I've signed up with Twitter...so now people have the opportunity to "follow" me and get updates about how I am feeding a baby at 3am, etc. I've been meaning to check out Twitter for awhile, to leap across that chasm of "what possible value could this have?" to give it a fair shot at least and see what the fuss is all about...before it fades into being what used to be the next big thing...

Twitter is described here for newbies. Basically, Twitter allows you to send short (140 characters or less) messages out to everyone who "follows" you by subscribing to your feed. It is like the status field in Facebook, but easier to update. You can log in to twitter, use google chat to instant message twitter, or you can text message 40404. This allows "microblogging"--what can one really say in 140 characters? And more importantly, who cares?

I found some answers to "who cares" and "so what" at lifehacker, but they are pretty specious. I could text message myself with random ideas that might provoke blogging--the old "note to self" idea, although now it is more "note to world." More links and ideas from Meg Roberts at the new Brazen Careerist site. So, I was inspired to learn by doing.

I also added a widget to this blog that shows what my "followers/followees" are twittering about. Guy Kawasaki is prolific--so expect to see many little photos of him as you scroll down for my occasional twitter. I thought, by exposing the widget, I might illustrate any value that comes of this and add something dynamic and interesting to this blog. I told folks at work about this too...but so far, no bites. Nobody wants to be kept up to date about the late night baby feedings, I guess. And I should remember not to twitter things like "Just had great interview at company X." Just kidding. Really.