By Bryan Gruley
My Twitter profile (twitter.com/BryanGruley) says I started twittering—sorry, tweeting—last year.
Actually, I’ve only been tweeting seriously, if tweeting can be considered serious, for the past four or five weeks, since my persuasive publicist, Dana Kaye Litoff, told me, “You need to make this part of your culture.”
A few dozen tweets in, here’s what I’ve learned so far about my new culture:
Roger Ebert appears to be unable or unwilling to leave his computer.(95)
I really can have a metaphysical debate about using Seesmic versus Ubertwitter on my BlackBerry. I just can’t make them work properly.(29)
I'm way older than I thought.(116)
Twitter does absolutely nothing for my hockey game. I’m just as slow, my hands are just as bad, and my pal Billy Z continues to yell at me.(28)
People I’ve never heard of have thousands of followers. I have 77. How anonymous can you be?(64)
If I’m tweeting, I’m not tending as assiduously to my other girlfriend, Facebook. I’m not sure whether I should feel guilty about this.(29)
There are some very funny people on Twitter, including @swierczy. Some folks try too hard to be funny. I fear I’m one of them.(38)
Thanks to Twitter (actually, Roger Ebert), I’ve been reading more book and film reviews. But I have less time to read actual books and watch actual movies.(11)
I’ve learned about strangers’ cats, lunch habits, and vacation spots. How can we be such a fractious society if we’re all chatting about cats and lunches?(9)
Tweeting is like flinging a bottle off a beach and hoping someone will read the message inside. Sometimes the bottle is empty. Or might as well be.(19)
I'm a genius at college football--honest--so, once the season begins, I'll attract thousands of followers. Because it’s genius that attracts followers, right?(16)
Twitter is becoming part of my culture. Still, it occasionally makes me think
Seinfeld was correct: Life is not too short. It’s too long.(25)
Advice welcome.(126)
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8 comments:
Hey Bryan, Funny post (without trying too hard a'tall). FYI - I saw the founders of Twitter on the View and they said that the verb, as they use it, is "twittering" not "tweeting" but they don't care what people say. I'm going with "twittering" as I detest the wimpy-ish-ness of 'tweet.'
Love to know that my advice isn't falling on deaf ears :)
And don't worry, by this time next year, you'll have a thousand followers.
OK. I have a good Twitter story. Which almost redeems the entire website.
I was starting research on a new book and needed information about Cuban soldiers in Angola. So I tweeted, "Does anyone know anything about it?" and included the hashtags of #Cuba and
#Angola.
About half an hour later, I got a tweet from someone who said he wrote a book "Cuban Intervention in Angola". I looked him up and the book was well reviewed. I managed to get a copy from the library, read it, and two weeks later, we had a 45 minute discussion on Skype. (He lives in the UK). Not only did I learn what I needed to, but he gave me a TERRIFIC plot point.
I love that it happened all because of Twitter. (And Skype_. When technology works like this, it's fabulous!
Last year a blogger chastised me for not keeping pace with the "news" being reported by the "Twitterverse." He wasn't trying to be funny at all.
Damn. I'm dying to know what that "Comment deleted" was!
Can't wait for the football forecasts, to see how many times you can say "Notre Dame."
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