Let me tell you about my own little love-hate thing with the micro-media medium. I currently have three profiles that I tweet under: @suzy_vitello; @princess_sisi; @BPC360. Under my namesake profile I'm pretty much myself: quirky, curious, sometimes crotchety. My tweets range from attempts at concise poetry to "alerts" to RTs (that's, retweets) of other "tweeps." Sometimes (okay, mostly) I'm just talking to myself. Which is what writers do a lot, I think--audibly and embarrassedly.
Occasionally, like when I post some "profound" rumination in this very blog, I link to it from Twitter (and Facebook, for that matter), thus inviting, in a tagline way, others to read my lengthier diatribe on this or that. This is mostly the reason for @princess_sisi. With the Princess, I'm trying to build a readership to The Empress Chronicles--though, in truth, I haven't been trying REALLY hard, since I haven't nailed the voice/mission 100% yet. But once I have, I'm certain to be as obnoxious as can be about "driving traffic" to the site.
And speaking of traffic-driving maneuvers, that brings me to my business profile, @BPC360, which I share with Laura McCulloch, my business partner at BridgePoint Creative. The purpose of Twitter for BPC is to get in on the conversation and love-fest with other communications companies, clients, artists, um, okay, I'm gonna say it: thoughtleaders in the industry. It's an echo chamber like no other. But occasionally, you find yourself cozied up to the watercooler with the latest industry gossip--which is, I think, the reason for Twitter's success. If you want to be the first on the block (along with other Twitter addicts) to know the details of the latest Google merger or smart phone technology, you can't beat the medium. Yeah, it's a love-hate, for sure.
Of course, beyond me and my reasons for tweeting, you can't discuss the viability of the thing without getting into the phenomenon of @shitmydadsays, right? As one of the early followers of Jason's "dad," I witnessed firsthand the "if you build it they will come" Zeitgeist that can happen under perfect storm conditions.
I am curious though, how other artists use the medium, beyond the obvious and already stated. Anyone have some input?
I've steered completely clear of twitter, but I found your post interesting as I recently was ruminating about the blog post as literary form. It makes me wonder if the issue of online formats as genres is surfacing in a wider way in the collective brain of the online writing community.
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