140 characters in search of an author

So I’m now officially on Twitter, @twitsplosion. Hunt me down, follow me, say hello.

I say ‘officially on Twitter’ because, well, I’ve been lurking there for a while, as well as using it for various other means.

I have my own method of dealing with new social media: I join it straight away, peer under the bonnet, poke at it with a stick, figure out what I think it does and why, calculate how much time it threatens to bleed from me, and then leave my account in a drawer somewhere to gather dust, until I’m persuaded to give it another prod. Come, join my group on Orkut, and list me on Friendster, why don’t you.

So why Tweet properly, and why now? Three reasons, really.

One: Because it’s developed into an interesting tool for short-form conversation among certain media-literate people. @ing people is like email without commitment, and it can garner responses from some who would never bother to reply to an email, if indeed you ever found their email address. I’ve got a few projects coming up which would be greatly enriched by big-brain participation, so here I am.

Two: Jeremy’s observation that most of his hits come from Twitter these days. It’s not quite true for me, but not too far off – and by not being there, the potential currency and circulation of this blog is reduced.

Three: Because it encourages me to follow Tweeters more actively. I’ve been watching many for a while, and it’s kind of fiddly if you aren’t using it yourself.

I intend to use it primarily for more informal work-related chatter and discussion. But it does bring me to a problem which broader content providers also need to consider: how important is it for me to archive tweets, and if so, how and where should I do it? Should a digest of tweets appear here on the blog? Should I also archive entire conversations I’m a part of? I use this blog as a place to put things that I find inspiring, thoughtful or useful. If I start to use Twitter the same way, as well as my existing Delicious feed, how does it all come together?

Another question: if your magazine’s output and reader interaction is spread across several media, is it your responsibility to find a way to bring it together as a holistic entity for future interpretation? Or is only the print edition intended for archiving, and Tweets, like live events or advertisements placed in other media, are mostly meaningless two weeks, two months, two decades hence? What about websites, iPad apps, other tech-dependent creations? Have we learned anything from the ironic fate of the Domesday project?

No real answers, just some things to think about as I continue to transmit across multiple platforms. Feel free to share your thoughts below, in 140 characters or more.