Plurk, Twitter or Blog?

If a blog falls by the wayside, will anybody hear? What does it mean that of all the blogs that I follow, only Ernie in Tokyo is still keeping up his usual good work? What does it mean that I have been silent for over a month and so have many of my friends who blog?

An article reprinted in a Bangkok newspaper from the Straits Times in Singapore offers an answer with "Blogging is so last year." What's replacing them are micro-blogs Twitter and Plurk, which can be sent from a mobile phone as well as a computer, and are limited to no more than 140 characters in length. And says one Twitter/Plurk devotee, "Blogging is getting to be a hassle. I think about and write a lengthy post, and then only get three comments."

Well.  140 characters is less content than my average facebook status update--that's not a thought, that's a hiccup.  And blogs are micro-essays--from micro-essays to micro-blogs is a rather terrifying leap to a writer. And if a blog post gets three comments, and none of those are responses from the writer of the blog, it is doing damned well.

I have no illusions about a blog--at best it's a conversation with the world, at worst it's a lonely little writer's notebook. It's what I--and I'm not alone in this--do instead of mailing letters. It's a quick and superficial way to communicate--and there is the rub.

If I have to go to statcounter to see which of my friends and relatives are reading this blog, that is simply wrong.  Conversations need a response, letters require an answer--and writer's notebooks are more easily kept in conventional fashion, on the pages of a spiral-bound tablet that fits in a handbag and goes with me everywhere.

So I'm not going to be one of those who Twitter and Plurk. I will take a stab at resuming this blog, if only to keep Tokyo Ern company--at least for a while, to see if anybody wants to respond to it. Yoohoo, shy little people, come out, come out, wherever you are...