Twitter, again.

I’m progressively getting more used to Twitter as time goes by, and progressively becoming more appreciative of what it can do. But at the same time, I’m becoming more unappreciative of some of what it can do, as well. I’ll explain.

Everybody under the sun can have a Twitter account, and you can follow any or all of them. Nowadays when you sign up (unlike the golden age a couple of years ago, when you were on your own), you are proffered a list of celebrities of various stripes that you can follow. One learns quickly that there are too many of them, and they tweet too much. Then again, a few chosen judiciously is something else. I have a few people I listen to on podcasts, like the TWIT folks, and they’re good to follow. They’ve pointed me to some interesting apps and sites, not surprisingly. After that, Stephen Fry remains entertaining, but the field quickly thins out from that point on.

Then there’s the people you actually know. Honestly, I haven’t sought out anyone in particular, but as people follow me, if they’re in the debate universe, I’ll follow them, provided they don’t tweet too much and they don’t replicate Twitter and Facebook. (I’ve already commented here on how the two are different. Why you would use both identically eludes me. And gives me twice as many messages from you saying the same thing. Na’ah.) It would be nice to build some truly deep debate community out there. We could all Twitter during the CatNats award ceremony, for instance (those of us able to remain awake through the endless thank-you’s, that is). We could play electronic Speechie-Bingo ($2 on the guy with the red tie!). Whatever. It could be fun, and as I say, maybe useful.

My account is @jimmenick. I’ve tended to post mostly tech-based things so far, plus some general lah-di-dah, I’ve got my phone in my hand, who can I bother sort of things. I am coming to believe that a successful twitterer relays a narrative of some sort. That is becoming my goal, a running narrative, complete with the needs of any narrative, i.e., if you want someone to care, you’ve got to make it interesting.

And, of course, I’ll be using the @jimmenick for team updates on the road, as I’ve explained here already, to keep team in tow and families back home informed.

Then there’s @tabroom (which is, horrors, replicated on Facebook at Tab Room but for the specific reason that some people can’t connect their phones to one or the other for some reason; anyhow, I don’t expect anyone to follow both). I was planning on starting up in the Fall when I’m doing Yale, but I thought instead that I’d start this weekend at Chetan’s Round Robin, and then next month at CatNats (I really do think that guy in the red tie is going to win). Maybe other people will be tweeting from these venues as well; certainly it’s not unlikely in Albany. Maybe we can get something going. I’m looking forward to the experiment. If you want to check it out, follow @tabroom this weekend. You can, of course, turn this stuff on and off at will. If you’re a member of the VCA, I’ll keep you posted on what’s doing when. But I won’t mention this coming weekend here again; this will be your final notice. I have to admit, coming up with a narrative of a RR ought to be something of a poser. Can it really be interesting? We’ll see.