So what’s a Twitter with you?

I joined “Twitter,” sometimes referred to as the Twitterati, specifically Twitterlulu, in November 2008. So far, I’ve managed to tweet more than 6,300 times with insightful messages of 140 characters or less in four months. My last four tweets are evident on the lower right side of this page. 

I was turned on to Twitter by my colleague @LaurieCicotello, who invited me to follow her and pointed out a few other folks at work who were on Twitter. All followed back. I was very active in HawaiiThreads for a long time and found out that several of them tweeted as well, so there I got some more followers. I follwed them back. A tweeter or tweep can look for other tweeters or tweeps and see who they are following, and choose to follow them. Hence, you can be followed by other tweeters without following them back, and you can look at the followers of people you either follow or choose not to, and follow someone on their list. It’s not as complicated as it might seem!

Sometimes profound, often funny, with my tweets I offer contemplative reflection on what my life is feeling like at the moment. Sometimes I’ll retweet “RT” another’s information because I think it’s important, valuable and worth sharing with my followers who might not be following the originator. For instance @ActorsandCrew sends job information to people who might want to be in the entertainment or media industries. I know people who are following me are looking for work, so I hope it helps. I know what that trip is about. It’s no fun to be unemployed.

I have figured out how to use Pikchur and Twitpic to send my photos to the Twitterstream, with Pikchur providing me the added capacity of uploading my photos simultaneously to my BrightKite and Facebook accounts. My first Internet involvement was with my September1999Mommies account, which has dispersed over these last 10 years, but has little by little joined back up on Facebook. Now my tweets are seen on Facebook where I’m also hooking up with people I grew up with and went to school with. Social media is astonishing. So much so that the activity bogs down Twitter and the darling “Fail Whale” image shows up. I like finding “Fail Whale” images IRL, such as this one:

Inevitably, those of us who are tweeters encounter geek tweeps. I do not know what gets geeks excited. They tweet about code, write out weird computer terms like Web 2.0 and discuss widgets and gadgets of their multiple websites as though they were their pets or children. I’ve met a few tweeter geeks and for the most part find them relatively harmless. Some are really cool and handsome, whole packages (Like DH). Some of them are frighteningly socially inept. And some of them are just awww shucks kinda guys who are a little uncomfortable hanging out with tweetchix like me. Not that I’m available, LOL. I like to get to know these guys and see which of my single tweetchix friends might go well with them. I’ve been told by more than one that they are happily single. I remember being happily single until my mid30s! If you want kids, that’s about the time to start cultivating IRL (InRealLife) relationships. Just sayin’!

Speaking of IRL, a few months ago there was a combo event hosted by Manoa Geeks at Straub Hospital in Honolulu (Twitterlulu) that included Twitter enthusiasts, “Tweets,” like me. All of a sudden a meeting of the code crunchers became the hottest social happening in town because it was attended by tweeters! We tweeps got to meet tweet geeks like @rsuenaga, @pineapplejuice, @hawaii, @bytemarks and @KGMB IRL! Tweeters such as @AngelaKeen, @Spldrtngrl, @Cai_Mommy and @Melody joined me as we met other wahine (women) IRL such as @NicLauren, @Tweetpea, @AlohaGadgetGirl, and @SophieLynette. Since then, the Twitterlulu numbers have swelled. My fellow tweeter @Melissa808, who is a free-lance writer and the blogmaiden of UrbanMixPlatehas brought many of us together for lunchtime tweetups that she uses for her restaurant reviews. We had a very successful @Twestival thanks to several organizers such as @HawaiiRealtor, @Vbrown and @Diverdown, whose band Sunset was one of four musical groups to perform at the fundraiser at Ocean 808 in Honolulu.

Edit: Will any of us in Twitterlulu ever get to meet @Babooze? Next time he’s in town, @zztype better let us know!!!

As @Lavagal on Twitter, at the moment I have 552 followers. Some I know IRL, many I don’t. I may never meet @TiffanyPR, a PR goddess in New York City, but I love getting her insightful, insider tweets. I love attending the Manoa Geeks events and other tweetups because they give me a chance to meet more of the people whom I’ve gone back and forth with — in 140 characters or less — over what’s for dinner, who is running for governor, why @LanceArmstrong should respond to the Twitterati like us normal tweeters once in a while and what @MrsKutcher is now reading. I belong to a WeightWatchers twitter group, WWTweets, to log in my weekly weigh in experience. My Tweetdeck has a column set up for Twitterlulu tweets. And I follow an amazing array of high-profile Internet, social and government stars just because they put something out there and I may or may not care.

Either way, Twitter has expanded my personal community, while bringing the world to me through my little EeePc. As a writer, I enjoy the challenge of sending out a profound message in 140 characters or less, laced with a bit of Aloha. It is amazing what comes back.