Twiddiction

RhodesTer - “Hello, my name is DAVE.. and, uh.. and I Tweet.”

Chorus of voices – “Hi DAVE!”

RhodesTer – “It started with my wife of almost 18 years, coffeesister, and although I’m not trying to lay blame or point fingers here, it was she who tweeted first.

I’d hear an occasional snicker from her as she sat at her computer a few feet away, and I’d think she’d stumbled onto a new site or something, but no.. she’d be snickering at something someone just said, or ‘tweeted’, as the jargon goes.. and it got my curiosity up.  She’d tried to tell me about it earlier but I dismissed it with a wave of my hand and a “harrumph,” so she just let me be.  But then, whenever I’d hear one of these snickers, I’d ask what it was about and she’d say, “Oh, hotdogsladies just tweeted “MY FRENCH ROAST HAD WAAAY TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS IN IT THIS MORNING,” and I’d agree that it WAS funny, so one thing led to another, and..”

(The crowd looks on sympathetically)

..finally, one day, I broke down and asked her what this ‘tweeting’ thing was all about, so she told me.  She told me to go to http://twitter.com and sign up, so I did.”

(Empathetic sighs emanate from the crowd)

“I was hesitant at first, because I’d signed up on so much before.. BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog, etcetera.. and I was getting endless notifications that ‘Gangbanger’ had “added me as a friend,” along with ‘Toodlewidget’, ‘Pisspony’ and ‘Blog4CashNOW!’ but none of them had actually VISITED my blog, so I was a bit put off.”

(More empathetic sighing but this time with nodding)

“But it turned out that Tweeter isn’t like that.  It’s not there just for blog promotion and, although you can use it for that, you can say anything you’d like on it.  You can type up a line and broadcast it out to the world, and it could be about washing your car or having dinner at a fancy restaurant.. and, if you can make it witty and entertaining in 140 characters or less, you’d be a HIT!  Well, let me tell you, hit it I did!  I added people and they added me, and we followed each other’s tweets, which I’m sure would sound odd to the layman, but to we who tweet, it’s.. it’s all we know.”

(Nodding continues.. with an occasional AMEN)

“As if THAT weren’t bad enough, I got other people hooked.. Spritualtramp for one, who recently rained curses down upon me for “opening this Pandora’s box of torment” that has him engaged in a life and death struggle for his soul.  And the tools.. oh, the TOOLS!  I put a ‘Twitter Widget’ on the sidebar of my blog, so that when I TWEET it will show the latest one.  That way, people would be up on what I’m doing moment by moment, or what my latest opinion is on this or that. I even hoped that people would click the link under my tweet, thus being lead to my Twitter site, and SIGN UP.  Yes, I was out of control.

THEN, after thinking that I’d gone as far as I could go.. I DISCOVERED TWHIRL.  Of course, it was that demon coffeesister who turned me onto it.. TWHIRL is a client made by ADOBE, which means it’s GOOD, and if you use it you don’t have to keep a window open on your computer with the twitter website up.  You run it all in TWHIRL, just like having a chat program on all the time, and the tweets flow freely!  You can enter tweets, read tweets, tweet personally to just certain people or tweet to the world!  IT’S FANTASTIC!  DOWNLOAD IT HERE!”

(Puzzled looks from the crowd)

“I mean, it’s really hard to walk away from!  You’re afraid you’ll miss something, just like when you pull your car into the driveway and you’re hesitant to turn off that really good radio station because the NEXT song might be one you really like, but with TWHIRL you can walk away because it’ll all be there for you when you get back!  Then you can reply to anyone you want, even if it’s an hour later!  So, it’s okay to go shower or eat something, as long as you TWEET about it, but just make it witty and clever and everyone will love you and follow you!”

(Crowd looks at each other.. a few heads hang in shame)

Doctor Phil – “Um, David.. let me get this straight.. are you here to get HELP, or to proselytize?”

RhodesTer – “Help?  Why would I want HELP?  I’m in LOVE, you bald-headed, hang-nailed  hack!  I’d MARRY Twitter if I weren’t already married to demon coffeesister!  I have Twitter wallpaper!  I search for OTHER Twitter clients and applications daily, and I’m constantly on the lookout for new Twitter users to add! Witty ones!  I get their tweets on my phone, my laptop, the office computer, my desktop.. I don’t NEED your HELP, Doctor FILL-US-FULL-OF-SHAME, I’m PROUD to be a member of the new and exciting Twitter community, where tweeting is a way of life and the wave of the future!  TWITTER RULES ALL!  (Pumps fist into air) HOOYA!!”

Doctor Phil – “SECURITY!”

RhodesTer on Twitter/Subscribe to this blog

Tagged as: BlogCatalog, blogging, MyBlogLog, Online Communities, Social network, Twitter