Comparing the top 4 mini-blog options
With the internet now clogged with multiple “mini-blogging” options making it easy to to fritter away all your time sharing everything from your random thoughts to your latest finds. Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and Tumblr are generally seen as the 4 frontrunners, and while it’s not necessarily comparing apples to apples, it’s worth a look at how they compare. (I considered throwing Facebook in here, but it’s really a different animal)
A quick overview:
“what are you doing?”
The first on the scene and easily the most popular, Twitter does one thing and does it very well. You can have an instant message chat session with the world, as long as the service isn’t suffering from its all too frequent downtimes.
Pros: Everyone else is using it too. Extremely simple to use and options abound for getting messages in and out.
Cons: Lack of features. Boring design.
Pownce
“a way to send stuff to your friends”
Launched this summer and growing modestly with an invitation-only system, Pownce allows you to easily share messages, links, events and files with the world or just your friends. Will a nice UI, features and filtering capabilities make up for the lack of SMS and delayed API?
Pros: File sharing ability. Nice look and feel. Desktop app available.
Cons: Currently no SMS and no RSS import.
Jaiku
“lifestream concept”
The combination of messaging with feed aggregation means that almost anything you do online can be combined into one stream. The addition of channels makes it easy to connect with others of similar interests, but with limited filtering capability it can be information overload.
Pros: Easily import all online activities into one place. Apply icons to posts.
Cons: No filtering. Limited SMS.
Tumblr
“share anything you find”
Called the “ADHD version of blogging” by TechCrunch, Tumblr allows you to share pictures, videos, links, quotes and messages. RSS import and the ability to completely customize the look and feel or even host the tumblelog on your own domain make Tumblr a great option, but comment functionality is taking a while to materialize, which is a serious flaw these days when we’re all about interactivity.
Pros: ability to share photos, videos, etc. directly (others must link out to them). Completely customizable.
Cons: no comment functionality, though that’s apparently in the works.
Side-by-side comparison:
* with external app Twitterfeed **international number only
Which one to use?
Which one(s) you prefer has a lot to do with how you want to use them and where your friends are. While Pownce and Jaiku have some nice features, Twitter and Tumblr stand out at either end of the spectrum depending on how much you want to “connect” with others. If you’re into public web-based IM, then Twitter is the place to be. It’s already the most popular, and if they would just add a couple of features it would be difficult to compete with, especially if they could address some of the downtime issues that have been plaguing the system. Tumblr is the perfect solution for people who really don’t want to have a blog per se, but want to aggregate all their online activities into one place and share what they’re finding with friends. Can’t decide? Use all of them and update them at the same time.
Which do you use most and why? Which ones do you think will still be around in 5 years, leaving the others looking like ghost towns?
(I’ve got a couple of Pownce invites left - anyone want them? Let me know in the comments.)
This article was written by Randa Clay. Read more about design, marketing, blogging, branding and all things creative at RandaClay.com.
[…] got a new post up over at Wisdump about the top 4 mini-blogging options that are available, including a comparison chart to get a quick idea of what’s available. There are zillions […]
By Review of the top 4 mini-blogging options at Randa Clay Design on August 24, 2007 8:14 am
I’d like a Pownce invite. Please send one to me. Thank a lot!
By jkang on August 24, 2007 9:20 am
jkang, invite sent. :)
By Franky on August 24, 2007 9:29 am
Thanks for the post, but I suggest make the images links, so we don’t have to type in the url in the bar. Thx.
By Dommega on August 24, 2007 2:48 pm
Dommega, links were being added exactly at the moment you left your comment :)
By Franky on August 24, 2007 3:07 pm
Pownce invite would be fantastic! Thanks
By Heath on August 25, 2007 8:14 am
Heath - just sent it!
By Randa Clay on August 25, 2007 8:55 am
I think you can’t really compare tumblr to the rest, as tumblr is halfway between blog and microblog. It is more flexible than the rest. The winner on the api front here is definitely twitter, jaiku’s api is very restrictive, and pownce doesnt have one yet… twitter’s biz stone said they get 10x more traffic through the api than the site itself.
By Brian Breslin on August 25, 2007 10:14 am
Anymore Pownce invites? A bit late i know, but thanks.
By adang on August 25, 2007 2:31 pm
[…] Comparing the top 4 mini-blog options - With the internet now clogged with multiple ?mini-blogging? options making it easy to to fritter away all your time sharing everything from your random thoughts to your latest finds. Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Tumblr are generally seen as the 4 frontrunn […]
By Interesting websites for SEO, Web Marketing and everday work from Sante - August 25th on August 25, 2007 6:33 pm
Jaiku does not limit the sms to S60, but it is still an international number. The mobile application is S60 only…
Also Twitter and Jaiku both offer m. sites which work great across mobile devices and I would suggest including that as a feature to compare.
By Jonathan Greene on August 25, 2007 6:37 pm
Almost forgot … You can filter feeds from friends in Jaiku as well so you can choose to only get their direct jaiku posts and not lifestream data from various external sources.
By Jonathan Greene on August 25, 2007 6:38 pm
adang - invite sent!
Jonathan - thank you for the info. I made some updates to the post and will take a look at the m. sites.
By Randa Clay on August 26, 2007 4:18 am
Interesting post, got me thinking about the topic, thanks!
For my money though, I have to say that I’m really very much over the deluge of bloogy useless posts about nothing that seem to be the norm in most of the mini-blogging sites you mentioned (and others).
I think if someone goes to the effort of actually authoring an average (i.e. 150 words or more) sized post, they make some small effort to make it worth the time they take to edit and post it.
The new trend of just posting links or images or any other quick post crap that takes the fancy of the “mini blogger” is just filling the web up with yet more useless crap that we’re already over loaded with ;-(
Sorry, but honestly, we can throw out the junk tabloids we get in the post box each week full of paid advertising and house listings and they are gone for good to be recylced as pulp paper, but the bloogy internet stores this crap for ever and ever and we end up with more and more of it in search engine results and the value of what we can find and read in time is increasingly diluted
Cheers,
Dez
By Dez Blanchfield on August 27, 2007 5:46 am
Dez, I deleted the spam from your comment. Must have been a bot who added tons of links to your comment. ;)
By Franky on August 27, 2007 5:54 am
Dez, you miss the point a little in the use of these mini-blogging sites. The reason people use them is it allows them to connect with others easily, and when you find something cool, you want to share it with your friends. These sites make it easy to do that. These are not meant to be blogs in that sense, they’re meant to be conversations.
By Randa Clay on August 27, 2007 6:29 am
[…] Comparing the top 4 mini-blog options Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and Tumblr are generally seen as the 4 frontrunners, and while it’s not necessarily comparing apples to apples, it’s worth a look at how they compare. (I considered throwing Facebook in here, but it’s really a different animal (tags: microblogging twitter jaiku pownce tumblr lifestreaming lifestream microblog Web2.0) […]
By links for 2007-08-27 — EXCELER8ion | People ARE The Social Media on August 27, 2007 11:21 am
I think you’re missing two important points.
First, Tumblr doesn’t really fit in with the rest - it is a tumblelogging tool, not a status update tool. It needs to be held up in a conversation regarding other similar tools, of which there are none that are hosted really, not in a conversation about status update tools
Second, for the status update tools, a *very* important factor that you fail to bring into play is ease of use. I myself use Twitter - if you look at your list, twitter fails epicly, so to speak. You can’t customize your online twitter page, you can’t set your location or bring other feeds into your tweet list, the system doesn’t really facilitate the conversation…
What is missed is that twitter still owns the rest because of it’s ease of use. When you have options like location, icon, other feeds (jaiku); who you’re replying to (jaiku and pownce); what your web face looks like (none of them worry too much about this, thank god) - you can’t just submit “…is heading to the museum”. With twitterrific from the desktop, and SMS messages or the mobile interface to twitter, I can easily keep my status updated to whatever I am currently doing - without any barriers to me doing, such as are added by pownce or jaiku. Hell, half the time I’m typing my latest tweet while standing up, typing with one hand and tying my tie or pulling my cell out of it’s charging cradle with the other before running out the door. Twitter isn’t even really *there* - it’s just me, and my status updates, and my friends’ status updates. Any tool that gets out of your way so much that it’s invisible to you during use, is the very best tool you’re going to find.
Forgive my choppy writing, I’ve had a crazy day d-:
By elliottcable on August 27, 2007 8:18 pm
Elliott- thanks for your interesting comments. I definitely agree that Twitter is the easiest to use- they surpass the others in that manner easily. I listed that as a Pro for Twitter.
I have to somewhat disagree about a tool like Pownce being a “status update” tool. I think that’s what people are using it for at times because they’re used to Twittering, but that’s not the only focus or even the main focus of the site. The site is designed to allow you to “share stuff with your friends”, as they put it. It’s somewhere between Twitter and Tumblr.
If I use Pownce to post links to articles and videos, or to post a quote I found, I’m really using it more like a Tumblelog. If I use it to just post status updates, then I’m using it like Twitter. It’s somewhere in the middle.
By Randa Clay on August 27, 2007 8:43 pm
Tumblr is not recommended at all. It’s almost dead. Check their blog. The software isn’t updated for months and the creators abounded their own blog.
By Dane on August 28, 2007 6:15 am
You should check out Plazes (http://www.plazes.com).
By Pop on August 28, 2007 9:20 am
[…] los van deze ironie is micro-blogging een fenomeen om rekening mee te houden. In een heel aardig artikel wordt een vergelijking gemaakt tussen 4 micro-blogging tools: Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku en […]
By Microblogging: is klein het nieuwe groot? | Recruitingfacts.nl on August 28, 2007 11:26 am
[…] Here is another good post comparing mini blogging solutions […]
By Micro-blogging with Jaiku on August 28, 2007 7:06 pm
Funny how things that are compared here found it’s way in the dutch Numpa. Kind off crossover.
By John on August 30, 2007 1:33 am
Mobile and email distribution to Twitter including photos is available from Mobypicture.com… In the next weeks also distribution to Tumblr and Jaiku are added. Pownce will follow as soon as their API comes available!
check it out at http://www.mobypicture.com
By Mobypicture on August 30, 2007 9:45 am
[…] of blogs and still manages to raise three children! Randa has been an interviewee and done some guest posting as well. Daniel just reached a milestone of 5000 subscribers in under a year! If these examples […]
By Do What You Love, Love What You Do | Design Adaptations on September 5, 2007 5:02 pm
Check out http://www.justtell.us too! Brand new micro-blogging site. Actually, it’s probably more similar to Post Secret.
By Jackson on September 8, 2007 6:41 pm
I’m afraid Tumblr does not have an SMS option as indicated in your article.
By Jase on September 9, 2007 5:32 am
You can SMS pictures and text in to Tumblr: see this post.
By Randa Clay on September 9, 2007 7:20 am
[…] the research you do for a post on one blog can provide good content for another. For example, I surveyed the top 4 mini-blogging tools at Wisdump, and then continued the discussion here with more of a personal opinion post. It was a great way to […]
By What you need to know before taking a blogging job at Randa Clay Design on September 17, 2007 1:41 pm
[…] passato avevo letto un confronto interessante, con Tumblr come “quarto incomodo”, su […]
By Analisi di 4 servizi di Microblogging su ExtremeTech - Microblogging on October 4, 2007 1:32 am
[…] Comparing the top 4 mini-blog options Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and Tumblr are generally seen as the 4 frontrunners, and while it’s not necessarily comparing apples to apples, it’s worth a look at how they compare. (I considered throwing Facebook in here, but it’s really a different animal […]
By HR Horizons HR Blog » Blog Archive » links for 2007-11-13 on November 14, 2007 7:35 am
[…] los van deze ironie is micro-blogging een fenomeen om rekening mee te houden. In een heel aardig artikel wordt een vergelijking gemaakt tussen 4 micro-blogging tools: Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku en […]
By Microblogging: is klein het nieuwe groot? | Recruitment Matters on November 19, 2007 6:26 am
Believe that the microblog idea will take off. Like SMS overtaking talking, email and post etc. The microblog allows a quick conversation, smaller network of friends and the opportunity just to check out off hat.
By blabto on December 18, 2007 8:43 am
Nice post, but I suggest make the images links, so we don’t have to type in the website url in the bar
By Banner Man on December 20, 2007 1:31 pm
Missing runner up Numpa.nl here.
By John on April 14, 2008 7:25 am
Hi, to update your interesting article, two news: both Tumblr and Jaiku now (April 2008) have new desktop apps: Wintumblr by Feedfeast and Jaikuroo by Rareedge (who also make Twitteroo for Twitter), all for windows. I use both and work very well.
And in its Dashboard, Tumblr has both filtering and labels.
HTH,
Ippe
By Melanippe on April 15, 2008 11:53 am