Recently I discovered Twitter. It's been out for a while but I didn't really understand how it worked, nor did I make any effort to figure it out. It was probably about the time of the Tour of California that a few cycling websites I go to regularly were using Lance Armstrong's "tweets" (I felt stupid just typing that!) as a quick way to report on his stolen time trial bike. This caught my attention and so I decided to see what this twitter thing was all about.
I've been a member now for about a month I guess and am really blown away by how much information you get from twitter faster than you get from regular news outlets. I discovered most of my favorite cyclists have accounts and while not all of them update often, it's still interesting to get their 140 character snippet of how a race went or who they're training with. General bike geek info that the normal person would find totally uninteresting. For example, Dave Zabriskie's update the other day was, "rode through a town called Bonar." Christian Vande Velde followed up a few hours later with, "Yep, rode through Bonar. It wasn't hard!" Both of these updates, while not useful bits of information, help to remind you that these are just normal guys. Normal guys that find the same things funny that any dude would find funny. Oh, well they're normal guys that ride their bikes very fast!
Shout out to DZ for finishing 3rd overall at Castilla y Leon! Could DZ win the double of both the US Road and Time Trial championships this year? How awesome would that be?
Lance probably updates more than anyone and it's been really interesting following his surgery updates on twitter from him versus what you read on yahoo!sports or other non-cycling reports. Even if they report what he said from his twitter, by checking twitter, you get the info so much faster.
There are arguments out there that the revolution of online communities and social networking is actually tearing people further apart as nobody has to actually interact face to face anymore. I don't know about all that. Nor do I really care. If people want to only exist in cyber space, that's their thing, let them. At the same time, some people see all of these things as another form of media that are driving big time papers out of business. It's unfortunate for the people who have dedicated their lives to journalism, but, I think I learned in ECON 101 that this is basically called competition and so the papers need to figure out a way to compete or, well, you know the rest.
When I first started using twitter I wasn't convinced it was really Lance Armstrong writing those updates, if nothing else because there are so many. The time frame in which an update on his broken collarbone was up after the crash made me think he pulled his iPhone out of his jersey pocket and did it while laying in the ditch. But, after reading enough of them you realize they really are from him. What a great way for him to "communicate" directly to his fans and what a great way for fans to feel connected to someone they admire so much. Without that whole camp in his front yard and wait for him to come outside sort of creepy way that I guess is the alternative.
One of Lance's updates this morning contained this link about twitter, . It's a pretty interesting article about who's really writing updates and who isn't. I think I gotta start following Shaq too!
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