Twitter

I thought I had seen it all. Last week when Lance Armstrong's bike was stolen, he posted a "tweet" on Twitter. This soon led to the return of his bike several days later. A few weeks before that, Stephen Fry posted tweets while he was trapped in an elevator. I had never even heard of Twitter before this and now that's all I'm hearing and reading about.

Apparently Twitter ("Typing What I'm Thinking To Everyone Reading") was founded in 2006 as a form of mini-blogging social network. You can only type 140 characters max at one time, but can share these tweets with everyone who has signed up to receive them from you. You can receive updates via the Twitter website, your phone, RSS or Facebook, to name a few. Hell, I didn't even know what Facebook was until I came to England in 2006. For someone who has a degree in Computer Science, I feel like I've been living in the dark ages. I had never even sent a text message before I moved back here. Now I'm part of the throngs of people walking down the street with phone in hand, sending and receiving messages.

Of course, Paul and I are no strangers to the current electronic age. After all, it's how we met and fell in love - long before internet chat lines, dating services, etc. were created. Now they're the norm. And we did manage to create a blog and got signed up on Facebook. But I'm not so sure about Twitter. Sounds very narcissistic to me. But if it means we can keep tabs of what others are doing, then maybe we should check it out.