140Char

Technorati, the blog tracking service, has now launched Twittorati, which tracks the tweets of the Top 100 Blogs they track. Apparently the plan is to include more of the web’s ‘most influential voices’.

Oh dear.

I don’t care how influential the voices are, if they’re in subjects which are completely irrelevant to me, and if they’re all presented in a jumbled stream which I can’t filter.

Interestingly it’s based on technology provided by Muck Rack, which aggregates journalists on Twitter – which makes a little more sense, but is still far too general.

The entire point of Twitter is allowing me to filter who I read by letting me follow them. And by seeing what is influential via Trending Topics and Twitter Search.

I’ve realised that although I’ve been blogging just as often at my social media blog, TheWayoftheWeb.net, my frequency here has slipped a bit.

I’m starting to wonder whether that’s due to the fact I’m spending more time on my day job and other matters, or whether the financial situation etc has meant less focus on the microblogging boom? There is certainly a change of focus by the majority of blogs I’m reading, and what coverage remains in general blogging is generally all about Twitter and monetisation. Perhaps it’s also the fact Twitter has led the way to the mainstream with the arrival of celebrities from the wider world, rather than just social media agencies and bloggers!

I don’t think a period of slight consolidation is a bad thing – for one thing it might allow us more time to consider which applications really are more useful, and which are just adding to the noise. It might also give me a bit more time to actually play around with alternatives to Twitter. I gave up on Yammer after just a few days, and suddenly found in my absence a new group of colleagues had joined! I rarely get a chance to Plurk, Pownce or Jaiku (can any noun be a verb?). And then there’s getting a decent camera to use with Seesmic, Mobatalk, 12 Seconds etc.

Then there’s updating the tools list – for instance, there’s a new, improved version of Posty to play with (v1.6). And getting some more interesting people to interview about their microblogging or their application.

And there’s the long-needed recommendations for the other blogs which focus on their area. I have a few in my RSS list and more appearing all the time, so it’s about time I shared some link love.

I might even get time to find where all my other volunteer authors on here have vanished to!

So a bit of a quiet spell definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing – but I just know there’s a revoluntionary new app or tool around the corner!