All this carrying on about Twitter.com – I don’t understand what the big deal is. It’s an abbreviated way to share thoughts and ideas with people whose thoughts and ideas you like. So why all the fuss? Why do you care how I blog?

Twitter is just like any other blog/community – it’s a tool that can be rendered obnoxious by the people using it. That’s why I maintain the position that those who hate Twitter aren’t using it right.

I run multiple accounts at Twitter, each serving a different purpose, and all of which feed information to related sites. Most of them are news oriented and make a quick and simple way to post updates that aren’t worth a full “story”, but bear mentioning.

The exception is my personal account, which I use as the short version of my blog – random thoughts, musings, annoyances and ideas.

By and large, there are two kinds of people I follow on Twitter: Ones who post news about stuff I’m interested in, and ones who are just really funny. I don’t follow actual friends – I have LiveJournal, Facebook, MySpace, etc. for that. Frankly, most of my friends post stuff I don’t particularly care about, which is one of the reasons I stopped reading LiveJournal – I just don’t have time to spend reading about what Bob had for breakfast or how many miles Jane rode her bike this morning.

When I check my Twitter feed, I can count on (a) finding out about at least one thing that genuinely interests me and (b) laughing. A lot. This is entirely due to the fact that I’m selective about who I follow, many of whom are professional writers.

Given that Twitter restricts a post to 140 characters or less, it can be quite a challenge to express a complex thought in such abbreviated form, so when it’s done right, it’s like Haiku – elegant, concise, often hilarious and occasionally thought provoking. I’ll close this post with some fave’d examples:

hotdogsladies I’m speechless whenever salespeople ask me why I won’t buy something. It’s like being asked to defend why I’m not a fern or a ceiling fan.

indiana_state My computer beat me at chess last night but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Hear that Skynet?!

grendelsden XP Service Pack 3 is A-OK thus far, as I expected. Though the tentacles and smell of sulfur is a bit much.

Johnny_C Know someone who has been denied a personality for the fact that the world rewards them for their looks? Hammer to face changes everything.

JhonenV Short Horror Theater: Girl orders boba tea, realizes she’s not chewing tapioca but EYEBALLS. Girl sues owner who turns out to be a dracula.

AinsleyofAttack If you’re an adult with blue hair and a ferret on a leash I know that your parents didn’t tape your macaroni art to the fridge often enough.

hotdogsladies Lot of people say “Not a problem” when they mean “You’re welcome.” Which is why I switched from “Thank you” to “Is this a fucking problem?”