Image via CrunchBase

It is good to talk.  Which is where Facebook and Twitter come in so handy, even if I am talking to myself all most of the time. Facebook, I have discussed before.  I suck. Twitter, however, intrigues me.

That comments, opinions, thoughts, musings have to come in under 140 characters before they go out is indeed attractive.  I admit that in the beginning my tweets read like a weather report but gradually, with the help of a smartphone and in the waiting hours at airports etc, , I began to see the attraction of the quick browse.  However, unlike Facebook where friends are a known quantity and quality, the Follow situation with Twitter is a lucky dip of random hits and misses.

Who to follow?  So many exciting possibilities!   Signed up here, signed up there and yes, Stephen Fry is one of them, as is the delightfully entertaining Mrs Stephen Fry but, to all these monster people I am but a number in their competition for twitter domination (see @piersmorgan).  I am humble enough to accept my place in their scheme.  What I don’t understand however are the fluctuations in the number of people, let alone who some of these people are, who follow me.  It’s up, it’s down, winsome, lose some.

That SellYourHouse21 and AtHomeFlooring think I am interesting enough to follow is flattering for the fleeting moment between opening and deleting the email announcement.  As for the girls in tiny bikinis, twittering away in foreign languages . . . My most intriguing follow to date came from SomeOneForPalin1.  This person can’t have read any of my blogs unless of course she was setting out on the task of proselytizing for the Palin.  Why would she be wanting to follow me? Perhaps she thought, judging from my profile pic, I looked a little like the Palin. Wild, I know but waiters have asked me before ” and what would Sarah Palin like?”  That was before I had my hair cut.  That was why I had my hair cut. Twittiquette, however, compelled me to thank this person which I did, all the time looking forward to some interesting repartee.  And just like that, she was back into the nowhere from whence she came.

My twittersphere sprang to life during one of the recent Republican presidential candidate debates in which I enjoyed the company of @billmaher, @michaelmoore and others. The fun we had together, a virtual party of almost . . . friends!  Days later, I discovered in my @mentions, a hostile rebuke coming all the way from Arizona.  Not only was I being taken to task for my feeble opinion but someone had picked up on it. Read it and replied! That this person is an afficionado of the Horror genre with special mention to Evil Dead, the Godfather of Gore and Jenna Jameson is all beside the point.  Plus, isn’t Arizona one of those states with relaxed gun laws?  I turned my back on the rebuke, not only was it political, it was politically stale, my heart and energy were flagging but, had I found the messages during the sleep heat of the debate, who knows where my twitter follow count might be now!

So I twitter on, enjoying the companionship of some wonderful blogging friends along with regular updates from the BBC, the New York Times, Grey Sky Thinking and others.  55 to be precise.  All of whom combine to provide companionable short-talk, often with informative links.

Talking to myself, maybe, but with all this bite-size food for thought out there, who can resist?

Or is Twitter merely the place where the devil finds work for idle hands?

To tweet, or not to tweet?  If not, why not?  Tweet me!