Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Twitter Twatter


I’m a joiner and a claim staker. Every time I hear about a new interactive social network, I register as ‘yellojkt” to make sure nobody else takes that identity (not that anyone ever does) and then do absolutely nothing. I find it hard enough to keep up with my old school Blogger blog without endlessly updating all those other sites that have vowel deficient names.

I belong to Cre8Buzz whose logo is an ant (go figure), not to be confused with Cr8buzz, Multiply, and FSM knows what else. Unless I use them I quickly forget that I have even registered The other day I had kept hearing all sorts of jokes about Tumblr and went to join only to find out that I already had over a year ago. My next to last post was a picture of my dog who passed away last November. I was way ahead of the curve on that one.

While I joined Blog365 and have at least kept up with the spirit of it, my original goal was to cross-post a link there to all my other blogs. That resolution lasted shorter than most January gym memberships. I’ve long had MySpace and Facebook pages which sit fallow. I actually have two MySpace pages, one for yellojkt that all my imaginary internet friends are linked into and another whole separate one for my family and meat space acquaintances. Never shall the twain meet.
And that is why I’ve ignored a few invitations to join LinkedIn, some sort Facebook for people with real jobs. It requires way too much personally identifiable information for my comfort zones.

The one service that I have made a lot of use of is my frequently flogged Flickr account. I had a panic attack when my Pro membership expired and I thought I had loss access to thousands of my pictures. A quick online payment solved that problem.

On the other hand, I have never quite known what to do with Twitter despite it’s growing popularity. All the tech podcasts I listen yak about Twitter endlessly as if it is the next great thing. Twitter has evolved its own lexicon with “twitterers” and “tweats” and also sorts of coinages to avoid the one logical past perfect tense verb that can’t be used in polite company.

Some of my reluctance is snobbery. A diary is list of what you had for lunch. A journal is what your lunch means. I have a hard enough time keeping my blogposts drafts under two pages, let alone 140 characters.

Nonetheless, despite rarely twittering I have gathered 37 followers. About a half-dozen are loyal blog readers that have followed me along, most are complete strangers that seem to redefine the meaning of indiscriminate. So as not to disappoint, I have decided to make my Twitter account a more intimate look at my daily life, and I do mean intimate. Not as intimate as BedPost, a social network where you can track your sex life, but more than I put into my blog. Here will go my weekly weight weigh-ins, my exercise journal, TV shows and movies I’ve seen and the other detritus of my dull life that can’t even rise above the threshold of a “What Kind Of X Are You?” meme.

So feel free to follow me, but I can’t promise you the scintillating deeply intellectual fare you are used to here. And if I don’t recognize your Twitter identity, drop me a reminder of who you are and how I know you.

And even better, let me know if there are more social networks that I can join and ignore.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Are a joiner or a loner? What social networks do you belong to?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well...that explains that.

Whether I join something or not depends on my mood. I got kinda-sorta dragged into Facebook and MySpace. LinkedIn was also an invitation, but it made more sense to me than the other two.

When I do join, I tend to use one of two different names. One will lock out my dad (did that once or twice), the other is just a nom d'internet I picked way back when.

Twitter? No thanks.

I have a Flickr account with no photos in it. I forget why I signed up in the first place.

Cre8Buzz, Tumblr and Multiply I've never heard of.

What about Hi5? You didn't mention that one. And there's another one I'm sure you're forgetting, but it slips my mind just now.

yellojkt said...

I went and joined Hi5 and now am at this page too.

Elizabeth said...

I heard of Twitter, but never really understood what it's about. I'll have to check out your page.
If you ever get another dog you could join Dogster. Actually you can join even if you don't have a dog. I've actually met up with some other Juneauites that I contacted through there!

Anonymous said...

Definitely a loner. Yours is the only blog I have ever commented on more than once or twice and I don't blog myself. I have been a member of AncientWorlds and its predecessor AncientSites for 10 years, but we're pretty old school, largely a BBS format with a few bells and whistles and a bunch of people who like ancient history. OK, I have been active enough there to eventually get elevated to first level volunteer admin, but that was more a matter of seniority than anything else.

The Mistress of the Dark said...

I hate Twitter people. Twittering makes no sense.

I join the ones I think I'll use and like or know someone at. Flickr is the best though :)

yellojkt said...

Flickr is fantastic, but I have never gotten into the whole community/social network aspect of it. Perhaps I should.

Jeff and Charli Lee said...

No thanks on BedPost. I don't need to be reminded how rarely the moon and stars align.

Anonymous said...

Ooh! I knew I'd forgotten one. Look into Friendster.