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The question on the lips of the sphere is why Microblogging seems to be exploding. More to the point, there is reason to believe that sites like Twitter are starting to make their way into the hearts of the mainstream.

While I would argue whether this is true, it is impossible to disagree with the fact that for techy types and the marketers that love them, Microblogging has hit the scene as a great tool to continue the “conversation.”

Why might you ask? Well, lets explore.

It’s Easy

Starting a blog takes minutes and minutes of hard work. Not to mention the time it takes to find a hilarious picture to go along with your latest opus. Microblogging removes most of the cruft, allowing you to focus your thoughts without feeling like you have to produce the Great American Novel every time you write.

It’s A Conversation

Blogging might be a conversation, but it’s a slow one. Like AIM before it, Microblogging allows you to get instant feedback about just about anything. For many types of conversations, this is a lot easier way to poll the collective opinion than writing a blog post or even sending an email.

All Your Friends Are Doing It

This is the killer app for any service that is trying to enter the mainstream. The best way to get people to flock to your product is through their friends. If I know that a social network, application or in this case microblogging platform has all my friends in it, I am much more willing to try it out. If I have to waste time rebuilding my entire network, the service needs to be that much better to be worth the effort.

Even with those in mind, the question becomes whether we can really call Microblogging mainstream at all. When we start trying to decide, a few questions come to mind.

Do the same people who know about Facebook/MySpace know about Twitter/Jaiku?

The answer still seems to be “no.” While web marketers and first adopters have embraced Microblogging services, the college set and the young, hip mainstream seem to be in the dark. Since they are almost always the earliest demographic outside of technophiles to adopt new technologies, their relative absence from Microblogging says a lot.

Does It Just Work?

Again, I have to answer no. While most Microblogging platforms are simple to set up, there are still some kinks to work out of them as far as scale is concerned. This is especially true with Twitter. The downtime has not been quite as bad recently, but it could still be greatly improved.

Would Grandma Use It?

Another big problem with these services as compared to traditional instant messaging is that by default you are broadcasting your thoughts to the world. While this might not be a huge deal to the techset since privacy has been dead for us since 1999, for most people this could be seen as a little strange.

On top of that, it is still difficult to limit your communication to just a specific group. For most mainstream adopters, this is the type of communication that they are most likely to use.

Web 2.0 Roundup

So has Microblogging entered the mainstream? No quite yet, but I will say that it’s getting closer. Where do you think services like Twitter stand in the minds of the mainstream? What do you think needs to happen for them to gain the sort of universal appeal that instant messaging services achieved.

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