When Micro-blogging Grows Up(微博客在成长)
Ben Lorica
2008/06/12
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Will Twitter and other micro-blogging services start resembling the blogosphere down the road? We are in the early days of micro-blogs and I still remember when Twitter was used mainly for "status" reporting. But more people are using Twitter instead of blogs, following links from trusted sources essentially using Twitter as a highly filtered blog reader. Just like the early days of blogs, the most popular Twitters are heavy on technology and "personal" micro-blogging. On the other hand, given that blogs are perfect for short opinon pieces, politics was and remains popular among bloggers. Three categories (technology, tech/personal, personal) accounted for 56% of the total "subscriptions" to the top 100 Twitter users. Compared to the blogosphere, politics is less represented in the Twitterholic Top 100. The top Democratic presidential candidates were it as far as politics. In contrast, more than ten political bloggers made the Technorati Top 100. Of the three, Obama dominated, accounting for 80% of subscribers in the politics category, with Edwards and Clinton splitting the remaining 20%. Looking beyond the top 100, Obama alone has more than nineteen times the combined subscribers to the different John Mccain users. The analogous Democrat/Republican split, using the Technorati authority of the top political blogs, is 2 to 1. In terms of location, over 70% of the Twitterholic 100 are based in the U.S. Blogs are popular worldwide with some of the biggest blogs based in Asia. Once more stable services and business models emerge, I still think micro-blogs will evolve to share some of the properties of the blogosphere described above. Micro-blogs from traditional media sources will be among the most popular. The liberal vs. conservative split will be less pronounced, with conservatives narrowing the micro-blogging gap. The top micro-blogs won't be as dominated by technology, although I'm not sure the format is really ideal for political topics. OTOH, I'm surprised gossip isn't as big - at least not yet. The top micro-blogs won't include as many "personal" ones. Micro-blogging will be just as popular overseas. We definitely will have several micro-blogging services and not be as dependent on the pioneering folks over at Twitter. More likely, micro-blogging will be just one component of broader platforms like FriendFeed. As always, spammers and phishers will try to ruin everything. A post that was meant to highlight some of the differences between the two top 100 lists has led to forecasts - definitely not my original goal. What are your predictions? |
翻译：西门吹雪 Twitter和其他微博客服务会像博客一样在未来成长起来吗？我们还处于微博客的早期，我还记得Twitter主要被用作“状态”报告的时候。但是越来越多的人在使用Twitter而不是博客，去跟踪那些来自可靠来源的链接，这实际上是将Twitter作为一个高度过滤的博客阅读器。就像博客早期一样很多最流行的Twitter主要是技术内容和个人微博客。另一方面，如果假定博客更适合简短的观点文章，政治话题则一直都会是适合博客这种形式。 这张图对前100名博客和前100名跟踪人数最多的Twitter做了快速分类。我使用了从6月7日开始的Twitterholic的数据。Technorati权威度是社交网络的标尺，Twitterholic则度量“流行程度”。顶级博客主要是关于技术、政治和新闻的，“个人博客”方面则比相应的微博客差一些。更成熟的博客肯定跨越更多个类别。最早一份Technorati前100名博客名单表明2005年6月的时候技术类和政治类博客在排名中领先。那时候“个人”博客也更普通一些。现在的前100名有传统媒体博客的份额：连线杂志自己就在最新的排名里有五个博客。 技术、技术/个人、个人三类就占了前100名Twitter用户“订阅量”的56%。和博客相比政治类在Twitterholic前100名中更弱一些。领先的民主党总统候选人在政治类中就是了不起的了。相比超过10个政治类博客进入了Technorati前100名。三个人中奥巴马占优势，占政治类订阅量的80%，爱德华兹和克林顿一共占另外的20%。更进一步奥巴马一个人就相当于各种有关麦凯恩的用户的订阅量的19倍。如果采用政治博客的Technorati权威度，相应的民主党共和党差距是二比一。从地理位置角度看，Twitterholic前100名中70%是在美国。博客则是世界性的普及，一些最大的博客在亚洲。 一但更稳定的服务和商业模式出现，我认为微博客将会占领一些上面讲到的博客的领地。传统媒体的微博客也将会在最成功者之列。自由派和保守派的差别将更模糊一些，保守派正在缩小微博客方面的差距。顶级微博客将不会像技术类这样占优势，尽管我不确定这种形式是否真地适合政治类话题。另一方面我很吃惊闲聊类不是占很大比例——至少现在还没有。顶级微博客将不会包含这么多“个人”主体。微博客在国外也将流行。我们一定会有几个微博客服务而不会像现在这样依赖于Twitter的先锋人士。很可能微博客将成为更广阔平台的一部分，比如FriendFeed。一如既往，垃圾和钓鱼的人也会随之而来。 这篇本想突出两份前100名名单的帖子变成了预测——这本不是我的初衷。你的预测如何？ |
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