Darius

We're three months into Into the Mantle activity on Twitter, and, already, the writing is on the wall. Id Est, Twitter can be used as a communications tool for our purposes in exploding certain topics and really getting to the meat of subjects and ideas directly with other responsive, and, occasionally, like-minded users.

The story so far: 218 updates since October 9th, 2008. That's ten twitter pages of updates from us. We're now following 393 while being followed (however scrupulously) by 179.

First Impressions? Twitter is developing into an environs where a user may create a microcosm of socialization entirely tailored to their tastes. News feeds, celebrities, and pop culture news sources all comingle and can be chosen to enhance this Web 2.0 room of one's own (Insert obvious cautionary reference to the dangers of an insular lifestyle and narrow scope on a person's good judgement [Try Silent Running on for size?])

Think of it as a pinball game. The Twitter universe is the pinball playing field, and you're the ball. You plunge headfirst into activity, whether using the popular search.twitter.com feature to find discussion activity, or simply check out who from your email addressbook has already begun the game. You add some friends or colleagues to start rolling. Maybe you tag someone with a greeting, or brush against a favorite celebrity blogger like hitting a bumper just long enough to take in a few details. But, because of the nature of the streamlined interface and character limit, you're off again in another direction just as quickly. Retweets and links are the flippers, sending you right back into the mix. You discover someone follows you, and you spend some time in ball lock, reading their past tweets and finding out more.

That's usually what happens in ball lock, you familiarize yourself with your new followers, and pretty soon you're in a multiball situation.

As exciting as it can be to successfully interact on Twitter, there is also the dread that occurs when the ball launches square in the middle of the board and you know it's just going to drop straight inbetween the flippers, resulting in a lost ball. The twitter equivalent? The dreaded unfollow.

We have noticed that our follow/follower numbers fluctuate, as we often find a user we follow to be sometimes overzealous in the frequency of their tweets [many would unfollow simply because of this, but there scripts available to filter out those you may not want to offend with an unfollow], just as those who follow us out of curiosity or interest in one topic we address may be dismayed that we move onto others, and
this may irk some into choosing to unfollow.

We've talked about our little Twitter victories on our podcast, in a segment called Twitteraction. The short yet charming exchanges, a knowing nod from a stranger, mutual pleasure in a common interest. Lately, Blake's Lost write-ups have been all the rage on the Twitterverse, and we've discovered a LOT of cool folks just by addressing some of the ideas from the show. Of course, we've had some less than stellar interactions with some (very few) who would rather spew poorly formed opinions as facts without the necessary bed of knowledge to support their statements. In those rare cases, it begins to feel like you are freefloating in space, in someone else's Mars Attacks pinball game.

Ever feel like you're inside someone else's game?

~dm

So this is what I look like in my new glasses:

And avid followers may make note of a recent (on the better side of two and a half weeks) haircut I am sporting. Luckily, I did not notice any grey hairs falling from the barber's knife this time. Look out for the glasses and haircut to make appearances in the upcoming youtubes we have planned.

So, yeah, let me know what you think, although no need to mention my reluctant smile in the above photo. It was a little late in the evening, and the 8+ hours of debugging had had their toll on my willingness to cooperate with the camera. Amazing how the wits and patience may be threadbare, but the frazzling has only affected the hairline, and not hue.

~dm