Morriss recently wrote about the 4 stages of Twitter which was as close as it gets to emulating the stages of experience with this product. I hadn’t realized how long I had been on it and then thought about why, after e-mail, it is the one thing that is always checked.
At first it seemed that the community that would built up around Twitter, with you deciding who to follow and who is following you, would be limited. How many of your face-to-face friends would actually use it tended to be few if any and wasn’t everyone on Facebook anyway. But a community did build and it reached beyond any geographic location that you could imagine. Now you can see people responding to each other were you know you were the conduit in getting them followed or following each other. How many people have you interacted with because of someone else’s introduction to that individual?
There also seems to be a grouping of like minds. I have never asked or heard of anyone’s political persuasion, not that it would matter. There is not much knowledge about age or generation. In fact unless the person blogs and has posted the link you really don’t know much about them. Some post frequently, others rarely. There is a link or a connection to each person that proves to be different with each post. There is a unique insight when someone updates you on what is taking place in their life or their thoughts at that specific instant. There seems to be a common bond that is unexplainable. That unknown connection is why I love Twitter. It is an amazing way to communicate with some amazing people.
At the same time I am always somewhat hesitant on what to post. When compared to what some post, mine seem like drivel. Once in a while you can contribute which is satisfying. But one also needs to say what one doesn’t like. I really don’t like it when someone posts 6 or more times, right in a row. Thankfully everyone has a specific icon so when that starts you can quickly pass through the stream. It is also hard to follow a thread of thought when someone posts a short cryptic message to some unknown @person. If it sounds interesting you can click on @person and hope there is something there to understand. There is tinypaste if you want to go beyond 140 characters but it is rarely used.
Finally it is great to hear what music someone is listening to or where they are but I really don’t want to know that you have arrived at Starbuck’s and are having a double non-fat latté. Sorry but I don’t drink coffee and it irks me that I can’t be sitting across from you with a tea.
Tinfoiling 
Gene, perhaps you just need to tweet more often about what kind of tea you are drinking. 😉
Thank you for making the point about icons. Privately, it’s bugged me that people change their icons all the time (Magnum Mondays is cute, time to move on). While I do read most (if not all) the tweets that come through, I have to work just that much harder to figure out who it is if 5 tweets in a row look like Tom Selleck. Even beyond Magnum Monday, some people seem to change their icon every other day (yes, I’m talking to you Denise).
As for “what to post?”, I commented on my blog a while back that if I ran Twitter, I’d change the prompt to “what are you thinking?” not “what are you doing?” So, Gene — let us know what you’re thinking at any given point in time.
Lastly, I’m OK w/ my Twitter friends letting me know they’re at Starbucks — IF they offer to buy me a latte.
Gene,
You’ve nailed Twitter. I’ve never quite figured out why it’s such an appealing tool, but I enjoy reading it everyday. Sometimes I’ll even open it on a Saturday night after the kids are in bed to see how my Twitter friends are spending their weekend.
Twitter helps me better understand the people behind the blogs I read. Reading blog posts is great, but posts are typically edited and polished; they don’t always reveal the personality behind the blog. (There are a few notable exceptions.) Twitter exposes other facets of the bloggers’ personalities.
Gene, I’m guessing you don’t want to join the Justice League of CoffeeHeroes then. But we do have room for a tea drinker; every team needs their Aquaman, whose super abilities come in handy once every twelve episodes. If you are interested in combating the evil forces of sleepiness and boredom everywhere, simply follow @Ventiman, @Capt_Americano, @DarkRoastKnight, @FrapBoy, @CoffeeBatGirl, @TripleShot, @americanomaniac, and @koffecat.