Romancing the "Bird"....

Alice couldn't make her regularly scheduled trip to the Island this go round so when Tracy issued a "island call", asking if anyone would like a little mini vacation I decided a day away from it all was just what the doctor ordered. So I packed up my Tori and rounded up three of the menz and here we are!

We left the vamps and my one demon behind this time because well to be honest they are kind of high maintenance (worth it though). The other guys were busy, but Mitch (a.k.a. Gerard) and Nicholai (a.k.a. Clive) were available on short notice. And, Johnny (a.k.a. Johnny Depp)? Well, I borrowed him from Ms.M. He is here for the rum, and, damn I just like looking at him... ;)

Okay, we are ready to partaay

'Nicholai', Johnny and I are lounging in beach chairs enjoying a couple of drinks with those little umbrellas in them, and as we watch Mitch surf, we got to talking about ' flipping.. ooops, I mean, romancing the bird', namely "Twitter". All the guys and just about everyone else I'm acquainted with on-line is "tweeting".

Me? I'm a complete, novice as in NEWBIE with respect to "The Bird", I'm probably the last person who should be posting about this social networking phenomenon. However, because of my newness I'm still in the "romance" stage I tend to do a lot of 'lurking', and am fascinated by it all, just as I was when first introduced to blogging .

Above right is pictured the Twitter Mascot, I tried to find out if this little blue guy had a name, but it doesn't seem so. Therefore one can assume he is called "Twitter"... lol (I think he is damn cute, by the way!)

So, in an effort to become more educated with respect to Twitter I consulted our friendly neighbourhood Wikipedia. (I mean where else would you go right?)

This is Wikipedia's definition of Twitter:

“Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.”

Just as a point of interest Twitter was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, a software architectural genius and businessperson.

What does this mean? Well, as near as I can tell, it is like a rapid form of instant messaging that has caught on and spread in popularity worldwide like wildfire. At any time of the day or night you can find folks logged on to Twitter, tweeting at light speed about anything and everything you can possibly think of. How does this relate to reading romance and blogging? Again, as near as I can tell a vast number of authors, bloggers and readers in general have joined Twitter and are Tweeting about books, blog posts and contests, and life.

However, like anything else there is a learning curve. There is a whole vernacular associated with Twitter that I haven't mastered yet, not to mention the various tools folks use to re-tweet (spreading news to all your followers), #FF (whatever that is), and so on and so on. So I was advised to download "Tweetdeck", because re-tweeting was much easier to do when you used that tool.

I tried to download "Tweetdeck", (lol - sorry I start laughing every time I type that) however my old dinosaur computer booted me off that one 3 times!

It was at this point I flipped "Tweetdeck", the "Bird"...

However, during my "lurking a.k.a. romance", I've also noticed folks "Tweeting", from Twirl, web, and any number of other formats. You can also get messages sent to your phone - that however is going to cost $ for text messaging.

The one thing I have noticed is that folks are commenting on blog posts less. And, blogs are shutting down. Is this because more bloggers are "Tweeting", in essence interacting socially on Twitter?

I'm also wondering if Twitter will make blogging obsolete at some point? I mean it is described as a "micro-blogging service", you can even download pictures on to it with something called "Twitpic"... lol (Almost sounds profane doesn't it?) Many of the girls have their Twitter Profile pages decorated like blogs!!

Just out of curiosity do you "Twitter"??

So, if anyone has some words of wisdom for a newbie to "Twitter", I'm all ears. In the meantime, I think I'll have to keep "romancing the bird"... lol

Tori, myself and the menz are hosting a little luau here on the island tonight, and there will be lots to drink and eat - music, and who knows what else... **waggles brows**... ;)

In the meantime, I'm admiring the "sights" while reading a novel... This IS the life. ;)

Thanks so much and I hope everyone enjoys a great weekend.

If you would like to vote for one of the choices in the Week #3 kissing scene contest at my blog - closetwriter - you can view the post here.