These are interesting times in the world of online discourse. Twitter has been fading as a platform for conversation, as with its growth in popularity came a focus on celebrities, flat discussion and messing with third-party developers. While there are great nuggets of insight being tweeted every once in a while - and despite the fact that you get to make your own feed by following and unfollowing people -, Twitter feels flat these days.
As Twitter almost substituted blogs, I see a return to long-form writing in the future. And others seem to agree, as services like Svbtle, Medium (like Twitter, from Obvious corp) and Branch have been launching recently, showing a rekindled passion for prose.
I am a fan of the way discussion takes place in the blogosphere. You quote someone, you link over to their blog, you add to the conversation by expressing your ideas in your voice and pace - something Twitter only kinda lets you do. And I might be crazy, but I quite like the experience of navigating through several pages with several different designs from several different authors to unveil pieces of the same puzzle. Sure, services where conversations are aggregated are amazingly useful for the reader, but serendipitous browsing is an amazing way to tickle the imagination and generate new ideas that move the discussion forward.
Twitter might have been the future of conversation once, but today it sure sounds like the past. Who knew that the future might lie in blogging again.