Twitter is as Tweeters do

So there's simply no hiding or denying the fact that I am a complete and total Twitter addict and I'm pushing almost 2400 updates in the almost year since I first created an account. Despite my incessent obsession and ramblings about Twitter still the biggest question is "What the heck is Twitter anyway?" It's a good question and a valid one. Today I came across perhaps the best most concise answer I've seen so far in David Pogue's column. Perhaps his ability to cut to the meat of it so concisely is why he's getting paid the big bucks at the New York Times and I'm blogging about it. Either way I recommend taking reading his article and watching the suitably comical video. In the end what Pogue declares is that whatever Twitter is to you is what Twitter is and frankly that's the philosophy I've always taken when approaching Twitter. Don't like how I use it? Fine you have absolutely zero obligation to follow me, really.

In other Twitter related news I also found this article in Time on Congress and Twitter to be very interesting. I do have to say I find the notion that some how Members of Congress should only be tweeting about official business a bit odd. Isn't this supposed to be a government of the people for the people? I don't think there's anything wrong with my representatives wanting to connect with me in a way that shows they're more than just bill writing, power lunch attending automatons. Claire Mccaskill (D-MO) is using twitter on both an official and personal level to good effect I think. One of her tweets sums it up nicely: "Just did interniew with CNN on tweeting. Talking about the personal nature of my tweets. Want to be real. And share work."

Lastly I wanted to highlight the Shorty Awards which I watched last night.  As I understand it the Shorty Awards were kind of like the Oscars for tweeting with recipients voted for by the Twitter community at large. I have to say the event, which I watched on a live stream, was a surreal moment that it struck me could only happen here in the 21st century. Rick Sanchez from CNN was the emcee for the evening, speeches had to be in the form of 140 character tweets, MC Hammer was also there along with Garyvee.  It was a bizarre, nerdy geek fest all at the same time.  Check out some of the winners if you are looking for people to follow.