That doesn’t mean all of the People’s Republic’s 1.3 billion (or the 400+ million wired of the 1.3 billion) think it is, though. The good thing is that you’re reading techblog86, one of these blogs that gives everyone a go at the microphone. And while it’s true the Chinese-language Twittersphere derided this, let’s give the blog post (in Chinese) a quick skim through… (Note: post you’re about to read ended up as a Global Times (Chinese edition) commentary in late April 2010.)

The article argues that in the Internet of this day and age, the blog is a great invention, letting folks focus on issues; yet microblogs “force” you inside of 140 characters, thus becoming a quick, short message. Microblogs have since been made a big hit on the Web and in marketing, but the blogger thinks it’s a step back. This is true, especially considering the example the article next delves into: a case of tweeting “give me an invite, or my girlfriend will split with me”. Microblogs are “too short”, but nobody, like, held a shotgun to you when you wanted to do a second 140 char update. And that’s what some of us on Twitter do. Try @pdenlinger or @daygan “for size”: both share extremely insightful two cents on current events by tweeting multiple times, thus in essence falling free from the “140 chars a tweet” limit.

The article’s next bone to pick: microblogs are here “solely” to “retweet” and to cultivate “onlookers” (围观). If you’re on Twitter and do Chinese tweets you’ll note that everything which shares a self-revelation (自爆), especially those bordering on the pornographic, get retweeted with the words “looking on” (围观) and the “RT”. The article is somewhat qualified in the sense that events can happen if this “looking on mania” gets coupled with rumours. It can indeed get out of hand, with folks “looking on” rumours.

Next bone: Tweets are too short; news wants to be anything but short. Here’s a bit of history: remember the plane that landed on water in an emergency? CNN and the networks picked that up on a tweet. Or more locally, remember when “The Thing” next to the CCTV Big Pants went off on fire in February 2009? Your blogger got this from a @zuola tweet; just to make sure @zuola had his facts right, he went to the site and ended up being one of the more “prominent” citizen tweeters in the fire. The blogger-in-question obviously didn’t take a good look at the options available — TwitPic? TweetLonger? (Yep, that really exists. Or do status.net and make your installs support tweets as long as you want — a thousand characters, for example.)

Finally: you’re tweeting about yourself without giving others the OK to drop in — and what’s to happen if you get caught up in a tweet-controversy? The article also questions what happens when a tweet has you misquoted, misrepresented, etc. (It’s not like radio or TV, where you can take the operators to court; this is more like a case of a random, anonymous tweeter spreading out false info to get you into trouble.) First, it’s off the point as in on Twitter (at the very least), you can make your profile “private”. There’s also the unfollow and block buttons — in case you’re worried, pounce away on these. Finally, just dump your account (although we’d wonder why you got in on the first place; aren’t folks who microblog always tweeting out secrets as to, say, when and where their dog last farted?). The article does make a sharp point in regards to the latter, though. Still, as Naked Conversations by @shelisrael and the @Scobleizer makes it clear, in the blogosphere if someone starts talking bad about you, the issue will be taken care of by itself (especially if it’s like a company CEO quitting when that’s not the case) — or you can join in on the convo and attempt to set things straight. Will that be the case in the Twittersphere? Probably — but more realistically — also probably not.

That this article found itself on the somewhat nationalistic Global Times Chinese edition (环球时报; as part of an April 30 opinions article), the paper itself resented by especially the more libre-leaning Chinese-language tweeps, does in itself create cause for concern. (You guessed it right: once the article found its way via a link to Keso’s blog (a leading tech blogger in Chinese), one of the comments went: The person who wrote that article is brain dead!!!!!!!.) Still, our job here at techblog86 is conveying more points of views (long live plurality!). The article is interesting, if not a little biased or at times a bit exaggerating, and it makes for “balanced reading” in a day and age when your tech blogger has to tweet about every last thing he’s doing…