I like a good blog and, in my brief time writing them, I hope I have written one or two that have amused, provoked or entertained to one extent or another. But my regular use of Twitter (@mattsmithwpb) has made writing blogs feel increasingly onerous and this bothers me.
Now I am not predicting the death of the blog. It’s just that from a personal point of view I have concluded that I must re-invent the way I write my own content.
As a side effect of tweeting, the discipline of 140 characters has encouraged speed and concise writing (as well as abominations of language and grammar) to the point of excluding anything that may enhance the point being made. Comments are easily taken out of context and can appear unnecessarily emotive and reactionary. This is a rum state of affairs because sometimes the best creative writing efforts are borne of a stream of consciousness that is not edited to death. It’s a journey that starts in one place and ends in another but when the route must always be 140 paces you can’t travel far. The broadcast scale and speed of Twitter has no time for much more than news statements or one-liners which are hugely entertaining to read and write but like any quick dalliance with strangers will inevitably at some point leave you feeling unsatisfied (dirty Twitter).
So I am resolved this year to nourish and cherish my blogs. Of course this has spurred other thoughts on how to deliver more creative content but I am not sure the world requires or is ready for my first video blog?
What we said