So while the rest of us were reading, or something, a controversy erupted about the online social networking site Facebook. Facebook issued a new set of terms and conditions to its users, which, when read by a layperson (and apparently some lawyers), gives the impression that when you sign up with Facebook, the company owns all of your content in perpetuity, including your mother's love letters to her Italian lover, you diary you kept for a year when you were sixteen, your liver, your kidneys, and, in certain circumstances, belly button and all lint therein. After enormous outcry, Facebook relented and switched back its terms, and so at least for now, your kidneys are safe.
Facebook is enormously popular - it provides a place for people to "poke" each other, which is useful, and do other things that sound dirty but really aren't. Celebrities and politicians use it to promote their work. And I imagine more than a few writers are considering hooking in themselves. I mean, why not? I could put up a Facebook page, hook it over to my blog and vice versa, and maybe cast a wider net. There are writerly versions, of course - Redroom.com is one example - but Facebook is the Great Everybody, where you can run into that old high school classmate who just happens to be the head of a publishing house, or failing that, you can find that fellow from college who made cool sounds with his armpit.
I have decided to take a smaller leap, and jumped onto Twitter. Twitter (which is sometimes described as Twitterific) is an example of what is called "Microblogging". It's a status tool, allowing a person to post short phrases that answer the question, "What are you doing?". Users who have a Twitter account (free) can "follow" other users, which is less odd than "poking" but also more creepy. If you are a user you can follow me - including automated updates when something new is posted on Northern Word. The potential of this tool is more obvious once you have found a few people to follow. You can follow famous people or people you know, or just pick random people to follow. This is old news to Twitter aficionados - but a large percentage of the population is completely unaware that this sort of thing is going on. We'll see where it all goes.
Below: people who do not Twitter.
Elephant Seal at Ano Nuevo, California.
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