LIFE ON THE WEB ::

TwitterTweetingFlickringBlogging

Well, I got hooked into twittering. Like I need one more Internet thingy to be occupied with. I have to admit that I got off to a slow start (and thought about giving it up) as I was
quite twitter-impaired. I had all of two followers and they were family.

Finally I got the hang of it all and began searching for a few interesting people to follow. Of course, being a cat lover, I Googled “cat-loving twitter groups.” Voila! Checked out some of the groupies and picked four to follow including two cats. Ditto for birding people and groups such as The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Next I looked for artists and discovered another growing phenom-art on Twitter, which translates into “twart,” “twartists,” and “twart” intstitutions such as The Tate in London. For now, I’m following The Tate, Jenny Holzer, An Xiao (a photographer and digital media artist), and kaffeeneko (an aspiring Digital Preservationist/Curator-Specializing in East Asian and Contemporary Visual Culture). I decided against Yoko Ono as she seems to tweet way too much.

Next, I noticed that I had begun to “collect” a few followers. Some I blocked because they had nothing to offer and some are people who I am following. Quality is more important than quantity.

So now I find Twitter more interesting than email, which is what I used to check first thing every morning. Now I reach for my beloved friend, iPhone, my second drug of choice, as I’m having coffee and my eyes are opening and check my tweets. Because I’m following people in other time zones I get great early morning tweets and twitpics and it’s all rather refreshing.

The people I follow in Twitter are allowing me to peek into their lives. Some of them are in Japan, Spain, Wales, England, and cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, New York.
This gives me a broader perspective of life in general. I get to read what people are doing, thinking, feeling, eating, drinking, reading, seeing-especially when they post a twitpic or video clip. If you’re traveling-impaired like me, you get to see some scenery that you’d never otherwise see. Just yesterday morning, I was viewing one of my tweeter’s videos of his very cute foster kitty taking advantage of their rooftop patio, which overlooks a city in Spain. In the vista: white roof-topped houses, palm trees, a rich blue ocean, and Oscar the kitty having a great time exploring his surroundings. Of course, you’d have to be a cat person to fully appreciate that one.

So, even though I’m loving this Twitter thing, it’s added more to my daily routine. Along with tweeting, and twitpicing iPhone images, I’ve got to keep up with my own Web site (way, way behind), check my Flickr account, MySpace, and update my blogs, including blogging this bit. That’s only a few bits of my web/iPhone enhanced life because once I find an interesting link or pic on Twitter I usually end up surfing the web or commenting on said pic, then before I know it I’m checking out a Flickr person which may lead
me to another Flickr person and then I find I may want to add them to my contacts and then I get the urge to upload new images to my own account but the images I want are still psds so I have to turn them into jpgs and then see I have comments to read. . . you get my drift?

So I decided to check MySpace this morning and then I want to blog because I have this topic on my mind.

And here I am, three hours into the morning wondering why I’m running behind on other areas of my life. Where do I draw the line? And, do I want to draw a line? Oh, forgot to check Facebook, I’m looking for a long-lost friend.