First thing to say is watch your cell phone bill. If you start using twitter and you like it, you might as well upgrade your texting package. ‘Cause almost every twitterati I know has forked over some cash to the evil empire of cell phone companies.
So, first you say, what is a Twitterati? Not sure yet. Guy Kawasaki is using the term on his site Alltop that collects stories from the web and sorts into topics. In his site for twitter he pulls together some big names from the tech industry and he is calling them Twitterati. I guess it means the super-cool or elite class of twitter users….??
Of which there are tons of them. In fact, anyone can be a twitterati. It is so easy to gain 10,000 friends. The only real challenge comes in getting those same people to follow. There must be some sort of unique metrics play you can put onto the following:followers ratio.
However, a true twitterati has influence over folks. The recent SXSW twitter a–hole event shows just how that influence can spill over into social gatherings, shared experiences, and emotional outbursts. There are really only a few of those folks and their influence comes from everything they do, twitter just being one of their media outlets.
Still, that doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t twitterati. In our own worlds we are kings/queens and can have just the right amount of friends we want. Grow to follow everyone or just simply keep it close and personal.
Me…I’m completely addicted to twitter. I fall into the “grow to follow everyone” category. I am following 140+ twitter accounts. I use it to get my weather, world/science/tech/political news, talk to friends, plan events, complain/rant/rave, and a nice little companion during my twice daily dog walks. Better yet I am finding new ways to use the tool everyday. Just this morning I installed Brian Shaler’s Twixxer, which allows you to view photos and videos on the twitter site.
My addiction means that I had to upgrade to unlimited texting through ATT, a 15$/month charge. I also think I’ve broken the iPhone and ATT data transfers. I get so many updates now, about 100/hr, that my service is becoming spotty and the phone is going much slower and sometimes freezing. Worse, I even start to think in terms of 140 character thoughts.
Frankly, I think the only thing keeping my sanity in tact is my respect for other people. I always try to just plain ignore my phone when hanging with others. I’m not perfect by any means, but hey admitting you have a problem is the first step right?
“Hello, my name is Steve and I have a problem, I’m addicted to Twitter”
/twitterati crowd somberly echoes “Hello Steve”