After 3 years, nearly 1500 updates, exploration from many angles, numerous conversations, and wastebaskets full of crumpled analysis, I’m proud to say, I grok Twitter. Like I’ve never grokked it before¹.

I also know why Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, et al, are better* than WordPress, Blogger, MovableType, etc.

And it’s completely the blog-engines’ fault. They’re some how locked into what a ‘blog’ is.

It’s not.

While I share Dave’s complaints², I feel any free, hosted service has the same primary issue – people with accounts have no leverage in service availability.

*Poof*

and all my data is gone and I’m at the mercy of someone else’s feature set. I’m not comfortable with that. Not for my writing.

1. Hint – I’ve got a blog. The difference between this blog and something like Twitter – especially Friendfeed – is smaller than you think.

2. Dave, interesting note – the people I have lunch with are on Twitter. I suspect the people you have lunch with are on FriendFeed. Though – how we schedule lunch is less important than actually having lunch. I have a Friendfeed account primarily for your stuff that I personally preferred you published @ EGC, but either way, I pipe it through Cullect.

Back in June of ’08, I wrote a (relatively-speaking) lot here. Writing here is much more satisfying than almost any of my neigh 5k 160-character updates. Aside from the obvious freedom-to-be-verbose and control over visual presentation, and self-archiving, here is satisfying. Here is home.

Elsewhere isn’t.

When you comment here – it feels neighborly.

Elsewhere it feels like shouting at each other over the din.

While the updates here may be short (or long), this blog has regained write-of-first-refusal over other places.

“When software works, it all looks the same. When it doesn’t work, it all looks different.”

“How’s that?…Fella, I said, How’s that?”

“When software doesn’t work, it all looks scared.”

(apologies to Tom Wolfe)

Typealyzer just Myers-Briggs-ed the most recent posts on here. Turns out this blog is….

…happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

There are a small number of NFL games I watch each season. Sunday’s Vikings vs. Packers game always makes the list. Sitting in the comfort of my own home – just a couple miles from where this down-to-the-wire game was played – my mind wondered how engaged I was in the game.

I sketched out this scale:

1. Reading about the game
2. Writing about the game
3. Listening to commentary on the game
4. Watching the game on television
5. Commentating on the game
6. Changing your clothes for the game
7. Betting on the game
8. Watching from the stands
9. Watching from the bench
10. Refereeing the game
11. Coaching the game
12. Playing the game
13. Being the ball

(I’m a 4. Even my son’s a 6.)

Notice the further down the scale we go, the fewer the number of people participating and the greater their participation.

Seems consistent with the 1% power law behind Wikipedia.