Full Report
Like it, hate it or just plain struggling to understand it, Twitter has made a huge impact across a wide range of fields. We use it fairly heavily internally for simulated water-cooler chatter and quick link-exchange. (like any piece of sp-geek-over-engineering we also have a tweet-bot to convert tweets to emails, and convert blog notifications to tweets). It’s pretty clear though, that once we started tweeting internally, people started blogging less. There’s something liberating about saying “here’s a link”, as opposed to taking the time to formulate your thoughts into a full blown posting.
Analysis Summary
# Industry News: Twitter's Impact on Information Security Content Creation
## Summary
This article explores the anecdotal observation, supported by light internal data analysis targeting information security figures, that the rise of microblogging platforms like Twitter has led to a measurable decrease in long-form content creation, specifically in the context of traditional security blogging. The core thesis is that the immediacy and low friction of sharing links via Twitter may be displacing the effort required for detailed blog posts.
## Key Details
- Date: November 10, 2009
- Companies Involved: SensePost (Author/Analyst), Twitter (Platform)
- Category: Market Analysis / Trend Observation (Content Consumption & Creation)
## The Story
SensePost describes their internal use of Twitter for rapid communication and notes a corresponding shift away from internal long-form blogging. Intrigued, they investigated whether this trend—where "here’s a link" replaces thought formulation—was visible among prominent figures in the information security community. Their implication is that Twitter provides a fast, liberating method of information exchange, which may inadvertently "kill" the slower, more deliberative act of professional blogging, particularly for topics that only require a quick link sharing rather than deep analysis.
## Business Impact
### For the Companies Involved
- **SensePost:** Positions the firm as actively observing and participating in industry communication shifts, demonstrating an internalized view of digital collaboration trends.
### For Competitors
- For security consulting firms reliant on content marketing through long-form whitepapers or detailed blog posts, this trend suggests potential diminishing returns on deep-dive content creation if the audience is migrating attention to faster, shorter-form channels.
### For Customers
- Customers may receive faster updates and notifications (via Twitter), but could potentially miss complex technical deep dives or foundational analysis traditionally found in blogs, increasing the risk of superficial understanding.
### For the Market
- It signals a significant shift in how technical knowledge and vulnerabilities are disseminated within the security sector, emphasizing speed and immediacy over depth.
## Technical Implications
The article implicitly highlights the technical convenience of tooling (like SensePost's tweet-to-email bot) that bridges existing communication methods with new platforms, accelerating the adoption curve of new social tools within technical workflows.
## Strategic Analysis
- **Market Positioning:** Positions Twitter as a significant disruptive force in knowledge sharing, forcing security vendors and experts to re-evaluate their content strategy mix.
- **Competitive Advantage:** Firms mastering the blend of quick updates (Twitter) and authoritative deep dives (Blog) gain an advantage in both reach and perceived expertise.
- **Challenges:** The risk of knowledge fragmentation and confirmation bias increases if important context is omitted in favor of viral brevity.
## Industry Reactions
- **Analyst opinions:** Suggests an industry-wide recognition that microblogging platforms were fundamentally altering professional communication norms, even in highly technical fields.
- **Expert commentary:** The author's query implies uncertainty and curiosity about whether this observation is a universal truth across the industry or a localized artifact.
## Future Outlook
- **Predictions and expectations:** One might predict an increasing bifurcation in security content: extremely short, timely updates on one side, and extremely long, comprehensive reports (perhaps gated) on the other, squeezing out the mid-length blog post.
- **What to watch for:** Monitoring whether major security advisories and original research continue to be published via traditional blogging mechanisms or migrate entirely to direct platform announcements.
## For Security Professionals
Security professionals must recognize that their audience's primary information intake channel is shifting. Effective threat intelligence and awareness campaigns need to be optimized for short-form engagement (Twitter), while still ensuring critical, actionable security knowledge is available in accessible, detailed formats. This also implies that security incidents might trend faster, demanding rapid response communications.