Thoughtful, kindred spirits...

I continue to be amazed by Twitter. It's become as revelatory as an autumn stroll through the woods, every footfall scattering leaves and disturbing the earth, resulting in new-found sights and uncovered treasures.

I'm most astounded at the way Twitter leads me to new resources, new focal points, new loci of inspiration. In these past few days, I've found @melmcbride and @ehrenc. They feed Twitter in the manner most useful for me - occasional remarks or updates which are then elaborated upon in their blogs.

@melmcbride's blog "melanie mcbride online" gets to the good stuff quickly. She hooked me with her post "[steal] My Social Media Policy". I'm not sure that I agree with all of her points here, but she's forthright in stating that this is *her* policy, and may not be everyone's cuppa. I think it's a perfect starting place for anyone new to social media to avoid that helpless "too much information" feeling.

@ehrenc makes a similar case for a personal approach to social media with the post "The Meaning of Life On Twitter". The voice is lighter and a bit more personal, but the essence of the "Meaning of Life" rings true. The blog One Little Cog ranges far and wide - the latest post dealing with sociological considerations in subway car seating choices.

Melanie McBride and Ehren Cheung - keep overturning those rocks and kicking through those leaves - and then posting the results. I appreciate the little nuggets of info and personal viewpoint that you spread.

Guten Tag

I've had a lot on my plate recently, but I wanted to get something posted, even if it's quick and dirty. Through @SamLawrence's Twitter posts (http://twitter.com/SamLawrence), I found TagCrowd (http://tagcrowd.com/), a tool for building tag clouds. It's intriguing, so I thought I'd see what could be gleaned from my previous postings here. This is the result:

access approaches blog classroom com comments consortium directly diversity either exploration faculty general houston http information interaction interest life linguistic metadiversity metanomics metaverses networking non-traditional participation professors programs projects reasons social socnet students support tech technologies term title tools toster traditional twitter used view web week work world www zebra

created at TagCrowd.com

I'm currently reading "Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality" by Edward Castronova.

I'm only about halfway through and I know that I'll need some time to digest it, but I'll try to have some thoughts up by the end of the month. For now, let me say that it confirms my sense that virtual worlds will become a large part of the online environment. Castronova seems to think that VWs will have a much greater impact on our real world societal organization. As with the web in 1994, so with VWs now...