Twitterings

Twitter is a Web 2.0 application that people love to make fun of. "I don't want to know what he had for breakfast" is a remarkably common statement. I opened a twitter account last spring, and it didn't see much action for a while. Then I added Lance Armstrong in the weeks leading up to and during the Tour de France, and I was captivated. Lance is a dedicated twitterer, with an audience of many thousands. He tweets several times a day, many fairly trivial, many shout-outs to various supporters, but many providing interesting insights into the life of a global celebrity and (more to my liking) a champion athlete. I dropped him after the Tour was over - too much volume to follow regularly - but following him avidly for a while gave me a better sense of the potential value of Twitter.

Now most of the tweets I receive are from my two kids, both young adults. I like this way of keeping up with their lives. Lorraine tends to tweet pretty trivially - yes, she often tells me about her breakfast, but I'm more interested than a stranger would be. Jake doesn't tweet as often - maybe 4-5 times/week - and his tweets are more interesting, especially since I otherwise don't hear from him very often. He did tweet what he had for breakfast once - but it was a picture, not text; most of his tweets are pictures with a brief caption, and they tell me a lot about what he's up to.

My own tweets are few and far between - the occasional brag about a race or mention of a good book I've read. Most of my followers are family members. I am fascinated by the follow requests I get from strangers, though. I generally delete them, but I'm wondering just why I get asked?