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Archive for August 2009

Dial UP?

It’s kindof cute, isn’t it?  How, whenever you buy a new, out of the box computer, it comes with a model and one of those teeny weeny phone cords?  The Phone line into my house has been defuct since we moved in, noone will take credit for/fix it, so we just went mobile and wireless, heart and soul.  But every so often I end up in one of those bastions of purity that still believes landlines are the only way to go, and that the old-school ring of a telephone is the only way to keep in touch.  So I save these itty bitty little snips of cable (I think I’m up to, like 20 of them) just in case I travel, just in case I end up someplace where wireless is still a term for AM band radio and blogging is what lumberjacks do when the whisky runs dry.

Twitter me fondly….

 

So just what the he** is the allure of Twitter?  I keep thinking about it, about how it brings us one step closer to the “hive mind” that has been the starstuff of science fiction in years gone fast.  Big names like Larry King and Ashton Kutcher have a million followers, a MILLION people who at least give a passing glance to everything they put out online.  Thats a lot of eyes.  But think of it, how does it work the other way?  Lets say I follow only half a million people.  Right now, following a mere 50, I get over 200 twitters a day.  The overload potential is MIND BOGGLING at best, downright noise at worst.  I liken it to those stories where someone (usually a hawt actor like Mel Gibson used to be) gets the ability to hear *everyones* thoughts.  Eventually it drives them mad.

I think it’s the *potential* that attracts people.  The idea that you could send a tweet to, say, the Gov. of California, and he might take notice of you, or Larry King might deign to include you in the hundred or so people he follows on a daily basis.  It’s like taking the tour bus of the stars homes of LA, it’s that possibility that Sharon Stone might come down the driveway to pick up her newspaper, or Brad Pitt might be sitting in line with you at In-N-out Burger