Yesterday I have discovered that MySpace is providing status updates and something they call mood (LiveJournal has moods since ages, by the way). Anyone know if those feature are new?
Well, I can’t remember seeing them before, though admittedly I don’t spend a lot of time on MySpace, so they could be there since ages. I just go there when someone wants to add me as a friend. I don’t like it and it serves no real purpose to me; can’t remember why I joined in the first place.
Anyway, more and more social networks are offering status updates or similar features; just think of Facebook, Plaxo, and more recently Zyb. So one could easily argue that microblogging tools like Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce have become obsolete and were only offering a single feature whereas those social networks were providing a much more complete set of features to their users.
Yes, there is only one feature but I don’t think they have become obsolete. Can you send status updates from MySpace to your friends that are on Facebook? No, you can’t. Remember those silos, those walled gardens? Also would the Los Angeles Fire Department use Facebook or MySpace? No, Twitter is the choice and I think more institutions and companies will use microblogging tools to announce updates, alerts,… to their costumers and other interested parties. And probably they will maintain just one channel for this kind of communication. If they decided to use existing social networks they had to maintain more communication channels because each social network has a special demographic.
Don’t get me wrong, the microblogging tools we know today are no solution to walled gardens but I think microblogging tools are still valid and important today; the importance could even increase if companies and institutions got more creative and used it as a cheap and effective way of communication.
[inspired by Fischmarkt]
Tags: Facebook, Los Angeles Fire Department, social network, Social Networks, Twitter
