Sweet Tweets

Image via CrunchBase

I am mad! Exasperated! I have always considered myself quite knowledgeable and capable when it comes to computers and anything computer related.  I am an avid Facebooker, Pinterester, Stumbleuponer and…well that’s about it.  I am always in with the computer in-crowd, part of the computer world, leaving my footprints all over the world wide web.  So how do you explain my lack of appetite when it comes to Twitter?  I just can’t wrap my head around this one.  I have joined twice, no wait, make that thrice. Yes, three times and still have yet to get past a twit or tweet. I just cannot get the whole idea of it.

Stop!  No need to tell me that Twitter serves a purpose in getting information out to the masses quickly.  I know that.  I also know that it is a great marketing tool and quite handy with businesses.  Heck I sometimes wonder how we actually survived without it in those good old days.  How did we know what was going on across the globe? How did businesses survive? Scary thought eh?  However and whatever, I still don’t get it. The relevance and importance are still lost on me.  Call me old-fashioned. Call me anti-progress.

My very first introduction to Twitter was when I was asked if I tweeted and responded with a “Sorry, I had beans for breakfast.”  No, you idiot, Twitter! Are you on Twitter?  “What’s that? A new drug? Isn’t that the sound birds make?.”  I admit, my mind does have a mind of its own and works in mysterious ways.  I was then made to understand that Twitter was the new Social Network craze and enables peons like me to keep up to what my favorite celebs were doing.  The stuff they wrote about was called a tweet.

For a split second, I was interested. Very. Then I quickly realized that I really didn’t know any celebrities that I would care to read what they were up to, or follow as it was called.  I also didn’t own a business that I wanted to advertise.  The whole ‘Follow’ thing sounded so creeperish.  Call me old-fashioned.  Hater.  Whatever.  I think this whole thing is over rated.  For me to make it a hobby of following what celebrities are doing is like going through my rich neighbors’ garbage or reading The National Enquirer or Star magazines.  Same crap different pile.

Most of my friends and people I know are account holders on Twitter.  Nothing wrong with that.  To each his own. Some may derive a degree of satisfaction from tweeting or following and being followed. Some may garner increased business and publicity.  I have enough of that on Facebook so I don’t and that’s ok too.  For you, break a leg! Sweet Tweets!

The foregoing is not intended as a diss on Twitter or Tweeters or even Twits.  As I always say, it’s My Take so don’t take offense.  It’s all good!

 

 

Related articles

• The Kind Of Twit Who Isn’t Worth Following. (personalbrandingblog.com)
• What is the value of a tweet? (venpop.com)
• Can You Guess Which Stars Tweeted About Their Hair? (bellasugar.com)
• Demi Lovato Lashes Out on Twitter Over Celeb Gossip (celebs.gather.com)
• http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/twitter-may-first-break-stories-few-news-203507509.html

Facebook Privacy

So apparently, Facebook is not as private as we would like and all our most intimate information is liable to be shared by a third party.  WOW!!  Some breaking news!  Who would have thunk it?  Someone better alert the authorities to this major breach of trust.  I for one never thought they would do such a think (prepare for sarcasm) and that’s why I had all my bedroom stories, complete with pictures, on Facebook for only my 600 plus friends to see.   (I am shy and a bit of an introvert).  My status updates regularly mirror my soul as I bare it to just my friends, well and maybe friends of my friends and their friends also but they are sort of my friends still as they are connected to my friends, right?   I would never share that kind of information with ANYONE else so Facebook doesn’t have the right to do this either.   When my status says, “Woohoo!! Carlos is leaving today for a month long vacation in Europe!!”,  I would hate to know that someone outside my 600  friends (and their friends) circle can also see it.  I heard that’s how people’s homes get burglarized but I trust my friends and their friends and their… never mind, you get the idea.

Now how about my other personal information like address etc?  Well I have filled out the form like they asked me and I wrote my name, age, address, phone number, etc. Heck, just so they don’t ask me later, I even tossed in my credit card and social insurance numbers.  ( In the box that says ‘sex’, I put ‘depends on the wife’s mood’   Who asks that anyways??).  I don’t think I left anything out.  Oh,  I also checked the box that says ‘share all with friends’.  I really don’t have a problem with my friends seeing anything on my page.  They are my friends and friends trust each other.

In regards to my photos.  I have to confess that I have uploaded some very questionable ones on Facebook BUT only my 600 plus friends are allowed to see them. NO ONE ELSE!  ( There was this one with me wearing my wife’s dress. Too funny.  Got a lot of comments on that one).  I don’t want to even THINK of other people I don’t know seeing these photos.   I can kiss my chance of ever running for public office goodbye.

My friend who considers herself ‘smart’, is not at all worried about Facebook’s breach.  She is not concerned about ‘other’ people seeing her personal stuff since according to her,  she does not put anything on Facebook or any other social network for that matter, that she would be worried about the wrong people seeing.  She says she views such sites as entertainment only and people like me, who takes it too seriously, have a problem.  I think SHE is the one with a problem if she cannot even trust her friends.  Why are they your friends if you can’t even trust them? No wonder she has only 135 friends on Facebook. (I would like to crack the thousand mark ).  My friend does not have even one photo album and barely updates her status.  Why even bother being a Facebook member?  What sort of entertainment is that??

Last week, the electricity went off in my part of town and I had to load the kids up in the van and drove for half an hour to my mom’s so I could get access to Facebook and keep abreast on how my friends were doing.  Now that’s proof right there that I’m being entertained and enjoying all the benefits of Facebook.

Or maybe my friend is really the smart one and I do have a problem…

Just my take.