It is hard to believe that we launched this blog only five months ago. Since starting Microblink we have seen a number of amazing startups take shape, microblogging has moved into the enterprise and a platform was purchased and closed in a matter of weeks. This site was created to record these events and provide useful information to those curious about what all of this “noise” is about.

In doing so you have helped make this site successful and fuel us with the adrenaline to keep on blogging and exploring. Thank you for your readership, feedback, stumbles, trackbacks and retweets.

2008 has been an incredible year for us and microblogging and we are excited by how each has evolved. In 2009, we have a number of projects and posts planned. We will be stepping up our game and we look forward to continue to be your microblogging news source in a not so micro world.

Happy New Year and best wishes!

When we launched Microblink in August we had set the goal of covering news across all microblogs. At the time, many exciting and wonderful things were happening from a number of startups. Nearly everyday Mike and I were messaging each other with items from our RSS readers that would be perfect for the blog. The content was there and the blogosphere had yet to fill in the gap.

Since then we have covered many feature announcements and updates for a number of microblogs, including discoveries of new microblogs, such as Yammer and Kwippy. We’ve even had the opportunity to try out their platforms and exchanges messages with the incredible minds behind them. However, as we continue to write, network and monitor activity, it seems that Twitter continues to be the story and de facto standard for microblogging.

Are there other platforms still out there?

Looking at the screen capture to the right, even on our own site the tags show the news is Twitter heavy. My question to myself and the community is what is happening here? Have we somehow fallen into a trap and the news and innovations from other platforms are being lost in the noise? Or is Twitter really the microblog and the rest have fallen victim to the weak economy and/or lost interest as Twitter has increased its stability?

Whatever the answer is, I have seen passionate communities grow around different platforms such as Tumblr, Plurk and Pownce. I know in my gut that there are great things happening and people innovating outside of Twitter.

If you are one of those microblogging innovators, let us know what you are working on. Shoot an email to our tip line (tips [at] microblink.com) and we’ll blog about it.

Until then we will continue to cover the news as we see things develop. Expect to see more posts about Twitter as there are a lot of great blogs, businesses and tools being developed based around this amazing platform. Nevertheless, I am still hoping to see the same innovations and energy (and then some) behind Twitter to be channeled to the many other platforms as they continue to develop and help shape the definition of microblogging.

Each day it seems there are new microblogging tools popping up and it can be difficult for one person to track it all. It gets more difficult (and can even become frustrating) when there is a tool you want to use, that you know exists, but you can’t remember what it is called or where you heard about it.

We do our best to cover all of the industry happenings and tools flowing into the space with our blog posts, but now we’ve also added a microblogging tools section that takes all of those slick applications and services and groups them together according to their function.

Microblogging Tools for Every Platform

While most of the apps listed now are solely focused on Twitter, we will be expanding to the rest of the platforms out there, including Pownce, Plurk, Kwippy, etc.

See our complete list of resources at http://microblink.com/tools/

Want to Submit a Tool to be Included?

As mentioned above, we do our best to scan for everything new that churns out of this space, but the real advantage to having a community built up around microblogging is that you, our readers, can also watch and monitor the space.

If you have a tool you’d like represented on our site, submit it to tips[at]microblink.com and we’ll do our best to process it promptly.

So whether you’re looking for a new iPhone microblogging application or a service to schedule post-dated messages, we’ve got the links and information you need to find those tools.

Today Mike Templeton and myself are packing our bags and heading south to Kansas City for Highlight Midwest on Wednesday, October 29.

The event is a collaborative effort from BarCampers and Twitterers from the Omaha, Kansas City and Des Moines areas. The day will consist of a variety of presentations, demos and talks from some of the region’s finest entrepreneurs, technologists, social media experts and new media success stories to highlight some of the innovation coming out of the Midwest.

As part of the Focused Highlights session during the day (see tentative schedule), Mike will be giving a talk titled Microblogging, Macro Impact. The talk will cover a little bit of history and direction for Microblink and some of Mike’s observations from tracking all of the activity and buzz around microblogging.

A full list of presenters is available if you’re interested in seeing who will be presenting on what.

For those who are not able to make it to Highlight Midwest, the organizers have announced plans to stream parts of the day. You can find the stream here and track other activity on Twitter by tracking the hashtag #hm1.

We are honored to be part of this event and you can expect a recap post as soon as we return. We will be sure to post a copy of Mike’s slide deck and speaking points to view and share!

And actually lets make that two. Microblink has been nominated for two different Iowa Web Awards under “Best Tech Blog” and “Best Resource Blog“. We are extremely humbled to be nominated for the awards and honored that our blog has been so well received in our home state.

The Iowa Web Awards is a project sponsored by 48Web and draws upon the concept of The Webby Awards. The concept behind the Iowa Web Awards is to allow the community to recognize the achievements of Iowans doing work on the web. Each category and nomination was submitted by members of the community and voting is now open to all until October 6.

As a young blog we are honored to make the list and hope that you will take the time to visit the Iowa Web Awards site to cast your vote for these two categories along with the many others listed.

Microblink’s very own Mark Bockenstedt has been hard at work to provide football fans on Twitter and FriendFeed with a quick and simple way to get the final scores of every game this season. During week one of its release there were a few bugs that had to be worked out, but now his NFL scorebot has been tweaked and should be set for the rest of the season.

To be updated on game scores follow @nflscorebot on Twitter and nflscorebot on FriendFeed.

For more on the NFL scorebot and Mark’s other projects you can follow his personal blog.

Tech users and programmers emerged from Des Moines and the surrounding areas to participate in today’s BarCamp Des Moines event, hashed as #dmbarcamp and aggregated back on dmbarcamp.org.

The topics for the event are crowdsourced and then voted on by the participants to determine the presentation order. Nine hour-long sessions were scheduled with 3-4 groups holding discussions during each session.

One session that emerged in the morning was on microblogging, specifically trying to discuss the idea of signal versus noise and some of the basic functions and features being used.

I got to lead the microblogging session and field some great questions from the audience. Because several of the participants were new to the concept, I also spent some time on the origins of Twitter and its functions.

Other topics in the microblogging discussion included:

• applications being used
• which platforms are out there and what they do differently
• how to find the signal amongst all the noise
• cleaning your follower list
• ways to consume data produced by microblogging

Due to time constraints, Twitter was the main focus of the conversation, but I also introduced Microblink as a source for news and updates on the industry as a whole.

In addition to all of the sessions taking place, many of the participants are microblogging about the event with the #dmbarcamp hashtag and uploading photos via Bright Kite and TwitPic.

Rob and I have been blogging here for a few weeks now, trying to keep on top of this fast-paced, ever-evolving microblogging industry as best we can. We do it because we want people to know about the tools and services that exist and how they work. Plus, we just love microblogging.

I am the self-professed marketing guy, always examining the underpinnings of marketing strategy and brand tactics, thinking about why things are done the way they are done. Rob is the idea guy and the organizer, keeping our team on task and always thinking about what is next.

We’ve worked very well together, but we felt like there was another piece of the puzzle that was missing. Now we have found that piece.

Mark Bockenstedt, or chewbocka as many people may know him, is a web developer by trade and an avid user of social media and microblogging. Mark run’s his own blog about tech tips, how-to’s and miscellaneous geekery, but outside of all of that, we’ve convinced him to do some blogging for Microblink and to join our team.

Mark will be the resident developer voice for the site, who Rob and I will go to for all of the technical stuff that soars way over our heads. Things like how API calls work and the technical architecture of server programming to support microblogging.

If you yourself have some technical or developer-related questions or topics you’d like to see Mark write about, please use the contact form to send us your wish list. Please check out his first post, Tracking Twitter’s Third Party Popularity, and let him know what you think.

We look forward to working with him and we hope you look forward to joining his conversations.