I really wanted to explore a few different avenues when starting this blog. The first one was to briefly verbalize my thoughts on this new channel of communication (microblogging/microcommunication/anything that uses XMPP to transmit information). I hoped this did not become a boring academic exercise only a few people would read. I thank you for reading it up to this point. The second reason was to work out how “opinion leaders” were formed in this channel. It looked like since this channel used as a pseudo-formal “many-to-many” communication platform, it seemed that the strength of speaker comes from the ability of that speaker’s message to be re-transmitted, how “well-known” is the user and the value of the information/knowledge being delivered by the user. It is a through a combination of these factors that a user can attract and maintain a following.
However, the major reason that I’m doing this is to talk to people using these channels to deliver vital information to an audience. I would like to be able to tell the stories of the community outside the confines of the network. I believe there are very interesting and complex narratives that can be shared by these nanocelebrities to the rest of the outside world.
