To twit or not to twit

Last week, I received an invitation to start a Plurk account. I already got a Plurk invitation months ago from the another friend, the same one who introduced me to Twitter.

So I already have a Twitter for my real life. And I'm still trying to decide if I want to start a Twitter for Opal. You see, microblogging is like writing a status report for your boss in your real life work. The more time you spend reporting, the less time you actually *do* work.

Opal has a Facebook account but not much activity there either, because, well, it seems odd. Facebook is a social network, Second Life is a social network, and Opal is a persona inside Second Life. So, Opal's Facebook becomes the social network for a character in another social network. Social networking on top of social networking.

I once received a friendship request from someone who's not even in Second Life. He was intrigued by the avatar picture. But I refused to accept the friendship offer unless he came into SL and met me avatar-to-avatar. LOL. Unfortunately, his machine cannot handle SL, which is too bad because he sounded like a very interesting man. But the problem is that social interaction on the web now seems pale in comparison to social interaction in SL. Even if I accepted his friendship, I rarely go into Facebook, so I wouldn't be interacting with him much anyway.

Besides, I *hate* Facebook's design. There's too much junk! What's with all these quizzes that don't mean anything and gifts that you can't use? The interface is so cluttered and the navigation is so convoluted that you can't find the link to what you actually need.

Anyway, back to Twitter and Plurk.... I have, in fact, already explored Plurk. Alt #9 has (unused) accounts in both. And Plurk's "karma" reminds me of chain emails.... "If you don't invite ten of your friends to join in the next ten minutes, you will die...." I'm exaggerating, of course, but you know what I mean.

However, there *is* value in Twittering. It saves me time by broadcasting to friends and family that I'm still alive and well. And it saves *them* time from sifting through my blog, especially since you can receive twits to your cellphone. I won't be sending twits from my cellphone for Opal's account though, because you can only associate one Twitter account with each cellphone number. But I could use it for short bursts of wisdom (or smart ass-ness). On the other hand, I can do those short bursts here in this blog too.

Hmmmmm.... Let me think some more about it.