Once again, hundreds or maybe thousands of people, attending the SAME event at the SAME time are ‘live blogging’ the SAME content to (mostly) the SAME people.
So-called ‘live blogging’ was once a useful practice, where a small number of people attending an event, would send key messages via Twitter, to their targeted followers.
Live blogging Blog World Expo #bwe
However, today – when almost every attendee at these events is tweeting everything they hear, live blogging has become (at best) a nuisance for Twitter users. The deluge of duplicate messages coming from is week’s Blog World Expo #bwe is the latest example.
At one point yesterday, I saw the same Tweet on my screen 7 times in around 3 minutes. Yes, of course I unfollowed the culprits!
Live blogging from the gurus
There is something REALLY funny, about listening to the worlds leading ‘social media gurus,’ spraying the same hosepipe of identical information to their followers. After all, THESE GUYS are the self-appointed experts. Their inability to realise how pointless it is, to tweet the exact same ‘news’ as the guy sitting next to them is laughable.
Maybe they need to read their own books on how to use Twitter, (great value at just $9.99! with coupon code #bullshit.)
Live blogging does still have a place, as was very powerfully demonstrated at a number of recent, under-reported world events. But to sit in an air-conditioned exhibition venue, surrounded by thousands of people already tweeting every point made by every speaker is insane. If these people REALLY want to provide something of value, surely it would be better to write a blog post, based on THEIR unique understanding of what they discovered?
Am I being unfair here?
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I think you may being verging on the unfair here about the Blog World Expo. I didn’t get many tweets about it or even repeat tweets and even if I did I am not sure I would have unfollowed people for it.
Its more a reflection on who you are following and in this particular case it was a large group of people at the same event who want to let their followers know whats happening. It just happened to be the case that the tech news blog was following alot of tech people who move in similar circles!
I dont think its a negative thing, quite the opposite in fact.
This will inevitably occur, based on events (the death of M. Jackson for example) where some information will be repeated by multiple sources.
That being said, a longer blog post with more considered reflection is always a good thing and can develop the opinions lashed out on twitter to a much greater extent. In the meantime, just ignore it if its not relevant, it is a lot of people talking at a highly charged and excitable event.
At least thats my take on it, maybe they are all dosh bags… :P
As you know Justin, I don’t follow that many people and NO ONE with the word ‘guru’ in their bio :)
But why do you think there’s a ‘need’ for 1000 people IN THE SAME ROOM, to say the same thing, about the same speakers, on the same panels, using the same hashtag?
lol, oh I know your feelings on the bio description “guru”, and totally agree!
Since I’m not familiar with who your following its always going to be hard to debate but it may have been one of those occasions that a large conference attracted a large group of people you happen to follow and this caused the deluge of similar tweets, just one of those things you have inadvertently suffered from.
I guess my point is that each of the people there have more followers who haven’t got the same overlap in following as you have experienced and they want to stay in touch with them directly, they cant DM everyone, and keep them up to date on what happens.
No way around it, and no way to negate it as each person will have no idea about the other persons network!
I can see how it would become annoying very quickly though, but like I said, I see no way around it apart from unfollowing to reduce the repetition and noise but that seems a bit extreme if the person is updating their network and is unaware of others updating you at the same time! (There are of course more variables to this and it is down to personal preference and experience).
Baring in mind that its also a load of techies at this conference, you can be the one to try telling them to stop, I’m not that brave (or insane)!
Thanks for offering the alternative viewpoint mate. I disagree pretty much with everything in your comment, but it adds balance.
My distaste for self promotion, disguised as ‘social media’ means I found it impossible to offer as balanced a post as I probably should have.
Jim this is ego blogging not live blogging. These guys use twitter to brag to their zombie followers like your buddy Jausin..
Airheads tweet just to show they are there-Period!!!
Your post totally missed the fact that these social media rock stars then sell their worthless merchandise at these expos.
Sheep and shepherds man. Sheep and shepherds.
So, Im totally cool with people blogging from the stage. Not the whole audience though. Your there we get it, enough with the noise ;)
That’s my point Aleem.
It’s JUST noise. It stops being of value, when there are thousands of identical tweets.
I like your idea of panel members sharing the experience.
Ego-blogging. Makes sense. If there’s already a thousand people live blogging the event, they clearly have no need to ‘break the news’ as it’s already there.
Never heard of ego-blogging before.
BOOM! You are on to something here. That’s why you don’t see me live tweeting.
I will absolutely be blogging the panels in my usual long-form way though, trying to analyze the content as quick as possible. I love blogging and it would be great to see more people keeping with it.
Thanks for the feedback Louis.
As you’re someone who has been the subject of much live blogging yourself, your comment is extremely relevant.
Louis has also written a superb post on the subject here: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/10/hey-bloggers-step-away-from-twitter-for.html