I'm a Twit...

You may have noticed that since I’ve started to get back to my bloggin’ ways… that there is a new addition to the page. The not-so-latest in a long line of 21st century trends that I’m finally giving a try to:

The Twitter Feed.

Have I given in? Succumbed to the brain-washing of “the Man”? Have I sold out?

Well, seeing as how Twitter is free… not to mention they don’t hire people to write those “tweets”… technically, no. I haven’t sold out.

When it first came out… it didn’t really interest me, to tell the truth. Having a social network where all you do is answer, “What are you doing right now?”, is kind of pointless. At least MySpace and Facebook had other things going on. Thankfully… I think the majority of people thought that it too… was pointless. Not that it would dissuade them from using it… just not in such an inane manner. No, they started using it for other things.

Even though they say the “concept” of Twitter is still: What are you doing?... it’s more like “Texting to the World”. You can have conversations with specific people, by “tagging” them with @username… but they’re just conversations that you allow everyone to see. In essence… how different is it from having a blog? Only with a Twitter… you have to do it in 140 characters or less.

Structure-wise… it makes an interesting challenge.

I was asked to research Twitter for my job by my boss… to see if using it could benefit the company. But I figured the best way to do that was to actually set-up an account for myself and play with it. So I did… went poking around. To be honest… it’s not very complicated. The whole thing is pretty straightforward… and I think that simplicity is a big factor to its popularity.

And for me… there’s an intriguing element to it. When you pull up your twitter homepage, where it shows all the latest posts from the people you’re following, in chronological order (newest shown first). This includes not only your friends… but the celebrities, too. And it’s all in real-time. As soon as they type it and hit “Enter”… it’s on the web. So when you see one of your favorite celebrities… posting something at the exact same time as a friend, or even yourself… that’s kind of cool. It’s one of those elements of Globalization that actually makes you smile… instead of freaking out in a “Big Brother is coming to get me” kind of way.

One of the things that actually got me a tad intrigued… was a bit from an article in Wired magazine, from about a year ago. It was a feature on promoting yourself as an internet celebrity. One of the pieces of advice it gave said:

"Every single Twitter post you write should be something that could get you laid, ruin a marriage, or bring a tear to a fat little kid's eye." — Joshua Allen

Well, I don’t know who Josh Allen is, but I don’t think I agree with C… and doing B would make me feel too guilty… but A sounds like a good guideline to follow. I mean, if you’re going to do something that’s pretty pointless in the first place… at least try to make it interesting. Then it won’t *seem* so pointless, you know?

So, that’s what I’m trying to go by… using it as a supplement to the regular blog, really. Any short epiphanies, observations or witty quips that come across my brain… I’ll throw them up there. I’m not accepting any pressure to do it all the time… but when I think of it, I’ll do it.

I tend not to do the “retweets”, which is just re-posting something that someone else posted themselves. There were a few times I did a “reply”… which really just tagging them with the “@username” I mentioned above… but I don’t really keep them there. I’ll let them sit for an hour or two, and if the person its referencing sees it in that time, cool. I try not to expect another reply from them (looking to expect things like that from regular people or celebrities, major or pseudo-, tends to lead to disappointment) and just continue on with my day. If they haven’t seen them after 2 hours… chances are there’s already 200 other tweets in their “most-recent” queue, and they won’t see it. So, I’ll delete it to keep my page fairly clean-looking and accessible.

I’m going for “Quality” over “Quantity”.

The same thing goes for those Twitterers (okay, that’s too many syllables… and sadly, “Twits” feels *too* accurate). I’m being picky who I follow.

I’m currently (as of this writing) following 18 people. Among them are:

The cast of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog (Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day)
Postsecret… one of my favorite blogs, of which I’ve professed my love of before. Twice.
Violet Blue… I’ve mentioned her website tinynibbles.com before also.
Penn Jillette… of Penn & Teller fame. If you don’t know of them… your life is incomplete.
Weird Al Yankovic… and why not?
Simon Pegg… one of my favorite British comedic actors.
Will Wheaton… more famous due to the Inter-Web then any Star Trek appearance.
And my personal favorite Twittererererer…
Valancy Jane… she’s a real-life friend of mine, and she’s also over on the blogroll on the side of this page. She’s the epitome of quality over quantity, and she’s also the *only* person who’s updates are sent directly to my phone. She’s awesome. Love her, for you must.

As for those following ME… I have but 6 at the moment. But hey, those are 6 *really* cool people. I do have one other person that “listed” me… but I don’t really know how different that is from following. Maybe it’s like “following without actually being a follower”… I think I feel used. Should I demand a commitment? Or would that just make me look like a Twit?

Then again, I think I already am… in more ways than one.

But we already knew that, right?