To twit or not to twit

~ To twit, to tweet or to twitter: that is the aphoristic question! ~

Is it obvious that I’m new to Twitter? For starters, you need to know that I'm not totally lame! I’ve been using Facebook for a few years now so I’m quite hip to the lingo (golly gee wilikers that sounded so uncool!).  I know that I can “facebook” someone and I’ve been told that I’ve been “facebooked” and while I’m bored at work home, I can fritter away the time “facebooking”. But when it comes to Twitter, well, I feel like a twit!

My BFF is the only person I know who twits or tweets or twitters. I think she might be addicted but don't tell her I said that! So I couldn’t help but be curious about what she’s doing when she’s ignoring me monopolized by Twitter on her Blackberry.

So after some research (can’t I call it research even if I only typed an url?), here’s what I found:

According to the information found on the Twitter website, Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. You simply find the public streams you find most compelling and follow the conversations. At the heart of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets (ah!). Each Tweet is 140 characters in length. Connected to each Tweet is a rich details pane that provides additional information, deeper context and embedded media. You can tell your story within your Tweet, or you can think of a Tweet as the headline, and use the details pane to tell the rest with photos, videos and other media content.

Interestingly, the Twitter tagline is “The best way to discover what’s new in your world”. Really?  Is it really the best way to discover what’s new in the world...in 140 characters or less? So did I understand this correctly?  Twitter is claiming that it is better than all the newspapers, magazines, television programs, the world wide web and even Facebook, really? The Twitter website even posts information about “trending topics”. So we can even use Twitter to teach people about statistical significance, really? Well, let’s get started then...

1. Created account: traceybdot

2. Started stalking following (the site recommended I start with 10):

• BFF
• John Cusack
• Colin Firth
• Margaret Atwood
• Rick Mercer
• Alan Neal
• Jian Ghomeshi
• Ellen DeGeneres
• Oprah
• Barbra Streisand

3. Entered my interests (again, the site recommended 10): 

• Environment
• Nature
• Science
• Mathematics
• Weight loss
• Vegetarian
• Glee
• Greek men
• Charitable organizations
• Books
• Sugar
• Writing
• Geeky Greek men
• Gilmore Girls

So I ended up clicking "follow me" on a bevy of twitterers including CBC, Animal Planet, New York Times, Whale Wars, David Suzuki, WWF and Amnesty. It seemed like the list of people/organizations I was following kept growing and growing so much so that it was an eerie reminder of what happens when you add a drop of water on a Gremlin! So I’m now stalking following 52 people/organizations! Ugh...now I feel dirty!  These people don’t even know that I’m following them...how creepy is that? That unpleasant feeling quickly subsided (does that mean I've become accustomed to feeling creepy and that's why it subsided so quickly?) and then I started thinking (less about feeling creepy!)...if I wanted to enter the pitiable world of Twitter, what would I tweet about...in under 140 characters (I know what you're thinking and that's just rude...I'm not always so wordy!)? Oh the pressure!!! What I don’t yet understand is the “@” symbol in the tweets...what’s up with that? Is it a shout out? Hey...what up @traceybdot?  Would that be proper Twitter speak?  Oh I feel so ancient uncool stoopid :(

In order to properly prepare for my first public tweet (as any anal perfectionist would do!), I thought I would practice tweeting (practice makes perfect, right?). So let’s just "pretend" that I’ve been twittering tweeting since last Saturday and let's take a look at my twitters tweets for the week:

Saturday: BFF back from TO! I’m going to walk over to see her. I can’t wait to blog about her!

Sunday: Watched The Social Network with F and B. I can’t wait to blog about Jesse Eisenberg the movie!

Monday: Anxious about bringing my car in to see the mechanic. Oh dear, I should really blog about how I feel!

Tuesday AM: Gridlock traffic...ugh! I can’t wait to blog about this!

Tuesday PM: Men suck!!! Boy, do I need to blog about this!

Wednesday: First fucking day without sugar! Someone’s going to be fucking reading about this in my fucking blog!!!

Thursday: Bloody hell, I fell down my stairs. Damn snow. Yes, I’m Canadian! I’m definitely going to have to blog about this, eh!

Friday: TGIF!!! Joined Twitter...I can 100% guarantee that I will be blogging about this!

I know, I know...B-O-R-I-N-G! I guess I’ll be the least popular girl on Twitter just like in my chess club but on a positive note, I guess that means I’m not a twit afterall :)