I think it all started with "Ed TV". Most of us don't remember the movie directed by Ron Howard, starring Matthew McConaughey. It was a movie about reality TV. The main character, Ed, signed an agreement to have a television crew film him during every aspect of his life and millions of viewers watched him, live. After much disillusionment, the only way Ed could "opt out" of his contract was to threaten to reveal a "private" implant operation of one of the male producers. It left us all thinking that reality TV was immoral and an invasion of privacy.
But "Survivor" started a surge in television shows ranging from Bachelors picking Brides to Jessica Simpson picking out Egyptian sheets to Ozzie Ozborne cursing at his children. New shows seemed to pop up daily showing us what people were doing, all over the world.
Then came the portals that allowed us to tell everyone, who cared to listen, what we were doing. We could text message, email, instant message, go to a chat room, blog, post on MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn, etc. But as quickly as we were learning to overcome all our fears about posting photos, sharing news with our friends and family via the Internet, along came a simple "Twitter".
Twitter touts itself as a "service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" Signing up to Twitter is as easy as defining who you are and who you will "follow". Posting a "Tweet" and answer to the question "what are you doing" will send and automatic email and phone message to everyone following your stream. You can even set up your post to go to different places such as your FaceBook "wall". Suddenly, everyone knows what you are doing every second of the day, if you would like, and members of Congress are Tweeting" during Session. Wow, what an onslaught of information!
What's next for us? I don't know, but if you find out, Twitter me.
Marcia
http://twitter.com/new_bern
