Current claims are that social media use is ’siphoning’ away blog traffic thereby leading to the eventual demise of blogs as we know them.  The question here is how can this be true when it appears that blogs and social sites serve fundamentally different purposes? True enough these sites both are social gathering spots however comparisons end at that point.  

Here are 3 fundamental differences that can be found when comparing the purpose and characteristics of the blog platform to that of online social sites.

Focus

Blogs are highly focused where social sites has little or no focus other than to exchange casual chit chat. Now this is not to belittle social media sites but their purpose is for simply socializing with no major focus towards any one theme or topic.

On the other hand blogs are created around a particular topic upon which the focus is maintained. In fact if the blog was to alter or lose its focus it would also lose its readers. People are attracted to a blog platform for what it is all about and if the information they find there is of use they will continue to return.

Purpose

The purpose of a blog is to educate and/or inform its readers. To do so a blog platform must maintain a strict adherence to the subject matter it has identified itself with. Social sites have no such constraints insofar as any subject matter.

The purpose of social sites is to make available a location for people to gather. The content found on most social media sites is not set but rather it is chosen by participants and subject to immediate change all the time.

Educational Value

Sure you can pick up helpful tidbits from social media sites but that occurs incidentally. The main intent of a blog is to share useful information with readers who in turn also contribute their own by leaving comments at the site.

Claims that online blogging sites are falling by the wayside in favor of an increase in social media use may not be entirely accurate. Although a blog platform and a social media site both function as online social gathering spots they appear to serve different purposes. The fundamental differences between these 2 sites as discussed above indicate a mutually exclusive and ongoing need for both.

As Google continues to topple Microsoftâ??s Bing in the area of online search, Microsoft showed us that theyâ??re not backing down, and surprised the social media world with a major announcement on Wednesday: Bing will now feature â??tweetsâ? â?? and soon, Facebook status updates â?? in real-time as part of their search engine results.

Initial reactions were a bit negative, as users worried about their privacy, and why it was even necessary to include them in results in the first place. After all, there are already many Twitter-specific search engines that produce real-time and analytical results, such as Twitterâ??s own search feature. Twitter was quick to assure users that privacy settings could be adjusted accordingly, and also stressed the fact that not all tweets would be included in searches. Twitter creator @Biz wrote on the Twitter blog,

â??Twitter is providing Bing access to the overwhelming deluge of public, real-time tweets rushing in from all around the world so they can help you find those that make the most sense right now. While Twitter currently presents tweets based simply on timeliness, Bing is experimenting with new solutions such as â??best match.â?

While the announcement has definitely generated more buzz and usage of Bing, the question still remains: how relevant will it really be? If youâ??ve ever used the Twitter search, either by keyword or hashtag, the results can be overwhelming, streaming in at hundreds or thousands of results each second. If this happens with the Bing searches, will it turn users away? Microsoft claims there will be a feature to sift out irrelevant results, by analyzing keywords, number of retweets, and more in order to produce the best information; just how well it will work is still to be determined. In the end, users who use Bing as a â??decision engineâ? will definitely have more opinions to chose from in order to make their choice.

This new feature has the potential to be big, as long as it can actually add value. While it may be more convenient, and raw results are interesting to see, but without a purpose, it will slowly become irrelevant. There is more data than ever before, between Web sites, blogs, social media profiles and more. In the race to relevancy, itâ??s the one who can find a way to bring all of that information together in a useful, interesting, and easily accessible way who will ultimately cross the finish line first. In the eyes of most users, that â??oneâ? is still Google.

Just hours after the Bing announcement, Google went one step further and announced the new Labs feature of Social Search, which will not only pull in Twitter results, but those from other social media platforms as well (similar to how you now see Google News and Images results). Already ahead in…

To read more about Google and Bing, go to Sparxoo, a digital marketing, branding and business development.

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