Greetings. I'm not one to jump quickly into the latest Internet fad, but some time ago, I created several Twitter accounts for experimentation. I have no interest in following what other people do minute by minute in their personal lives, and I feel confident that as far as my personal activities are concerned the feeling is mutual among the readership.

But while I've continued to give Facebook and MySpace a wide berth -- they're just not my style -- Twitter seems to be developing into a medium with potential value in the Internet ecosystem poised somewhere between e-mail messages and blog entries, especially since the very short nature of individual Twitter notes (much like cell phone SMS text messages) encourages brevity.

I had been musing to myself that Twitter could be useful to broadcast quickie thoughts of possible use on topics of the day, pointers to especially interesting and/or amusing Web resources, and similar items -- with the specific exclusion of routine aspects of my corporeal existence.

Still, I haven't had Twitter on my hot "to do" list, and I didn't mention my creation of Twitter accounts to anyone.

So I was a bit surprised recently to see some Twitter "followers" popping up on one of the accounts, and in particular associated with an account that does not (for whatever reason) seem to be listed when someone does a Twitter search on my name. At least some of the followers that appeared are people I know, or know of, that look entirely legit. Others I'm not so sure about.

Since I had not yet added any identifying information to the accounts, and given that my name is certainly not unique, it appears that these folks linked in through a process of exclusion, assuming that they'd quickly figure out if it was "really me" if I ever started using the account.

Given their efforts, and my obtaining a few days ago of an efficient little Twitter client for the G1 phone, I've decided to throw caution to the winds (a true risk taker, no?) and start officially displaying my Twitter address. And here it is in all of its creative glory:

@laurenweinstein

Ta dah. [Insert crickets chirping sounds here ... ]

Seriously, free free to latch onto ("follow") @laurenweinstein via Twitter if you wish, though I can't make any promises at this point as to exactly how I'll use it, how often I'll use it, or if the texts I send via Twitter will be worth the energy dissipated in the transmission process. It will be an experiment and learning process for me, and likely to take some time (as was the case with my blog) to home in on the most useful modus operandi.

One promise I will make though is that you will not be faced with reading the everyday minutiae of my life. I may note articles, interviews, blog entries, or other similar items of possible interest (including ones in which I'm involved), and noteworthy events or hopefully non-mundane insights might make the grade. If there are enough "followers" (somehow I find that term rather creepy) I may pose questions to the throng from time to time.

I'll just play it by ear -- we only really need to be close enough for jazz in this case anyway.

We shall see.

--Lauren--