I haven’t blogged in a while (since my daughter was born) but today is just too funny: both Twitter and Facebook are down. All of a sudden I feel the Internet is slightly less helpful and fun. I needed to send a message to someone on Facebook (a message that actually mattered) and my cognitive queue of tweets is rapidly building. The only place left to turn to when I need to express myself online is my personal, self-hosted blog at KataDrew.com. Let’s just hope my host doesn’t go down, too.

Well, in lieu of social networking, may today be the day we pursue real live interpersonal relationships instead of social networking-driven relationships. My cellphone still works. I can still kiss my wife and the Bible’s just as thrilling as ever. I’ll just have to un-tick the “Notify Twitter about this post?” when I hit publish. Real people are still out there!

I’ve noticed several (naughty) classmates on Twitter in class. So, I know there’s people at Southeastern on Twitter. I want to find you and follow you and make a list of all of us. Leave a comment here identifying yourself. (No information collected will be used to incriminate twittering students!)

Here’s who I’ve found so far by various and sundry means:

• Daniel Moore @onwardprogress
• Tim Jones @TimmJones
• Doug Hull @KDH3
• Drew Maust (me) @admaust

What I like about Twitter is the short little SOS micro-blog entries you can send off. This morning for me it was “Driving to work like Ace Ventura because I don’t have an ice scraper.” Later this evening I said, “Sitting in my Jonathan Edwards class (taught by Andy Davis) while sipping Pai Mu Tan.” These surely aren’t ground-breaking statements about which I should or would blog, but they’re (kinda) interesting enough. The purpose of Twitter after all is just to shoot off a letter 140 character of less note saying what you’re doing at the moment. I usually limit tweets to things I think others may find interesting instead of just saying “I’m eating” or “I saw a dove.” No one cares and it does nothing for anyone whereas I like to think mentioning Edwards, Ace Ventura, or Pai Mu Tan may pique the interests of my followers.

Secondly, what I enjoy about Twitter is that I’ve got it tied to my Facebook account such that when I do a new tweet it becomes my status on Facebook. What’s great about this is that my Facebook friends can and more increasinly often comment on my status/tweet. It’s great, just a little feedback on what I’m up to and what others think. Social interaction.

What I don’t understand about Twitter, however, is the seemingly random people who follow me. I usually check ‘em out and most often find that they’re also following 3000+ others. What’s that all about? Is it a marketing ploy to get me to follow them so that I would receive their updates? Or, are they truly interested in me and my tweets? I lean towards affirming the former.

Dan Byrd told me about Twitter and thereby reminded me of Jesus. Follow me: http://twitter.com/admaust. Leave your Twitter username/URL here and I’ll think about following you. =)