I went to Twitter class last week. I now know what a tweet and a twoosh are.
I feel so digitally abled.
For those of you still somewhat Twitter-challenged, a tweet is a Twitter message, sent out either from your computer or from your cell phone.
A twoosh is when you use up all 140 characters of your message, including spaces.
As you can see, I've already run out of twoosh about halfway through this tweet.
Dear me.
The reason serious journalists are going to workshops on Twitter is because readers refuse to read anything longer than two sentences and a semicolon.
No, wait. I made that up. Readers will actually read something four sentences long, assuming it contains the words "Miley," "Zac" or "pole dancing."
People are also reading…
OK, here's the real scoop: Remember when that U.S. Airways flight went down in the Hudson River in January? An iPhone user broke the story, complete with a photo, using Twitter.
That, in turn, forced what's left of the ink-stained wretches in print journalism to turn to rum — er, ah — twittering.
If only we'd had this back, say, when man first landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong would have twittered, "OMG, That's 1 small step for man, 1 giant leap for mankind."
Hey, it even fits.
Actually, I have no problem with news being disseminated this way. Sure beats the pony express. On the other hand, since I have no intention of setting up a Twitter account, I'll be the last one to learn (pick one):
A) That a giant sinkhole just opened up at the corner of Broadway and Alvernon.
B) Oprah's gained another 2 pounds.
C) The world will end in exactly 2 minutes and 43 seconds.
This may be heresy, coming from a journalist, but I don't really feel the need to know about everything as it's happening, right this minute.
I also don't need to know that you just finished brushing your teeth, or that you're having lasagna for supper.
For every tweet about a plane crash, there must be a million mired in minutiae.
One million is also the number of "followers" actor Ashton Kutcher has recruited to breathlessly keep tabs every time he twitters.
People, people, people — have you nothing better to do? While your real life is whizzing by, you're reading Kutcher's tweet about having to wax his chest hair on the set of his new movie.
Good way to get hit by a bus.
But then that's what you get for being a follower, which is what every twitterer must amass. Somebody, after all, must be willing to read your tweets.
Think of it this way: If a tree falls in the forest and nobody twitters — or reads it — did it really happen?
I dunno about you, but I find the whole thing just a little creepy. Maybe I don't wanna be your follower. And maybe I don't wanna you to follow me. Sadly, that seems to be more and more a minority view.
We've already had Twitter proposals. And now we've got our first tweet from the womb, sent by since-born Tyler Menscher, whose mom wore an apparatus that allowed her to broadcast Tyler's fetus frolics.
Sample tweet: "I kicked Mommy at 6:23 p.m. on Thurs. Dec. 18." Don't laugh. Little Tyler had 600 followers getting Twitter updates, often just minutes apart.
Here's a news flash for you: The end is near. And you did not read it first on Twitter.
