# 56: Potluck: To Tweet...

I do use technology, couldn't live without it really. I can see its good points, but I'm not a diary kind of person, so blogs have left me somewhat cold. I felt the same about Twitter - on a much smaller scale (140 characters, to be exact). I just felt it was a total black hole for time. However, my cousin sent me an article on Twitter from the New York Times, Jan. 15, 2009 "Twittering Tips for Beginners" by David Pogue which did show that Twitter can have remarkable value. To benefit from it you would have to be enough of a Twitterette, TwitterBug, Twitterite, Twitterer or whatever you want to call yourself to have a following. That way, you get answers back when you post questions. As Pogue says, "In the end, my impression of Twitter was right and wrong. Twitter IS a massive time drain. It IS yet another way to procrastinate, to make the hours fly by without getting work done, to battle for online status and massage your own ego.
But it’s also a brilliant channel for breaking news, asking questions, and attaining one step of separation from public figures you admire. No other communications channel can match its capacity for real-time, person-to-person broadcasting."

I spent quite a bit of time looking through Celebrity Tweets. I seem to be a long distance stalker. In Twello I looked up the various talk show hosts of shows I like and was disappointed Jon Stewart didn't Twitter. I bet his tweets would be interesting. I did check Roland Hedley - Doonesbury's Iraq-embedded journalist who is really a big doofus, but he's huge into Twitter and it is a new storyline in Doonesbury. Lo and behold he tweets! I subscribed! The best part of Twello and finding Twitterers was checking to see who they are following. That was very interesting! Check out someone you admire and see who they are keeping track of.

I'm not sure I'm connected enough to want to Twitter full time, although I did sign up for a Twitter account. The first person who responded was my son's roommate's mother who was the first person that I ever chatted with on AIM (other than my children). I'm not sure she will be someone I can turn to for answers to questions when I'm in a "need-to-know" situation. She's less technologically inclined than I am.