Thing #5 - Microblogging

I have been using Twitter to try to keep up with happenings in the Texas Legislature and the US Congress. Across the year, this usage has changed. The current trend seems to lead to a Tweet being sent out on a hot issue that links to their web page. IF they are still tweeting at all. (John Culberson seems to have a pretty good system going on this.) Many of their Twitter accounts just have a link to their home page on their Twitter page.
I happened to be listening to Glenn Beck the day that he decided he needed to Tweet. He was pressured into it because other people kept signing up for Twitter accounts saying they were him, but they weren't. So Twitter agreed to delete those accounts and now he has his real account. Since he loves to ramble, the Twitter format suits his personality. His Tweets are meant to be more humorous than informative (Michael Jackson is still dead.) I'll be curious to see how long he keeps it up. I think he started around Memorial Day.
I checked out some other "personalities" and there are many that have established accounts in self-defense. They just link to their real website to avoid having other people masquerade as them. I mention this because it does set off some warning bells to me that elementary students could easily be commnicating with people that are not who they say they are. I don't really see any way of a teacher monitoring these short messages that can be exchanged so rapidly. (BTW- Twitter has yet to figure out how to make money. They are in the hole big time. Maybe that is an indicator of how long they will actually survive.)
I admire the Facebook creators for a novel idea that has been implemented successfully. The Group facebook pages can certainly provide information and interaction. The last account I asked to Friend was Rachel Ray's.
Of your suggested sites, the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented had the most current postings. Not a whole lot of interaction, though. (I signed up for "Houston's Deal of the Day" from their ads on site. Will see what that brings. I wanted to support Facebook who actually is making a profit.) I do think that their stongest usage is from young adults networking socially and foresee that continuing in the future.
The Today's Meet and Tiny Chat microblogs have a huge appeal to me. They have a specific goal in mind with a limited time span set to implement. I read somewhere yesterday, (maybe in Wall Street Journal?), that something like 75% of the web pages that exist really aren't in use at all. Great ideas are started, but no follow through. Topics expire. Etc. These two sites would help students focus on a specific task or assignment.
I now have over twenty accounts created in all kinds of places for all kinds of chat. While watching "He's Just Not That Into You" this weekend. Drew Barrymore's character said, “I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.” She closed by stating that she longs for the days when she just had to answer one phone and check for messages on one phone. Somehow, I really identified with this sentiment.