

Posted by techgirl

Posted: February 27, 2009 - 1:38 pm

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Twitter Still RulesBy now, you and your grandmother has heard of Twitter. What you may not know is that Twitter is considered a "microblog" where you can easily post very short messages from the Web, from your computer desktop, even from your mobile device.

I've been microblogging on Twitter for over a year and love it. I can post a message and even include a photo directly from my iPhone (as long as I have cell signal, of course). I enjoy the speed and efficiency of using Twitter to keep up with my friends, colleagues and to quickly let them know what I'm up to at any given moment.

There are more microblogs out there worth checking out. Here are just a few.

Jaiku is pretty similar to Twitter and it gained its popularity when Twitter kept going offline due to overloaded servers. These days, I just feed my Twitter posts into my Jaiku account, but there are still active users there.

Blippr is altogether different from Twitter in terms of focus while similar in terms of how it works. Basically, Blippr is for posting ultra short reviews of books, movies, entertainment of any kind.

Tumblr is great for multimedia because it allows you to easily post and link to text, quotes, images, audio and video. You can even use a Tumblr bookmarklet - a tiny, pre-programmed button you can place on your Web browser - to grab and link to content on your Tumblr blog that's of interest.

Posterous is slightly different kind of microblog. You can post to Posterous on the Web, but it was really created so you can send in your posts by email. You don't even have to set up an account, just start emailing files, photos, videos, and then Posterous assigns you your site.

Plurk is really different. On Plurk, instead of a post or tweet (s you do on Twitter), you "Plurk." Updates appear in a visual timeline format moving horizontally across the page. When you respond to someone else's Plurk, it is be grouped with the original message. The more you use Plurk, the more karma points you gather and you get extra features as your karma increases.

Yonkly allows you to create private, branded communities that use the texting communications style. They integrate advertising so you can potentially earn money through your Yonkly community. Yonkly supports multimedia and threads conversations together so topics and discussions are grouped.

There are a lot more Twitter-clones out there including ReportingOn that is just for reporters to post what they are reporting on. But no matter how creative these new sites and services seem to get, I still love my Twitter.

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