I have been blogging for two years and well over a thousand entries. I started Twittering as a means of expanding the number of readers and as an accessory to the blog. I use Twitter to share articles and sources with other readers and gain access to material others send. It has become and extension of my blog.

It seemed initially that you would follow someone who seemed to have an interest that would mesh with your estimated reader profile and then hope that they would reciprocate and then follow you. Then if you actually posted something worthwhile they would forward it around and then you would pick up even more followers.

Twitter is one of those things that if you try to figure it out beforehand you will never do it.

I loaded up a few quotes I collect on a Twitter timing device called Tweetlater. One of the quotes struck a small nerve and was retweeted by several readers (they copied my tweet and sent it the people on their list. The quote was from Edward Murrow, “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”)

A mother of soldiers in Israel liked the tweet especially in light of the recent Yom Hashoah holocaust memorial. I sent her a copy of one of my original blogs “The Three Most Important Points to Understand about the Holocaust”. It was also an article published in the local newspaper a few years ago.

She complimented the article forwarded it and another Jewish Blogger/ Twitterer in Jerusalem who forwarded it to a Jewish guy in Anchorage, Alaska who also forwarded it with his praises.
The point of this story is trying to understand how these new social networks changes things. The right wingers post their right wing stuff, and the left wing posts their left wing stuff, and somewhere in there are people who just think for themselves and share interesting perspectives and common interests.

But in the course of a few hours I was able to share a perspective with fellow yids and non yids from Anchorage to Jerusalem.

I am not sure what the total significance of this is but I realize it is amazing. The entire internet universe is a virtual magazine with thousands of people with similar interests editing and sending articles and blogs to people with similar interests. The consumers produce and forward content.

The walls between producers and consumers of content are gone.

A different post on the Zayela episode in Honduras is picked up by Twitterers there and pictures and opinions are relayed back as I now quickly connect with eye witnesses and opinion first hand. I now have Facebook postings from new ‘friends’ in Honduras as a result, though I now need to brush up on my spanish.

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