RVA Blogs, Twitter, Facebook Addiction

Up until just now, I was never a social networker. I didn't like MySpace. It seemed like a lot of loud kids in messy rooms playing loud music. Literally, the pages were cluttered; the wallpaper was ugly, and music blared when you visited a page. I had to sign up to look at someone's page, and consequently had a ghost account. People tried to be my MySpace friend, but I replied to no one because I didn't even know how to get onto my vacant page. It looked like that creep Tom, who is everyone's first friend, was my only friend.

Then, after attending a dozen public relations and marketing seminars about social networking, I decided to try Facebook. Oh my gosh, it's like back in 1993-97 when I went to bars seven nights a week and kept running into the same people. Now they're on Facebook! Going onto my page is like going to the bar and hearing snippets of conversation and updates and gossip from the same crowd. All that's missing is the smell of beer, the smoke-filled air, and the band.

RVA Blogs is another addiction. It's like all these people have left their diaries open on my table. It's amazing how many people write about food, and how popular those entries are in the rankings. Is Richmond's social, intellectual and arts culture food-based?

And now I'm trying Twitter. Like Facebook, I can get it on my iPod Touch when I'm sitting with my soup at Panera Bread. I'm not sure how you find people to follow on Twitter. So far I have mostly Tobacco Avenue, and that guy twitters something every few minutes. I have a crush on Alex Albrecht from Diggnation, even though at first I thought he was gay, and I found him on Twitter, but he doesn't twit much.

It's amazing how I live like a hermit, but still know about all kinds of stuff going on now. And it's amazing that the Times-Dispatch doesn't have a daily technology section yet that covers this stuff, plus the latest computers, electronics, web pages, video games, software, iPod apps, all the 21st century things that are engaging people now, even older people. The paper wants to appeal to a younger demographic, and yet this huge chunk of news and articles is only being superficially touched on once in awhile on the business page. This is a grave error in news judgment! If nothing else, Brick Reloaded should be doing much more of this coverage.