TO TWITTER OR NOT TO TWITTER? ME THINKS THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES ON.

Remember the children's story by Hans Christian Andersen, The Emperor's New Clothes?

In the story, the emperor, being quite the clothes horse, hears of a couple of tailors (really swindlers) who claim to have powers to weave special fabric that could only be seen by those of utmost intelligence and high position. To all others, the fabric would appear invisible.

The emperor thinks having clothing made from such fabric will allow him to tell those who are smart from those who are, well... not so smart. To those in the latter category, the emperor will appear naked and make their lowly state in life apparent when they comment on his "lack of clothing".

Word gets out about these fine garment being made from this magical material. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to everyone (except the swindlers posing as tailors) there really is no fabric, no magic. The "tailors" are taking the emperor's gold in payment and just pretending to weave magical fabric.

So of course, everyone, including the emperor himself, is playing along because they do not wish to be seen as not so smart. They ohh & ahh over its beauty -- they dare not admit that they in fact do not see a thing.

Okay, for those of you who've either never heard of Twitter, or know of it and maybe even tried it out for a spell but don't get it, Twitter is being touted by some as 'the next big thing' in cyberspace social circles. I'm wondering, though, if it isn't another case of "new clothes" that just ain't there.

Essentially, Twitter is a social site where you log into your account and basically tell all the good folks in cyberspace what you're doing at any given moment of the day or night -- and all in 140 characters or less.

So, you log in, and type what? "Cooking chili for dinner tonight & doing laundry." Sweet. How about "At the grocery store and just bought peas." Great! We'll alert the media!

See?

And the thing is, if you're already maintaining a blog, AND you're on Facebook AND maybe some other social networking site, AND you add Twitter to boot, my goodness, how do you even have TIME TO GO BUY THOSE PEAS AT THE STORE?

I love you guys, but really, do you care if I'm "mopping up some diet coke I just spilled..."? Really? C'mon. NOBODY truly needs to or wants to know this. How much information is simply too much information?

Blogging rocks. Facebook, I'm just getting into and does serve a purpose if you like to keep in touch with friends/relatives around the world and share pics, etc. Its even an okay biz networking site.

But after trying Twitter and getting my fill of mindless one-liners from people I don't even know, I quit. Yes, I was a Twitter-Quitter.

Twitter takes blogging to a whole new micro-level. A nano level. Which brings me to this funny YouTube video I stumbled across which you'll find at the end of this post...

And for those who really do get some benefit and use out of Twitter -- fabulous. I really did try and within the space of 1 day after registering, I had like 30 people following me -- all complete strangers who were only following me (and hundreds of others) in some round-about way to boost their own numbers.

(Yes, there is some weird thing on Twitter where you "follow" all the new registrants (moi) and like some kind of pyramid scheme, you should have gazillions of followers yourself in no time! Odd.)

Oh, and I made the BIG mistake of signing on to have everyone's one-liner updates forwarded to my Blackberry.

BIG MISTAKE!

I was at dinner one evening and I promise you, my phone did not stop alerting me ALL EVENING with "tweets" about nothing.

*No, whilst at dinner I did not post anything like "Waiting to be seated at Carrabba's; person next to me has on green Crocs." But trust me, that bears a strong similarity to Twitter posts I DID get all night long.

My poor husband finally said something like "Does your phone EVER stop vibrating????" That was when I decided to log into Twitter that night when we got home and proceed to reverse all the "Alert me via mobile" options I'd signed on for.

A couple of days later, I deleted my account entirely. But that's just me. :)

So....what thinkest thou? Am I missing the boat? Did I fall out of the Twitter nest too soon?

Honestly, I would truly love to know. Maybe I am missing something and if so, I'll give it another try. I just don't know of anything can say in 140 characters of less that will be life-changing or remotely stimulating.

What I want to say, I say here, so adding yet another site to keep up with is just not in my schedule right now.

Let me know your thoughts on this burgeoning cult-status phenomena. In the meantime, enjoy this cute spoof on Twitter. And no, there is no such thing as Flutter (as mentioned in the video). Yet. :)

{VIDEO NOTE: IF THE BLOG MUSIC IS ON AUTO-START, SIMPLY PRESS THE PAUSE BUTTON ON THE BLOG MUSIC PLAYER ON THE LEFTHAND TOOL BAR, THEN CLICK ON THE VIDEO BELOW TO WATCH.}