It’s interesting that you mention that joining Facebook and Myspace helped you connect with your readers — after I read For the Love of Letters (last summer?), I just found your blog and continued reading, rather than joining one of those sites. I guess other people think differently and go to Myspace or Facebook first.

I agree with you 100% regarding those who tweet twenty times a day. I update my Facebook status when the mood strikes—in other words, when I have something to say. I’m not sure how it’ll go with Twitter since it’s the Facebook status without the rest of Facebook. If I only tweet when the mood strikes then whole days will go by with no postings from me. Perhaps I’ll aim for once a day.

Finally, I’m just like you in that I go right to the heart of the matter (the person’s Web site) when I want to know about them / follow them. But to each their own!

I’ve been on for a while with two accounts - one for personal use and one for my blog. Like any technology - you can make it what you want.

With my blog, I tend to tweet brief thoughts or links to articles that don’t really warrent a full blog post. While you may feel you’re jumping onto the bandwagon, the service is still new enough that you can play and create a new use out of it that works with your life. I’ve seen huge changes in the way people use Twitter since I joined a year ago, just like I’ve seen blogging change quite a bit since 2000.

(and btw, you can synch Facebook and Twitter)

The advantage you have is that people who’ve been around on Twitter for a while can give you advice about different uses without the lagtime of figuring it all out by yourself.

I’ve been slow to put up my website (it’s still in development), reluctant to blog and twitter because of the perception that it takes up so much time, time I could spend writing. I have a FB page under a different name, and I don’t see much benefit from it. BUT, I keep reading about the need for today’s writers to self-promote and the e-world is the new forum. Maybe just as important as potentially connecting with readers, is showing publishers that you’re willing to do that self-promotion.

I’ll crawl into the 21st Century eventually.

Social networking is always changing and I firmly believe we’ll sit around the campfire someday and hear our grands kids talk about “petal pickers” or whatever the new thing is and we’ll say, “Oh that’s just like twitter. Remember twitter . . .?”

As for the other networks: They can take up as much or as little time as you want them to. I’ll just say it’s easy to become an addict.