The problem with my Twitter usage prior to this past winter was that I wasn't really committed. (Yes, that sounds slightly obsessive, but bear with me.) I looked at Twitter as Facebook-light and started out by just following people I actually knew. Big mistake!
One of the best things about Twitter is that, except for the very small number of people who block their tweets from everyone but approved followers, you can follow anyone, and anyone can follow you. Rachel Maddow, Joel Stein, The New York Times - all I have to do is click "follow" and I can see everything they post! (Not that any of the three are following me, but then, their tweets are a lot funnier/more interesting than mine.) Breaking news, project updates from my favorite non-profits, latest posts from columnists and bloggers I love - what's not to like? I stumble across great people to follow all the time, either by looking at who my friends are following or seeing an interesting re-tweet and following the account that originally posted it.
And it turns out Twitter is a great local resource. One of my public lists is compiled of accounts that feature great things to do in DC, from my (former - sniff, sniff) Pilates studio, which tweets great deals on classes to Curbside Cupcakes, a cupcake truck named Pinky that drives around the city and tweets its location and the flavors still in stock.
Basically, Twitter does a great job of accomplishing one of social media's most difficult goals: it creates a solid sense of community online, often among strangers. If I'm watching NCIS by myself and want to geek out about something that happened to someone other than my cat, I can tweet, tag it #NCIS and follow that hashtag to see what other NCIS-watching tweeps (Twitter peeps - yes, the Twitter lexicon is a lot geeky and a little scary) think about the episode. I often tweet about running and list "runner" as a descriptor in my profile, which has led to running/outdoorsy Twitter accounts following me, which has in turn led me to some great resources for running support networks, runner-friendly recipes and articles on giving my training a boost or preventing injury. (On the flip side of all the great content I get by following new people, I can also share my own content - namely, this blog - with people who would otherwise never come across it. It's a nice give-and-take.)
And, as weird as it seems on a platform that limits you to conversing in 140-character bursts, Twitter conversations are kind of fun, whether they're with friends about how much fun you had with them on Saturday, people you haven't seen in years about a shared interest or hashtag discussions about race etiquette for runners. Of course, there's also a lot of daily minutiae (my most recent tweet at the time I'm writing this is about a woodpecker in our front yard), but there's so much other content that comes with it - TIME articles, amusing sarcasm, political updates - that it flows by quickly and enriches the whole experience.
Long story short: I've come to love Twitter and I highly recommend giving it a chance.
I've temporarily posted a gadget in the left-hand column that links to my Twitter account, @JessalynP. I think it looks a little odd, so I'll probably take it down in a week or so, but for now you can see all of the random inanities I send out into the Twitterverse without actually going to Twitter.
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