The Act of microblogging has been in existence since the early days of the internet. Though, one might say, not as sophisticated as they seem to be now.
In the year 1999, someone saw the need to create a short form blogging platform. It was called 'live journal' at the time. It was arguably the first platform of that kind. Prior to that time, long form blogs was the order. With live journal, people could send short post texts, photos, and interact with each other. All in real time.
Five years later, 2004 precisely, *Twitter- (now called X) birthed. Suffice to say twitter has gone on to revolutionise the term micro blogging. With it's birth came innovations which has fuelled the need for more of such platforms.
Over the years, the importance of microblogging has become evident. It's flexibility, ease of use, reach etc has been a big plus for its adoption. People, businesses and organisations could share quick updates, drive traffic, stay connected to members, family and friends in real time.
For a platform as dynamic as Hive , the idea to create a microblogging platform on its ecosystem was always going to be a matter of when.
The obvious advantages of short form blogging over long forms was a good driver for its incorporation. For one it fills a gap. Not everybody loves reading or writing long form articles or posts.
Starting with d.buzz, hive has gone on to have 3 great microblogging platforms on its ecosystem. Leothreads coming after d.buzz, then the all new shiny ecency.waves. All fighting for awareness and adoption from various users on hive.
A quick look at all of them shows they basically have the same goal and almost same approach. Especially waves and d.buzz. Leothreads differs a bit in functionality and it's approach.
Though they are similar in their objectives, some differences could be noticeable.
d.buzz
Dbuzz has a simple and basic outlook. Nothing complicated or technical here.
I Loved d.buzz a lot when I could add title to my post or buzz, as it is called . Now that feature is removed. You can post your normal 250 character texts , pictures, links etc.
You could also create additional messages to the original one just like you have on the X platform. Though as a first mover one expected so much. The app has hardly changed from how I used it the very first time I did. I believe it is still evolving.
ecency.waves
Waves is probably the easier to navigate among the three platforms, especially when you see its incorporated into the ecency mobile app. I Love the interface. Anybody new to microblogging will have little issues using it. It's Almost one touch.
Waves is in a lot of ways similar to d.buzz. It does every thing as done on d.buzz. If there is any difference, it's probably not much. They practically function same way. Nothing really groundbreaking. But then, when you consider they are barely new, you would agree there are going to be more updates rolled out and additional features added . I for one believe the ecency team would meet the expectations of its users.
leothreads
First time I heard leofinance was going to have a short form platform, knowing the Leo team, I knew it was going to be a bit different from what was available. In came leothreads and the rest, like you know, is story.
First thing you would notice is it's somewhat different outlook and presentation. It looked a lot like what we have in similar Web 2 platforms, which made it familiar to use. To top it up, we have threads too. This allows users to write a longer post in parts, all on same topic or post.
A big plus for leothreads would be the incorporation of an editor.
This is not even seen on some major Web 2 microblogs. And also the fact you could choose a community you are posting into on leothreads.
This are more of a game changer for most admirers of microblogs on hive.
One of the draw back for leothreads (maybe not really) was people's perception about the mother platform, leofinance.
People have always know it to be a strictly finance based platform.
The question was, is leothreads only going to be about finance?
With it's latest rebranding drive to an all inclusive platform, I believe leothreads will be an all comers affair and ultimately the better for it.
I use all three platforms and I must say they are all wonderful. When you consider they are still building, one can only expect them to meet up with users expectation in days to come. Is their going to be an addition to this three? Well, you never know with hive. This ecosystem is ever building.
So which among this three are you familiar with? Which one works best for you?
picture from unsplash.com (as sourced) .
Dbuzz picture from d.buzz on hive
Waves picture from ecency.waves on hive
Leothreads picture from leofinance.io on hive*
