I’ve been lying awake at night recently unable to sleep, thanks to the hiccuping of the little madam in my belly.
According to the progress tracker on Babycentre she’s apparently practising her breathing technique (and no Daddy, she’s not a fish!), hence the hiccups. Strange sensation and quite disturbing until I realised what it was.
Whenever I mention the mini-me on Twitter (did you notice that smooth transition!!!), I get a wide variety of responses from the cheeky/rude (from the young ‘uns) to the “aaaw tell me more”. It’s weird but quite cool to have so many people “involved” in my pregnancy/life who I’ve never met.
As so many have been predicting recently, Twitter seems to be hitting its stride and gaining popularity amongst non-early adopters and non-geeks (even my Dad’s on Twitter!).
For some time now though, I’ve been noticing a few knock-on effects on blogging and potentially on business – as Twitter gains in popularity. And they’re not all good…
Devaluing expertise knowledge?
It has become quite common-place to ask for (and receive) advice on Twitter about how to do x, y and z – particularly techy things like WordPress stuff. There’s a fine line to tread for any WordPress coaches/consultants out there who obviously want to demonstrate their expertise & knowledge but yet end up often giving a ton of help away for free for something they’d usually charge good money for.
There’s nothing at all wrong with giving away free information, if this is part of your strategy to attract new business – but I don’t believe the “free content” and “free expertise” model is going to be sustainable for many people for too much longer – so it’s not something I enjoy seeing happen on Twitter.
Replacing blogging as a two-way communication tool?
Since Twittering, I’ve noticed that many people who previously would have commented on a blog post now respond via Twitter. The result?
Fewer blog comments – this isn’t a problem at all, unless you subscribe to the idea that people use the number of comments on your posts to judge how popular your blog is (I don’t, by the way). But I’ve seen a number of bloggers bemoan the lack of comments on a post – despite having received feedback via Twitter.
I see this as a positive sign – the more channels readers have to interact with you, the more engaged they potentially become. You just need to stop judging a blog by its comments.
There are a few more things I’ve noticed but I don’t want to turn this into a rant – and I now have a huge, comfy new sofa to go and sit on (yes, we conceded and ended up having to buy a decent sofa for our time in the UK) – you have no idea how an additional stone in weight makes my bum bones feel even more bony!