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I've been thinking about Ed Cone's piece on blogging that we published in our traditional media form last Sunday. (Link fixed.)

He's right, and I'd like to put a finer point on it. Blogging has simply moved into its comfortable niche, the same way television, newspapers and radio have.

Blogging remains a place where people can put forth ideas and insight, unfettered. But as a place for conversation and the pursuit of knowledge? Its use is limited, which is fine. Different jobs require different tools.

I became interested in blogging as a place to talk with people and to learn things about the community. I've found that Twitter is much more effective. The conversation is with a wider, more diverse group of people. Where comments on most of the blogs I read often resemble a combat zone, the discussion on Twitter is more civil, less predictable and much more enlightening. Debates take place but, because you only have 140 characters to make your point, you don't want to waste any on personal insult.

I've also gotten to know people from Guilford County on Twitter in ways I never would have in the blogosphere. Why doesn't the conversation that takes place on Twitter occur in the blogosphere? I don't know. Perhaps it's because it is too much trouble to go through the registrations and the passwords and the captchas. Anyway, I have noticed that when I link to a blog post on Twitter, the comments are made to me on Twitter, not on the blog post itself.

In a blog post yesterday, Ed referred to an April 12 Jay Rosen blog post as new. The interesting thing is not that Ed thought the old post was new. It is that Ed misses Jay blogging. "C'mon, Jay, you've explored and expanded other social media tools -- now come back to the one that's made for you."

I am one of the 24,323 people who follow Jay on Twitter. Actually,Twitter is a perfect tool for Jay ("a" tool because there are others, including blogging.) We are able to watch him plant an idea, nourish it through discussion with others, and give it up on his blog or in his podcast or friendfeed or HuffPo more fully formed. People could use blogging for that planting and fertilizing, but I don't see much evidence many do. (I know I don't.) Meanwhile, he and most of the people I follow direct me to dozens of links with interesting stuff, stuff I'd have not found on my own. 

So, when I am looking for conversation and for expanding my horizons, I tend to go first to Twitter. It's not an insult to blogging. It's just that Twitter serves me better.