Blogging or sharing?

 Which generic term for services like Twitter do you prefer?

“‘Microblogging’ is the industry standard term for applications like Twitter, Plurk, Pownce, Jaiku, but many see it as inaccurate and too ‘inside baseball’. We prefer ‘microsharing’ which reflects the nature a little more accurately, and isn’t as off-putting to ‘non web2.0′” (Laura Fitton, of Pistachio Consulting).

I hear that in the UK Plurk are expanding activities with the hire of as senior engagement manager (from a software development background), working with clients like the Guardian. Wonder how he/she deal with the significant cultural issues which lie behind web 2.0 adoption?

Perhaps that’s more of an Enterprise 2.0 concern:

“One has to remember though that even if Enterprise 2.0 technologies such as the ones listed above provide for rapid and agile collaboration and empowerment, there has to be a cultural openness to this within an enterprise for it to truly be successful. So it’s not only about aligning the technology with the business, but aligning the culture with the technology that now becomes the challenge.” (The Future Value Business Blog).

Certainly in conversation with an industry insider yesterday (nice offices near the College of Arms in London) that cultural adoption issue, rather than the technology, was the prime concern of her clients. So in that light too, the language used does help. Not sure if either ‘microblogging’ or ‘microsharing’ are that user friendly in that context?

A small example of how what’s obvious to one person ain’t necessarily obvious to another, from a recent Twitter of conversation of mine with Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research in Social Computing. BHO? It’s obvious when you know;-)


 jowyang twitter 12 November

Yesterday’s lunch with Peter Fenton (Benchmark VC) we discussed how: FDR used
Radio, JFK used TV, Obama (BHO) used WWW to win elections about 24 hours
ago from web


stuartgh twitter

@jowyang BHO? about 23 hours ago from web in reply to jowyang


jowyang’s reply

@stuartgh Not sure what “BHO” is? Barack Hussein Obama, even his
name is far different than any before about 23 hours ago from web in reply to stuartgh


IT Counts open to the public

The ICAEW’s IT Counts website is now open to the public. It’s already won a Web 2.0 Strategies award, and is shortlisted for the 2008 Accountacy Age Awards. Be interesting to see what kind of demographic visitor profile it attracts with its focus on accountancy, IT and business with topics ranging from better use of MS Excel (did I mention it’s sponsored by Microsoft?) to the latest SocialCalc wiki spreadsheet from Socialtext, with the chance via Dennis Howlett to become one of the first users. There’s even mention of the credit crunch. Of course if you want to use the site to make contacts, post blogs and comments you have to register but at least now the content is open for all & Google to read.