How I Caught Twitter-Mania

I knew about Twitter of course. Everyone and anyone who spends even wee bits of time on the internet cannot help being deluged with all the social media.  My family pestered me for two to three years, "Get on FaceBook." And up until April 3rd, 2010 I was able to tune out the constant pressure of joining: MySpace, FaceBook, and even Twitter. After all, that is what email is for, right?

This all changed when lightning struck me. Not physically; just inside my pea-size noggin. This seemingly random encounter with Michael Dunlop, a young-gun entrepreneur, who posted an article about Twitter on his website, got me to change my outdated thinking. Which at the time was, "I don't want my cell phone being spammed with crap text." It was what I didn't know about what I didn't know...Then white-lightning  struck.

What Michael wrote about made sense to me. I understood enough to create my account and tinker with it. And like you, figured I'd learn the ropes of  basic twittering 101 by:

• Following a bunch of people
• See what all the hoopla was about
• Delete twitter or continue

After two weeks of  twitter tinkering, I learned:

• A small minority use Twitter to make a fast buck. Need I say, "Junk Ad Spam?" Most of it is a  twitter-white-noise. Harmless. Kind of like karaoke without the beer.
• A good majority tweet for fun, with no thought of fame, fortune or gaining a mass audience. You get some great musings at times from: youtube, poetry, clippings...The list is endless.
• Another group uses Twitter as a form of mini-blogging. It is noticeable right off, as their tweets are well constructed and concise. "Boy, oh boy. Nothing gets the creative juices flowing, than following those kind of tweet-masters." Give me more please...
• And then there is my reason for becoming a tweetster (perhaps one day a tweetstar). No really, the actual truth is, I just want to connect with like-minded people who share similar interests. When I take off my conical shaped dunce cap, like I did as I read the Twitter article, even a mental midget like me can learn something new.

Now two weeks later, while there are still aspects of Twitter, I am discovering,  I did manage to latch onto using the "search tool feature." I can find out in seconds what the Twitter-Verse is thinking on any person, place, thing, or idea. As an avid reader, I can find out what people think about Brandon Sanderson in general or his latest paperback release, "Warbreaker." Which I read online as Brandon wrote it. Of course I bought the book!

They say tweeting can be habit forming? I admit, I had my first dream about Twitter last night. What a restful night of tweep...err sleep I had.