Lifetime Moms

Between scheduling doctor's appointments, paying bills, and re-connecting with old flames on Facebook (ok, so it was Billy Murphy from the 4th grade- you minx, you!), it may feel like one more thing online is the last thing you need in your life.

But moms are turning to Twitter in ever-increasing numbers for a quick hit of connection, often with strangers who they may never meet in real life, but with whom they might share a common interest or merely a passing "tweet," or update, in 140 characters or fewer.

The original question the site sought to answer was "What are you doing right now?" As you can imagine, there are only so many people in the world that would care to hear the answer of a specific person at any given moment in time - but it also is a fun quick peek into the window of someone else's brain.

To use the site, go to www.twitter.com, and create a user profile. Some people use their real name, some prefer to create their own "handle" based on an interest. (Mine is @rockandrollmama - go figure!) Then, you can create your own updates from your computer or your mobile phone, and begin "following" people you're interested in. Don't freak out when people you don't know start following you back - or, as my mom did, call someone and say: "I've got a stalker!" No matter how I tried to convince her that that was the point of the site, it lost its lustre quickly for her. She does, however, still read my blog. (Hi, Mom!) 

But if the thought of strangers reading your thought oogles you out, consider "locking down" your tweets, or putting them on protected status - that way, you approve who can follow you. Whether you're private or open, you always have the option to block people you want nowhere near your thoughts.

Like any community, there are social mores to be followed on Twitter - if you're having a conversation with a specific person, you would type "@(thatperson's name)," and then they would be sure to see it and be able to respond to you. Or, if you'd prefer a private conversation in 140 characters or less, you can Direct Message or "DM" that person (as long as you're already mutually following each other).

If there's a specific topic being discussed, something called "hashtags" are employed - for example, say a space shuttle is launching in the morning - those tweeting about it could put #shuttlelaunch with their tweets, rendering it searchable by all others interested in that topic. The beauty of that is that these days, you may find one of the astronauts or one of the people working in the control tower offering a unique first-person viewpoint that would have been completely unattainable in the pre-Twitter, real-time information age era. Then, you would have had to rely on a news outlet to produce the information for you. These days, the news sources are often trolling Twitter for the next big story - for better or for worse. (Twitter is rife with stories of fake deaths, from Kanye West to Jeff Goldblum. But it was among the very first sources to confirm the demise of Michael Jackson.)

So jump in, go mobile, and join the real time revolution!

Or, you could always ... call someone. How very  2006.