Tweet!

I have to confess, I’ve always wished that microblogging was based around frogs rather than birds:

Ribbit!

OK, so it doesn’t work as well. Believe me, I’ve tried saying “ribbit” enough in public. It just hasn’t caught on.

But I guess that’s thing about Twitter: it’s already caught on, and it is what it is (not what I want it to be). It’s a communication and research tool that, while intuitive, does have to be learned – and it has a learning curve.

But the cool thing – in some ways the boon and curse of the internet – is that learning about web-based tools requires active engagement. And rewards it. I love active learning, and since high school I’ve used the internet for a good amount of musical training.

Back then, I was participating in communities of guitarists and composers organized mostly around message boards and forums. These still exist, of course, and are very popular amongst specialists. For me, though, posting actively eventually took a back seat to playing, composing, and living. And college.

But now microblogging offers an integrated alternative. As a young entrepreneur in a creative field, I get excited when I see people getting self-motivated to pursue their interests. I don’t just mean their business interests, and I’m not only talking about the Smithian “self-interest” that supposedly drives capitalism. (Although life post-college graduation does make you take the survival instinct a little more seriously).

More to the point. I get really excited when I see people taking their interests seriously. Whether it’s music, sports, commerce, science fiction – I don’t really care! If you’re serious enough about it, you’ll want to participate in a community dedicated to it. Have you ever noticed how most musicians have a lot of musician friends? It’s not an accident.

Community really can breed creativity and ingenuity – provided everybody brings a substantial individual contribution.  But that’s not really an issue with interest-based internet communities, the kind that are strong on blogs and Twitter. The only way to be involved is to participate frequently, which in itself can be a starting point for learning.

Of course, you have to actually DO the learning. These internet communities can be great tools for beginners, but they do have a steep learning curve. And they don’t work if they are your only source of learning new things – you can’t learn how to play the piano just by Tweeting. But if you can play even a simple tune, you could probably search “beginner piano blog” to find something  useful. The hyperlink there is the result of about 3 seconds of Googling, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s not really that hard.

I’m saying all of this for two reasons, really:

1) I’ve been getting motivated about this and having a pretty good time, plus it has some useful application in business. But I don’t really view it as a “profitable” thing – it’s more like a way I can use the internet to do different types of research, and research is my starting point for creative thinking and generating new ideas. Sometimes research and analysis can lead to ideas that might generate profit. But the research is usually the most work-intensive part, and of course you don’t make anything (not just money, really anything) while you’re doing it. It’s more of a learning experience. So mostly I’m interested in maximizing the internet as a research tool.

2) I think I can communicate this project about using the internet as a learning tool in a way that others might find useful. Not other Twitter or blogging experts, necessarily, since I’m something of a beginner. No, my target is people who know how to use the internet, but don’t really maximize it. They are mostly in their twenties, have facebook accounts (who doesn’t), but wonder what everyone has been Tweeting about. They may or may not be disillusioned. And they might not think much about how business, professional, and special-interest communities connect in the blogosphere.

But the truth is that engaging the internet can give you a place to participate in active learning, with a remarkable degree of breadth and depth. It’s no wonder everyone is trying to establish a presence in the blogosphere – heavy hitters have a lot of influence within their special interest communities, and sometimes beyond.

Using the internet actively is a way to explore, engage, and participate in your interests. Sometimes it can give you a voice in larger communities. With tools like this available, what good reason is there not to use them?

-Rami

p.s. I’m going to make a more technical post (less soapboxing) about a cool way to integrate a Twitter logo into your Gmail signature. It’s been done before but this one is especially for users who are not tech-savvy (i.e. me) – those of use who see “WYSIWYG” and say “what on earth is this.” It’s pretty simple and takes only a few steps. I’ve been up late working and I’m out of steam, but it will be up before the weekend. And then the real research project, the film festival thing, gets going next week. Just figured I needed to promise some substantial content to excuse the frog up at the top there. Ribbit!