I am a Twitteroo!

I found Twitter like I have found most things on the internet, in one of my rare bored/adventurous moments. I left the safety of my inbox and my top friends on MySpace and took a look around…and stumbled on Twitter. Wikipedia describes Twitter(in 291 characters) “…as a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" or "tweets", text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter web site, via Twitters web site, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.”
The first things I discovered using Twitter were how to respond directly to someone’s post, how to link in a few interested Twitteroos and how to nudge the slacker who had been silent for all of *gasp* five hours! Then, around the time Twitter was first discussed in my creative writing class I started to wonder, why is this so interesting?
I think the voyeuristic element is a big part of it. The ease of access, the idea that you can say whatever you want to say in that neat little 140 character box, and then send it out in the void for someone to either ignore or enjoy means everything. The fact is that it works well enough that organizations and companies such as Dell are using it to respond to customers. During the October 2007 wildfires The LA Fire Department utilized Twitter to communicate. CNN uses it to break news stories. The American Red Cross uses it to exchange minute to minute information about local disasters. Some of these updates have included pertinent statistics and directions, factors that prove that the least insignificant Twitteroo could be a part of something huge.
However, on Twitter a complete stranger could come across your update and decide to follow you, and you could do the same to countless others. On there if your updates start pouring in too fast or trickling in too slowly you could be blocked or ignored. If you do too much griping about how long a line is, how bad that driver that just cut you off was, your fellow Twitters will gladly sweep you under the vast, www rug. So why was anyone interested? What has made this simple mini-blog, real time journal, text-telepathy so interesting?
Personally, the “poet” (stretching it a little ha-ha) in me also appreciated the limitations and the condensing of a thought necessary in each update. The structure and limitations of 140 characters is frustrating sometimes, but at other times it reminds me of the perfect supporting frame of the minimal Haiku. Twitter has been described by some of its aficionados as “mini-blogs” and I think this description also helps capture some of its appeal. If you subscribe to twenty or thirty full length blogs from people whose views, insights and sense of humor appeals to you, then you can expect to spend much of your time attempting to read every update. This can become a struggle before too long, but with Twitter you can follow dozens of people and catch that one concrete thought, idea or news flash in a tidy 140 characters.

In my updates I tend to quote from the books I am reading. I share my plans for the evening, complain about a class or cheer about a good grade. I share my woes about my iron being too low (again) to donate blood, or my 3 AM epiphanies that I won’t remember in the morning. I brought my followers through A-Z in my recent adventures in library inventory, and they know exactly when I have brain freeze. On my Twitter I am following a local lawyer whose certain brand of dry mocking humor I am a fan of; a couple of local bands whose Tweets I longed for during SXSW; an Orientation Leader at UTC who drops interesting behind the scenes tidbits; a woman that calls herself Madolan who seems to be on a constant gypsy like road trip, the “Dude” that only Twitters in Big Lebowski quotes, and my favorite chef/Author, Michael Ruhlman. I also follow a few friends that twitter on school, movies and the lines they are waiting in and the driver that just cut them off.

But that driver was probably just busy Twittering.


Some of the Mentioned Twitteroos:
http://twitter.com/mightyrobeast
http://twitter.com/RedCross
http://twitter.com/madolan
http://twitter.com/OrchardKeeper
http://twitter.com/TwitterLit
http://twitter.com/Lebowski_Quotes
http://twitter.com/kentcallison