Microblogging is a form of

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods fo ...

that permits only short posts. They "allow users to exchange small elements of content such as short sentences, individual images, or video links",. Retrieved June 5, 2014 which may be the major reason for their popularity. These small messages are sometimes called ''micro posts''. As with traditional

blogging A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

, 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 Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

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 Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible comput ...

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samp ...

, or

digital video Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data Digital data, in information theory and information systems, is information represented as a string of discrete symbols eac ...

Origin

The first micro-blogs were known as ''tumblelogs''. The term was coined by

why the lucky stiff Jonathan Gillette, known by the pseudonym why the lucky stiff (often abbreviated as _why), is a writer, cartoonist, artist, and programmer notable for his work with the Ruby programming language. Annie Lowrey described him as "one of the most un ...

in a blog post on April 12, 2005, while describing Leah Neukirchen's Anarchaia.

Jason Kottke Jason Kottke (born September 27, 1973) is an American blogger, graphic designer, and web designer known for his blog Kottke.org. He won a Lifetime Achievement Award as a blogger. , his blog is ranked #66 overall and #20 in Science on the Technor ...

described tumblelogs on October 19, 2005: However, by 2006 and 2007, the word '' microblog'' was used more widely for services provided by established sites like

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. As of May 2007, there were 111 microblogging sites in various countries. Among the most notable services are

, FriendFeed, Plurk,

Jaiku Jaiku was a social networking, micro-blogging and lifestreaming service comparable to Twitter, founded a month before the latter. Jaiku was founded in February 2006 by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen from Finland and launched in July of that y ...

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 Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launch ...

founder

Kevin Rose Kevin Rose is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and co-host at TechTV's ''The Screen Savers''. From 2012 to 2015, he was a venture partner at GV. ...

among others, integrated microblogging with

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

and event invitations. Pownce was merged into SixApart in December 2008. Other

social networking websites A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

, MySpace,

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...

Diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

, JudgIt, Yahoo Pulse, Google Buzz,

Google+ Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus; sometimes called G+) was a social network owned and operated by Google. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challenge other social networks, linking other Google p ...

and

XING XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented social networking site, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 ''XING SE''). The site is primarily focused on the German-speaking market, alongside XING Spain, and competes with the American platform Li ...

, also have their own microblogging feature, better known as "status updates." Status updates are usually more restricted than actual microblogging in terms of writing. 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. Services such as Lifestream and

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...

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. Internet users in China are facing a different situation. Foreign microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, Tumblr, and Google+ are censored in China. The users use Chinese Weibo services such as

Sina Weibo Sina Weibo (新浪微博) is a Chinese microblogging (weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily ac ...

and Tencent Weibo. Tailored to the

Chinese people The Chinese people or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation. Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by speakers of sta ...

, those webs are like hybrids of Twitter and Facebook. They implement basic Twitter features and allow users to comment to others' posts and to post with graphical emoticons, attach an image, music and video files. 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.

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 Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

and at Sysomos. Results indicated that for services such as Twitter, a small group of active users contributed to 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 Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

and

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...

, 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 Clay Shirky (born 1964) is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism. In 2017 he was appointed Vice Provost of Educational Technologies of New York University (NYU), aft ...

argues that those services have the potential to result in an

information cascade An Information cascade or informational cascade is a phenomenon described in behavioral economics and network theory in which a number of people make the same decision in a sequential fashion. It is similar to, but distinct from herd behavior. An ...

, 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 Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...

from these posts, such as location and time. Aggregated analysis of this

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpret ...

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

, 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 Universit may explain the rapid growth of microblogging. The study suggests a link between short bursts of activity and feelings of joy, power, and creativity. While the general appeal and influence of microblogging seem to be growing continuously, mobile microblogging is moving at a slower pace. Among the most popular activities carried out by mobile internet users on their devices in 2012, mobile blogging or tweeting was last on the list, with only 27% of users engaging in it.

Issues

Micro-blogging is not without issues, such as

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of ...

security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

, and integration.

Privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of ...

is arguably a major issue because users may broadcast sensitive personal information to anyone who views their public feed. Micro-blog platform providers can also cause privacy issues by altering or presetting users' privacy options, so users feel they compromise their personal information. An example would be Google’s Buzz platform, which incited controversy in 2010 by automatically publicizing users' email contacts as "followers."

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

later amended those settings. On centralized services, where all of the microblog's information flows through one point (such as servers operated by

), 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

subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...

s or

court order A court order is an official proclamation by a judge (or panel of judges) that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out ...

s. Examples can be found in Wikileaks related Twitter subpoenas, as well as various other cases.

Security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

concerns have been voiced within the

business world ''BusinessWorld'' is a business newspaper in the Philippines with a nationwide circulation of more than 117,000 (as of March 2014). Founded in 1967 as ''Business Day'', it is Southeast Asia's first daily business newspaper. History ''Bu ...

since there is potential for sensitive work information to be publicized on microblogging sites such as Twitter. That includes information that may be subject to a superinjunction. Integration could be the hardest issue to overcome since someone can be argued that

corporate culture Historically there have been differences among investigators regarding the definition of organizational culture. Edgar Schein, a leading researcher in this field, defined "organizational culture" as comprising a number of features, including a ...

must change to accommodate microblogging. 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 the

Mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the ...

federated platform has been based since version 1.6, and on which more and more platforms making up the

Fediverse The fediverse (a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe") is an ensemble of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websites) and file hosting, but which, w ...

are based. Users of these platforms are members of a specific instance running one of the softwares of the Fediverse, which can interoperate as a federated social network, allowing users on different nodes to interact with each other. This is intended to give users the flexibility to select a server whose policies they prefer, and to keep access to a larger social network.

Related concepts

Live blogging is a derivative of microblogging that generates a continuous feed on a specific web page.

Instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and tri ...

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 In computer networking, the Name/Finger protocol and the Finger user information protocol are simple network protocols for the exchange of human-oriented status and user information. Name/Finger protocol The Name/Finger protocol is based on Req ...

, the .project and .plan files are sometimes used for status updates similar to microblogging.

References

{{Authority control Blogging

Origin

Usage

Issues

Related concepts

See also

Articles

Protocols

Server software

Services

Defunct

References