irwinloy

Loyal reader(s) may have noticed that an awkwardly placed Twitter logo has miraculously popped up on this website. It's over there, to your left. Click it and see what happens.

I put it up this week as part of my efforts to join the new new social media revolution and come to terms with this thing they call Twitter. Today is Day 1, more or less, of my entry into what is apparently called microblogging.

Consider it an experiment of sorts. I should say that I'm generally quite skeptical of what we've come to call "social media." In our efforts to tag labels onto the latest trends in mass communication, we also attach reverence onto what are just everyday tools.

I think back a spring or two ago to when Vancouver's left-wing civic party, COPE, elected a slate of twenty-somethings to its executive, spreading the word by using Facebook. They became known to some as 'the Facebook group,' a description that says more about those who used the label (myself included) than it does about the COPEsters themselves. If they had called their supporters up by phone, do we then call them 'the cellphone gang?'

But lately, I've been bombarded with a plethora of arguments as to why I should be on Twitter. And Vancouver media seem to be catching on in our reliable several-months-late fashion. I notice the Sun's eminently readable Pete McMartin has joined, possibly at the insistence of his superiors. I've never met the guy, but we are, in fact, Twitterbuds. (There must be a better term for that)

McMartin's initial tweets seem a lovely blend of skepticism, acceptance and curiosity.

"Walking down stairs," he writes in one of his first posts, 8:22 a.m., before adding less than a minute later, "Am now downstairs."

At 8:23 a.m. we learn what he had for breakfast that morning ("toast and peanut butter").

Useless information, perhaps. But if you were tuning into his feed last Friday at 8:41 a.m., you might have learned that Vancouver city manager Judy Rogers had been turfed (I'm sorry - "left by mutual agreement") what appears to have been a full 19 minutes before city councillors actually approved her replacement in a scheduled 9 a.m. in-camera meeting.

Now, I suspect Twitter's internal clock may be a bit off. Either way, clearly Twitter can boast a potential ocean of utility in disseminating information beyond kiddie pool musings.

So I've decided I'm going to jump in. I've signed up for a Twitter account.

My goal is to discover the value of Twitter beyond that of a simple marketing tool, a time-killer or a purveyor of invited spam. I invite you to join me/help me by following my Twitter feed.

I pledge to relax my tendency to latch on to my electronic privacy.

I promise to be nice and make friends with other Twitterers (Twits?), even if something feels a bit off about having more Twitterfriends than actual friends.

And I will endeavour to participate as best as I can, updating my tweets with a combination of up-to-the-minute banalities ("I am still writing on my blog"), shameless self-promotion ("I updated my blog!") and perhaps even useful tidbits of information ("TBD").

Let me know what's you're up to. Tell me what's news to you. If, however, you have incendiary government documents to pass on, it's best you send those by the old-fashioned means: e-mail.