#56 To Tweet or Not To Tweet

According to TwiTip, a blog that posts news and information relevant to the Twittering community, microblogging is up 964.5% this year. I've hardly gotten started with Twitter, and already I'm reading about "Twitter Fatigue", and an impending "Twipocalypse"? That's incredible! But once I started exploring Twitter, I understood. I think this whole microblogging bubble is largely the fault of Perez Hilton.

If you take a look at Celebrity Tweet, you'll find him everywhere. I saw a few posts by other celebrities such as Robin Williams and William Shatner. Ellen Degeneras tweeted that 2 tickets to her show were hidden at a bus stop between Kenwood and Maple. At least someone benefitted from that information. But there was no escaping the inanities of PH. And boy, do celebrities swear a lot! If you like swearing, and unbridled celebrity self promo, you'll love Celebrity Tweet.

I couldn't figure out how to use the topic search feature on Twitter without signing up for an account, so I did, but then I couldn't decide what topic to search. In the right hand margin was a list of popular queries; that was helpful. I decided to search haiku. Apparently, there is an Easter haiku tweeting competition happening, with the prize being a copy of "The Easter Parade" by Richard Yates, so there were a ton of tweets and a deluge of bad poetry. Other contests with give-aways are easily found...just type "contest" in the search box. Within a few minutes I saw tweets for a John Lennon Songwriting contest, a Jonas Brothers contest, Columbia River Reader's Spring Photo contest, a Logo Design contest, a Jim Beam Remake contest, a Worm Eating contest, and then I stopped refreshing the page....blecck! My innocent search for a bit of poetry literally ended up opening a can of worms.

I haven't decided whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous twits on Twitter, or to take arms against a sea of tweets, and by opposing end them.