As for a general comments page, well I’ve tried a “say whatever you like” post but ‘the children’ just saw it as a good opportunity to play up and insult me. They need my guidance.

Will it end? Will they eventually come back? And can they come back before the deadly drug of Twitter destroys their brains?

I hold grave fears for the future of good blogging and worst of all … it’s let the nutso, right wing idiots (who can’t work out how to Twitter) reclaim the higher blogging ground.

Deserted. We stand deserted by those who would fight and defend us.

It’s almost over.

As someone who doesn’t tweet, I have to say I understand the advantage of soundbites but I prefer to read more in depth pieces of writing. They both have their uses. Sometimes the thought of writing a blog post seems like too much work and then a soundbite would be a better way to touch base and express an opinion that you don’t need to back up with paragraphs of arguments, but on the other hand, blogs are a great way to spread information and help understanding of others.

I think she’s a pain in the arse Ray, but there you go.

As for forums v blogs, I started Alpine Opinion as a ‘community forum’ for this area where anyone could join and start a topic. It went alright but others were reluctant to start topics and preferred just to comment on the ones I raised. So I changed it to a blog and widened the scope. Then it took off to the point where it is now in the Top Ten blogs in the country!!! (I made that last bit up).

I like that friend of yours and the sandwich thing. I like her style.

Don, I think people are making a lot of it up. And it’s not so much their “thoughts” they’re tweeting but their observations.

It would be overwhelming so we would “connect” or follow only those people’s thoughts that we cared about. Then, we can’t be interrupted with their thoughts when ever they think, so we’d save them up to experience later, and then just skim over them without paying much attention.

I think we will see Twitter fall from favour before blogging does. Hhhmm, good one, I might tweet that now.

The other thing I suppose it that unlike a forum you can’t start your own topic, even if there’s something you’d like to discuss. I don’t have time to run a blog, I already moderate 2 forums and God know how many I’ve joined.

For instance Ray, I found out last night that a friend of mine has a flatmate who hates sandwiches to the extent that she’ll ring up people whose place she’s going to to warn them that she can’t eat them. I’ve been dying to tell someone about that.

One thing you said was about humour, and I think you’re right. I only like funny ones, or blogs run by people with a GSOH, as they say in the personals.

Anyway, I haven’t “canned” anyone and I’m not denying Twitter has uses. It’s a useful vehicle. So is a Commodore but if you use the Commodore for doing burnouts, donuts & hooning more than as a means of transport … it’s not so useful.

And if D & K occasionally write “brilliantly crafted” blog posts it just reinforces that that’s what they do best.

I’m talking about what the ‘ordinary folk’ are doing and, sadly, they’re twittering.

Hang in there.

I find twitter to be most useful in following specific sources as Dave has discussed. You are probably unaware that my Twitter account tweets the publishing of posts from all of the North East Bloggers posts with a tiny url that links directly to your site.

Twitter has nothing to do with the demise of blogging. I suggest the blogs you may be following have become stale with their authors getting tired. In recent months, you have canned Dave and Kieran for neglecting their blogs in favour of twitter. The fact is, when they post to their resprctive blogs, their posts have been brilliantly crafted. So, people use the different media for different purposes.