Twitter

Oh, Twitter! Twitter, in a nutshell, is like a chat but with many people. So, if you send something out there into the Twitterverse (yes, that is really what it is called), such as a question about technology or even what you had for lunch, all the people you have put on your Twitter list see this. Much like Facebook, I avoided Twitter for a long time, mostly because whenver I looked at it, I would see people writing things like, "Just had an awesome egg salad sandwich" or "leaving for the airport in 2 hours," and I couldn't figure out why I needed to know that. However, I need to be careful, because especially with all things technology, I tend to eat my words six months down the line. What I said I wouldn't do often comes back to haunt me.

Case in point--a month or so ago, I was with a class and having a devil of a time getting Voicethread to record, so I had to take my laptop and walk all the way over to the high school 3rd floor just to find our tech guy to ask him what to do. If I had had Twitter, I could quickly send out the message/question I needed and get an almost instant response (seems many Twitterers are great at responding right away). Another month goes by, and I realize I have yet another quick question that required me to send an email to Thailand and wait for a response. Twitter would have been much quicker.

A friend of mine mentioned that all these social networks feel like high school all over again--Will you be my friend? Do you accept me as your friend? How many people are following you? Long story short, I joined Twitter, albeit still with hesitation. I'm starting out small and following only a few people, but I've already found it useful. I found out that blogspot blogs are unblocked in China at the moment (yippee!), baseball season started and I found a few great links to good blog postings. Worth it already, and who knows? Maybe six months from now I'll be writing down what I had for lunch. My Twitter name is bookchica if you want to check it out.