More Things: Thing 27

Thing 27 is Twitter. I have heard a lot about Twitter for at least a year. We watched a YouTube video on it at home a few weeks ago, spoofing it and the "Fail Whale." I admit to being one of the ones who so far doesn't "get it." Who wants to know what I'm doing in odd minutes of the day? It sounds to me like a cross of Marshall McLuhan (everyone's famous, for 15 minutes) and Dickens/stream of consciousness narration (BTW, I really dislike novels written in the present tense. Seems to be a recent trend in literature, and it just rubs me the wrong way.)

So I got on to Twitter yesterday, and tried to find some people/personalities to follow. I searched for a friend that I know is on Twitter. I searched by her professional name. Searched her married name. Searched several combinations - no luck. I am not impressed with the searching on Twitter. Signed up to follow a writer I've heard of, a public radio reporter I've heard of, my library. Also Weird Al Yankovic and the More Things feed. This morning I found my friend (firstnamelastname all squished together), and am following her. Big whup. For the benefit of my one follower (so far), my Twitter username is mdhageman.

Our library just started using Twitter a few weeks ago, I believe (I happened to see this in some meeting minutes, I don't it was announced widely.) They're thinking of using it as a "here's what's going on" notification - "cookies in the library have arrived!" Since we sometimes have food left over after events, they could tweet about that - could have tweeted about activities during the recent Library Week. The trick is that I've read recently that college students are underwhelmed with Twitter - I'm not sure are students are there. We'll see.

I really don't think Twitter is my thing (until they improve the searching, at least.) I like the social networking features of Facebook (and similar sites) that make it easier to find people you know, or are interested in, and have more of a context (here are their photos, here are groups they've joined, etc.) And Facebook changed their status field to say "What are you doing?" - just like Twitter.

I have to admit this is difficult as I listen to more news about the swine flu; it sounds like the first case may have come to Minnesota. Stay healthy, follow common sense. And wash your hands.