Do not use Twitter for intensive live blogging

There. I said it

Twitter is a great communication tool. But don't over use it. It is tempting to use it to report live events. And it should be used that way. But pinging your community with a twitt every 30sec for an hour does not work because it creates a noise that is not appropriate and follow-able specially in the middle of other messages. Specially if you use a desktop client like Tweetr. And even worse if you receive alerts via SMS

The best solution for intensive live blogging is a tool i saw in Macrumors.com which displays in realtime posts and auto-refresh screen and i really recommend it (if someone has the source code i would be happy to take it). Wap access could be great too

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Comments

[Nicolas Clairembault]

I do agree with you Ouriel. But it's not always easy to find the right approach, between live telling your friend, and blogging long notes...

New way of communication, everybody is learning, as you said!

[Floflo]

I'm not agree with you. I think it's a good tool for live report, but not included in your personnal flux but in a special event flux. You need to create a second account but you can choose to follow or not this special one.

PS : Sorry for my poor english :-)
PPS : You can add me here : http://twitter.com/friendships/create/955541

[ouriel]

Good point FloFlo. I agree a separate account should be created. and like i said twitter should be used for live blogging. but using your existing account and raise by 10 the number of twitts/min is really intrusive

[mdy]

Hi Ouriel:

Found this blogpost through the tweet you sent.

I follow @loiclemeur on Twitter as well and I actually enjoyed his liveblogging of the Google/YouTube event. I received his updates via SMS.

I think a lot has to do with what the followers happen to be doing when the liveblogging messages arrive. Since I'm in Asia, Loic's tweets started coming in after 5pm my time, and I was winding down my work day by then.

His messages were a welcome diversion which kept me entertained on the drive home through traffic-choked streets.

I think it also helps that I use a Treo phone, so all the incoming Twitter messages are just chained together into one long conversation, and did not clutter my phone's inbox too much.

I can understand why other people would be upset by the incessant arrival of messages, though. :-)

I agree that Floflo has a good idea -- using a separate account to liveblog events will be beneficial not just to the followers, but also to the person sending the tweets -- s/he can find the liveblogged write-ups more quickly for future reference, since they're not interspersed with non-event updates.

I have not seen the liveblogging tool you describe from Macrumors, but it sounds interesting.

Anyway, just wanted to share a different point of view.

Cheers!
mdy

[Laurent Pantanacce]

Ouriel,

Do you remember the name of the live blogging tool?

Thanks in advance

Laurent - TwitDir.com

[Denis Florent]

I received Loic's "live show" on Twitter yesterday, and as my Twitter is redirected to my GoogleTalk, it was very easy to follow... plus... his content was VERY interesting.

Now, of course, I was smiling imagining my friends receiving the same flow through their SMS... but, hey... is it worse than your ex-gf sending you thousands of messages per day ? :-)

[Sylvain]

I agree with the person who use a treo! No better thing than receiving loic's twitters on a Treo!.. hold on! A better thing would be to receive them with a WIFI enhanced Treo! ;)