Twitter

So, I know I was skeptical about Twitter six weeks ago, but now I'm really excited about it.

Firstly, I had no idea that so many cool things were happening every night in this city. I follow some really interesting people, and they are always inviting everyone to these amazing events and screenings and lectures, and if you aren't there, they tweet the event and let you in on what you missed. Same for people who aren't in this city- I can find out what's happening at a design lecture, a steampunk convention, an open-source seminar, and a political rally all at the same time, all in real time.

Secondly, it is staggering how fast things happen. Twitter knows about current events faster than Google does, and the moment something happens it spreads throughout the twitterverse, and everyone knows about it. It's funny, because I'll read something on Twitter, turn around and mention it to a coworker, and a couple minutes later it will have been retweeted to them- if it's good, or funny, or important, it makes it all the way through the community in record time. The community talks about things that are of tremendous local impact or interest that don't show up in the mainstream media, or show up hours or days later. I've always liked the speed of the transfer of information on the internet, but twitter is exponentially faster.

Finally, I appreciate being able to connect with people either actually (like all the Legion of Tech folks), or passively (like I follow Hodgman or WarrenEllis). I get insights into who they are, what they think, how they live- it's very cool.

So come find me on twitter (@rvillon), if you haven't already. I'll try to keep my updates funny or important or both.