Picket Fence Post

Do you Twitter?

Twitter – now commonly used as a verb even though it’s actually a noun — is the name of a web site where users sign up for free accounts and are then afforded 140 characters/spaces to say either what they’re doing at the moment, or what big ideas they’re pondering. (My favorite use is as a vehicle for complaining.)

I only jumped on the Twitter bandwagon last fall after attending a blogging conference where folks said that to be REALLY connected with the internet community ya gotta be on Twitter. So I relented and signed up for a Twitter account and started posting “tweets,” the name for the entries. (The bird analogy can be a bit too cute for my tastes.) After noodling around on the site for a while, I located the Twitter accounts for colleagues, friends and folks whom I admire and began “following” them, which is the web site’s stalker-ish term for signing up to receive their tweets on your Twitter page. Eventually, some of the people whom I was following started following me, as did others whom I didn’t know and started me wondering why they decided to join my Twitter peeps.

A few months ago, I also signed up for a group called “Twitter Moms,” a group with its own page and separate sign-in which has areas of special interest to moms.

I discovered that Twittering had gone completely mainstream when I saw that a mom was featured Twittering in this past Sunday’s cartoon, Foxtrot. A mom’s young son, who was one of her Twitter followers, read his mother’s tweet: “It’s such a BEAUTIFUL day. I’m thinking I should make the kids play outside. Going upstairs to look for Jason. He’s probably on the computer.” This gave Jason a heads-up to flee the room with his friend who quipped, “Man, I wish my mom used Twitter.”

Anyone who wants to join the Foxtrot mom and me in posting random, sometimes entertaining 140 posts, can find me at: twitter.com/MeredithOBrien.