Twittero Ergo Sum

Okay, you win. Assorted students and associates have been at me for a while to join Twitter. I always asked: What's the point?

But as a Web 2.0 "expert" and with the current Internet breakdown related to Iran news and the death of Michael Jackson (the other Michael Jackson, not the software engineering guy), I supposed I had to see for myself and not just believe the media, who do at times tend to get things wrong.

First problem: what shall I call myself? Will I be open or anonymous? Will I hide my tweets or shall I be public? I started off with my name since the beginning of time (i. e. beginning of the Internet). Some guy in China already has that. Okay, WiseWoman should do. Nope, seems there is some action game with a figure called WiseWoman and lots of folks have that cornered. I tried around a bit before I settled on something. If you know the Real Me and want to follow me, drop me a line and I'll let you know the name.

So I dug up the names of the people who have been pestering me to join Twitter, followed them and went to bed.

This morning I have lots of welcoming tweets, and even some from former students I didn't follow. Okaaaaay. Now I suppose I have to say something profound every day.

There is a lot of advertising of the sort: For a good time / cheap whatever / great this-and-that go to tinyURL. Since you only have 140 characters to think profoundly, you have to use one of the URL choppers to fit the link into the tweet.

WiseMan asked then this morning: What's the point?

I explained the whys and hows and that we have decided that we really need to do advertising for our Master's program on Web 2.0 and since I am the resident expert I need to go out there and do hand-to-hand combat in order to find out how to advertise there.

WiseMan replied: What's the point?

Okay. We'll see. On to StudiVZ next.