Blogs were great back in the days when pretty much all the content came from the “big companies”.  Blogs were a way for people to have their voice heard and to actually use the web interactively instead of just one-way.  It was no longer acceptable on the web to have a static web page in which you blasted out information about your product/company/etc and only update it once a year and have no way for the readers to interact with you and the content.  Blogs allowed us (and businesses) to update their sites non-stop and for discussions to be two-way.  They were the first step into the Web 2.0 world.

Today, blogs are just a pain to maintain – at least from my perspective.  It’s so much easier for me to Tweet my current thoughts via Twitter in 160 characters or less, or to update my Facebook status (and even then I’m wondering is Facebook is getting to be a little 2000 and late).  In a nutshell, I find that Twitter is giving me everything I need without taking up a lot of my time.  Even better, its allowing me to find the topics that interest me via a real-time search engine.  The important stuff bubbles to the top because of the re-tweeting taking place, and those people I trust the most I follow so I can always see what they have to say.

Now before I say blogs are dead and gone, let me state I do think that blogs still have a purpose.  After all, you can’t dive very deep into a subject when you are limited to 160 characters!  I think blogs are becoming the website instead of being a part of the website.  Take my site for example, sure I have this “blog” if you will on the front page – but really the entire site is a blog.  I’ve just adapted it to display the information I care about.  I might not update it for a month, or I may update it every day for a week – but the idea here is to share information that I want others to add to and use over time.

Compare this to Twitter where I am interested in sharing information and collaborating in real-time.  A year from now (or even a month from now) I am not interested in what happened on Twitter 30 days ago – I only want to know what is going on right here and right now.  A real-time search engine.

Blogs at one time were the public squares of our time – where everyone went to shout out their thoughts, opinions and advice.  Today that role has been taken over by Twitter – and instead of a lengthy speech we hoped a few people would read now have bullet points that we shout out to the crowds in short, digestible chunks.  Sort of like moving from a Microsoft Word document to a PowerPoint slide if you think about.

How many other companies do you know (especially ones that are as big as Sears) that would engage with you 1-to-1? 

If you aren’t on Twitter, the only question I have for you is, “Why?”  Get on there and then start following Sears to see how Twitter can be used as a customer service tool.

In the past year, I’ve talked about a lot of things with a lot of people.  I’ve interacted with social and professional networks.  I’ve written in my blog, and commented on others.  What type of digital footprint have I left behind?

What will the rest of the world find out about you? What will you find out about the rest of the world?

* World clouds generated by Wordle.

Regardless of what you think of Obama (and for the record, I’m a big O-man fan), what took place last night – and all throughout the 2008 election – is a sign of how the social landscape has changed.  In years past it would take hours, sometimes days, for researchers and survey firms to tabulate how people felt about an event such as this.  Even then, they were highly limited in what they could measure.  It was impossible to measure second-by-second response, and you only got a few people which (you hoped) represented the masses.  It was time consuming, inaccurate and limited.

Fast forward to 2009 and the social networks have transformed how we view any event, political or not.  Almost instantaneous reaction to the different parts of Obama’s speech flew through the Twittersphere.  Facebook and CNN provided a direct link so you could not only watch online, but also provide real-time feedback of what you thought.  Responses and reactions by the masses were available within seconds, not days.  The Whitehouse blog (let’s not forget this is the first Administration with a blog!) was updated with video and transcripts of the speech within minutes of it ending.  You just know that Obama’s administration was keeping tabs on what worked – and what didn’t.

We now live in a digitally connected world in which our social networks are a part of us just as much as the networks we form with our family, co-workers and “offline” friends.  No longer is it acceptable to “wait for the data” or to claim that you aren’t sure of how something played out in the marketplace.  We no longer need the polltakers or the research firms to tell us how the world reacted – we know how they reacted, and we are a part of that reaction.

The transformation to social media is still in the early stages, but nobody can deny it has already crossed the point of no return – and let’s be honest, who would want to return to the old way?  We know the value of being active in the social media; and we know what happens if we aren’t.    This is the golden era for the 3rd generation of marketing – and it’s exciting to watch it all unfold.

Think I’m off base or right on the money?  You could leave a comment, but how about dropping me a tweet instead?