Microblogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.
Micro-blogging has the potential to become a new informal communication medium especially for collaborative work. Over the last few years communication patterns have shifted primarily from face-to-face communication to more online communication in E-mail, IM, and other tools. As more collaboration is being done remotely through technology, there are relatively fewer opportunities for face to face informal conversations. In addition because of time constraints at work due to employee downsizing there is more concern about interruptions along with convenience brought by IM and E-mail.
Many individuals like sharing the whereabouts and status updates in Microblogging. This highlights microblogging’s potential to support informal communication among co- workers. The areas where it looks to impact are the informational effects and the social and emotional effects. The informational effects include increased opportunistic valuable information sharing, expertise realizing, building and maintaining common ground. The social and emotional effects are mainly enhancing the feeling of connectedness among co-workers.
Source: wikipedia