What are you doing? asks Twitter. “What\u2019s on your mind?” prods Facebook. The way we receive information is changing at unprecedented speed. According to the excellent “Shift Happens” demographics video, it took radio 38 years to reach a level of 50 million listeners and television 13 years to garner the same number of viewers. The Internet gained 50 million subscribers in just 4 years. The Facebook social utility did the same in half the time. And I venture to write that it took Twitter, founded in 2007, just months. Hard to believe it\u2019s been only 10 years since the first blog was published, creating a revolutionary wave of social networks (Podcast, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace and LinkedIn, to name just a few). This second-generation Internet technology affects the way we connect with one another and how we gather information, and it represents a new way of doing business. With more than 74 million members, Facebook\u2013the largest of the networks\u2013recently changed its prompt from “What are you doing right now?” to “What\u2019s on your mind?” The new question instantly changed the dialogue from action-based to more philosophical, thought-based responses. Seeking a way to better connect with my neighbors, I established a Facebook account and invited Downtowners to join. It\u2019s amazing to realize how interconnected we are to one another. Then, I discovered Twitter. Just as e-mail made the art of manual letter writing obsolete, Twitter is supplanting long typed messages to friends and colleagues. With a tweet of 140 characters, one can create a clever, often witty, sound bite of information. A tweet can update a position in time and space to bring about a serendipitous connection, make the writer more human by offering a snapshot of life or just make someone smile. Have you ever walked around a corner in a city other than San Diego and bumped into your college roommate? Or called a friend and discovered she was just that moment thinking of you? Or ever relayed an anecdote to find out the center of the story was your listener\u2019s sister? I muse\u2026 What do you get when you cross 6 degrees of separation \u2014 the theory that persons A and B are genealogically separated by 5 people at most, assuming persons A and B aren\u2019t acquainted with each other \u2014 with the butterfly effect? I asked Downtowner Twitterers why they tweet. “I tweet because it keeps me in touch with my friends and business! Very simple. It\u2019s a great tool, catching the eye of everyone!” \u2014 Manny Cepeda, Bella Via “Twitter is like blogging for the lazy. I was skeptical as to how useful it would be but quickly realized it’s quite addictive!” \u2014 Brian Graham, Nexus “I like using Twitter because it\u2019s easy and provides a streamlined message. I put a message up, my friends receive it. Everyone should join!” \u2014 Kara Galasso-Garcia, Villa Maria Try it! Send me a tweet at \u00adtwitter.com\/SandraLSimmons. Want to be connected to your neighbors? Send me an e-mail to join Viva-city\u2019s Facebook at \u00adSandra@viva-city.info. Viva-city, fostering a vibrant, welcoming community, where residents greet neighbors as friends! Visit www.viva-city.info.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What are you doing? asks Twitter. “What\u2019s on your mind?” prods Facebook. The way we receive information is changing at unprecedented speed. According to the excellent “Shift Happens” demographics video, it took radio 38 years to reach a level of 50 million listeners and television 13 years to garner the same number of viewers. The […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11556","_seopress_titles_title":"After only two years, Twitter is oh-so 2009","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11556,11547,11593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-downtown-news","category-features","category-no-images"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}