I have to admit, I've long thought Twitter sounds incredibly stupid. (Don't know what Twitter is? It's like Facebook if it were only the status updates. Don't know what Facebook is? Meet my friend Google.) How can we find the time to do anything with all the time spent telling people what we're doing, and reading about what they're doing? I barely care what I'm up to any given minute of the day, never mind what anyone else is.But like any tool of expression, of course what we get out of it is more about what we choose to express and ingest rather than the tool itself (I'm ignoring "the medium is the message" for now). Twitter's being used for all sorts of purposes, from "this is what I'm up to" missives, to group chat between friends (it can even be private), to promoting businesses and blogs.
Which is where I come in now, semi-reluctantly, as someone whose job and hobbies involve web technology. It could be an opportunity to promote TV, eh? in a simple and different way and to keep up with a new web toy that doesn't seem to be fading.
So what will my Twitter look like? I'm sure it'll evolve as I figure it out, but I'll focus on TV thoughts, and not just Canadian TV. One of my (ironic? hypocritical?) pet peeves about TV coverage in this country is that Canadian TV is relegated to its own ghetto. It's rare to read an article that mentions a Canadian show unless it's exclusively about Canadian TV.
Of course, what's TV, eh? if not a well-intentioned ghetto, but it's what I can manage. Twitter will let me do manageable microblogging where Canadian TV is just part of my TV thoughts, and if people follow then they'll hear a little more about Canadian shows in the process. And it'll alleviate my current issue with blogging time. With only 140 characters, I won't feel like I have to write more of a "review" than: "Love Dexter. Love Jimmy Smits. Not sure I love Jimmy Smits on Dexter." Hmm, maybe I'll post that one.
Twitter's a community, not a soapbox, so there's bound to be some off-topic tweets (yeah, they call them tweets). The big benefit of experimenting with Twitter is that unlike the great podcast experiment, it's low effort. I won't post the link on TV, eh? until I feel more comfortable with how it'll all shake out, so consider this a beta release for those of you who have forgotten to delete this blog's RSS feed.
If you're not into it, I don't blame you. If you are, follow me here: http://twitter.com/deekayw
