Ning for micro-bloggin - build your own twitter!

[Emily Cunningham Rushing]

Build Your Own Twitter With Twingr (Private Alpha)

I wonder if this would have any use to our Ning group, or are we happy with Twitter? I've never used any other micro-blogging service and wonder how they compare. I really like the feature that allows you to paste a link without using up your precious characters or messing with TinyURL. i hope twitter incorporates that soon too...

[David Bigwood]

The strength of Twitter is that it is so large. Everyone is one it. The network effect makes it very esay to find friends, co-workers, and the famous. Of course that is also its weakness. I get too many messages to read and just get a feel for things by scanning a few. Just a dip in the stream of comments. It is not a good method to deliver important content that need to by read.

These new services that allow for a small community might be better for exchanging info that needs to be read by all.

I do wish Twitter would add back the IM option. I do use the phone option for 2 folks I follow. The RSS feed is nice. I send that to Jaiku and use it to display latest messages on my weblog. The more options the better.

[Emily Cunningham Rushing]

I liked the IM option too and found that my posts dropped off drastically after they took away that service. Too bad...And I absolutely agree that it's the network that makes this whole social web thing work, BUT my curiosity is piqued by micro-micro-blogging. Not just small-format conversations, but small-format conversations about very specific topics. I know it's nit-picky, given the brevity of the messages, but I'd like to weed out the mundane twitter content about people's personal lives. I'd like the option to choose whether I read a user's business/topical vs. personal/whatever posts. For instance, I would choose to read my bff's personal posts, but am not interested in the jewelry repair business, and vice versa for another user. I would also like to share about my personal life but not my business interests, or both, with certain followers.

Is that a nutty idea? Maybe I'm missing the point of all this stuff completely. I just think that if I'm closely integrating user-generated content in my life, I would like more control over the info feed and its content.