So yeah, I Tweet Now.

I caved. I joined Twitter after holding back for quite some time.  To be honest, keeping up with Facebook was enough for me.  I just couldn’t imagine having another ‘newsfeed’ to go through on an hourly basis.  Such a distraction.  But, not wanting to feel left out (and all my friends were doing it), I signed up today.

I have a lot to learn about what Twitter is capable of.  I really don’t quite understand it just yet.  What does it do that Facebook doesn’t?  What news will I get before I get a CNN breaking news push across my iPhone?  How many clever and funny things can I actually think of in 140 characters or less?  Will anybody even follow me?

 

Update on February 8, 2012:

Okay, Okay, I get it.  Twitter is freaking AWESOME.  I don’t need to check 15 different apps on my phone to find out what is going on in the world and with my friends.  More importantly, Twitter helped my business today.

I own a Jimmy John’s store, and we are located in a suburb of Washington DC, a block from where the Washington Capitals practice daily.  Now, I’m not a hockey fan, but a lot of folks around here are.  A couple times a week, a few of the players will come in and grab a sammie.  Today, as they were ordering their food I said, “you guys should totally tweet about us”.  And they did.

It may sound silly for me to get so excited, but this dude has 44,000 followers in the Washington D.C. area.  His tweet was retweeted several times and replied to by 14 people within the hour.  I contacted the corporate marketing office so they could reply to him (and then he retweeted their reply).

I couldn’t afford that kind of advertising if I saved for two months.  It’s a local celebrity endorsement, and I’ll take it.  I obviously owe John Carlson free subs for awhile, huh?

I heart Twitter.  Cool Stuff.

Emerging Media, And Me.

‘Emerging Media’.  Two words with endless possibilities.  In order to take a proper & detailed glance into this topic throughout the next 9 weeks, we first need to break down what it means.  Here’s the deal; what it means to me, what it means to you, and what it means to my neighbor Bob are most likely entirely different things.  Since this is my my blog, with my namesake, let’s take a quick glance at what ‘emerging media’ is to me.

Media is part of my daily life.  At this very moment, I’m watching football (with the sound muted since I find commentators to be of the utmost annoyance).  I’m also using my laptop, and just simultaneously looked up the word “utmost” on my iPad dictionary app.  Meanwhile, my iPod is playing the newest Black Keys album to shadow the sounds of my keyboard clicking and my dog snoring.  Did I mention my phone is by my side sending me Words With Friends and Facebook notifications?

Looking back, I don’t know how I survived before all of this ‘emerging media’.  I had to physically go to a library and use a card catalog to do research for a paper.  Sure, I had boyfriends, but I had to wait until I got home from school to see if they called (and usually my mom or dad would answer first in an effort to embarrass me).  Text messages?  I had to wait an entire FIFTY FIVE MINUTES for class to end so my BFF could pass me a handwritten note with the latest gossip in the hallway.  Oh, and get this; I didn’t know what a picture looked like until the film was developed.

Since most of the technology we are familiar with today was introduced to the masses in my mid to late teens (cell phones, digital cameras and the internet), I grew familiar with/addicted to it all fairly quickly.  In my current world, emerging media includes the iPad.  I’m still getting used to all of the features, and how iCloud has the ability to synch with my phone and my laptop.  My neighbor Bob that I mentioned earlier?  I’m certain that I still hear a landline phone ring through the thin wall between his living room and mine, and I notice a newspaper delivered to him on a daily basis.  So in Bob’s world, cell phones and the internet may be emerging mediums.

‘Emerging media’ means something different to each of us.  It depends on where we come from, how old we are, where we work, our educational background, and yes, how much money we make.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

What does “emerging media” mean to you?