Pounding on the Keyboard: Twitter, Twitter, Good Buddy

By Cliff Feldwick

OK, raise your hand if you recognize "Breaker, breaker, one-niner ..." - and not from the song about a convoy that shows up on the oldies radio stations.
Yes, in the wonderful world of crazes, fads and ridiculous periods in history, the Citizens Band (CB) radio craze of the '70s ranks right up there toward the top of the list: Just think of the often highly-educated folks, sitting in comfortable apartments, talking on CB radios, trying their best to sound like southern truckers somewhere out on the lonely road.
What started as a pretty good idea - lower-powered radios that companies or people could use to communicate freely in a local area - became a fada that spawned its own language and culture. And six months later, it spawned a rash of amazingly cheap used CB radios in yard sales. The pure banality of what most people were saying finally overtook the uniqueness of the trend and the craze died a quick death.
So as you see from the headline, it's déjà vu all over again, this time with Twitter. Again, an interesting idea: short bursts of "what's up" that you share with friends or colleagues ... followed by the realization that, in the words of an old parody, "a walk through the ocean of most men's souls will scarcely get your feet wet."
There are some Twitter fans who are readying their torches and pitchforks, but probably not those who actually use it to convey interesting things. Some of them feed their "tweets" to their Facebook posts, combining the latest in all fads (oops, cultural phenomena) in one burst.

Meaning of the Word
Just pardon me if I can't help but think of the British meaning of the word "twit" when I hear it. For the correct inflection, think of a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus saying, "You bloody twit!" That's it.
What's just as interesting is how the business and nonprofit community is rushing into all of this. How many groups have held seminars on "social networking" during the last month? It seems like every one of them have. But besides seeming hip, has it really been very beneficial?
I have attended benefits and given to walk-a-thons that I heard about via e-mails from organizations and people I like, but I can't say I've signed onto anything based on Facebook posts, for instance. In fact, a recent Washington Post article highlighted the low results of such Facebook fundraising compared to e-mails to past donors. It's no wonder: Hidden as they are in the mass of sending virtual beers, throwing snowballs or taking quizzes on "what Star Wars character are you?" most of us ignore them easily.
Twitter, restricted as it is to posts of 140 characters, gives even less opportunity to say much of anything. Smart users end up posting web links in their tweets, but isn't that like sending a short e-mail?
I just don't get the appeal. And yes, I know that Twitter posted a huge gain when Oprah announced that she had tweeted, but remember that she has staff to take care of weeding out junk for her daily. Unless you have staff for that, why would you increase the amount of things to wade through and sort every day? Maybe you have more interesting friends than I do.

Sun Sets
And no, I'm not talking about the Baltimore Sun, although that institution is pretty well dying, too. I'm referring to the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by software giant Oracle for $7.4 billion (yes, billion) in cash.
What does it mean to most of us in the business community, besides that we should go out and create a software company (good Lord, they're paying out $7.4 billion for one)?
Probably not that much. One of Oracle's first moves will be to lay off "duplicate personnel," which probably translates to 10,000 people for this merger. It's just like all the banks gobbling each other up and leaving former employees lying by the side of the road as a result.
I noted while stopping on Snowden River Parkway at Route 175 that you can see Sun's name on an office building there, which made me wonder what impact this deal will have locally. Sun, which had been around for 27 years, made primarily high-powered hardware, and Oracle makes (almost exclusively) software. But there is enough overlap to cause the proverbial reduction-in-force. Bummer.

Grass Revisited
The first days of spring/instant summer have arrived, and with it/them, the incessant hum of grass cutting and people with gasoline-powered blowers is in full bloom.
I wonder where all that grass ends up. I'll bet that, somewhere south of here, there's an obese goat just munching on a tremendous pile blown there by men in tan uniforms. That's better than the probable alternative, which is down the storm drains.

Cliff Feldwick is president of Riverside Computer, and does network set-ups, PC troubleshooting and such techno-wienie things for small businesses. He can be reached at 410-880-0171 or at cliff@feldwick.com. No tweets available.