Please don't invite me to your Tweetup:
I loves me some electronic communication. It's largely because I'm a misanthrope, and prefer my communications with other humans to be as impersonal as possible. I use a few minutes of my cell phone minutes a month, but close to a thousand text messages. If the day comes that artificial intelligence can produce conversations that are indistinguishable from actual human communication, then our species will have reached its zenith -- the perfect human is one with an "off" switch.
I've become a Twitter-er as well. I still don't really "get" Twitter, but I like it for some reason. Aside from the basic, and fundamentally selfish, idea on which Twitter is built, that anyone does, or should, care about the minute-to-minute activities of any particular person, there are some secondary usefullnesses of Twitter. It can be used for scheduling and notification of calendar items, or forwarding messages to other services. Occasionally, it's interesting to get quick live reports from an event someone is attending, or breaking news items, such as from CNN.
There is a new trend of organizing "Tweet-ups," which are real world meetings between people who know each other through Twitter. I can scarcely conceive of a less desireable thing. I don't even much like being around the people I like already. Getting together with people who are little more to me than text blips on a screen with the intention of fomenting more complex relationships makes as much sense as marrying a death row inmate.
If you're following me on Twitter, for the sake of Pete, please don't invite me to a Tweetup.
