Where's The Moon? (we wondered)

We all, it seems, yearn to join a topical and relevant conversation.

I had a great conversation with a friend just yesterday, pondering this. He described (fantasized) jumping into a massive discussion (ie, online) about how "Comcast is down" as he sat there at home, irritated and isolated. "How many people are out there, right now, like me...?"

Well, there's Twitter, of course. As unintuitive, and naively optimistic as this community is, we seem to be trying to do just this: engage in meaningful discourse.

How could anything considered "discource" or "meaningful" fit into 144-character snippets? And, how could "dialogue" ensue from (a massive universe of) displaced, unfamiliar individuals?

Tonight I had a memorable dose, and solid example of this hard-to-explain phenomenon unfolding. As I snuggled into our 3-cushion, 4-person, family unit of American Idol, I was called out into the street - to join the banter. My cell phone buzzed (unexpectedly) with a tweet from a friend in Oregon:

"No clouds beautiful view of eclipse" --Dougmatix

Eclipse?!

I commented to my 14 yr-old step-son, "there's an eclipse in Oregon - right NOW."

He ran outside, and returned: "Mom, what direction would the moon be?" (...)

A moment later, in came another tweet, but from Colorado: "...damn its dark outside. Who turned off the moon?"

I twittered: "Follow eclipse" to see what was going on.

In began the flood... And suddenly, the eclipse was more interesting than American Idol.

I eventually twittered - for Dougmatix, and anyone else monitoring the air waves: "Marvelling over accounts of the lunar eclipse in the NW. Thanks to Twitter, and all via Twitter."

Oh, and I eventually walked outside. (Gasp.) (No, I mean: the crescent was amazing.)

I understand now, how someone in the Carribean recently reflected on the experience of an earthquake, and the initial reflex - to tweet." When I came across this last month, I didn't really get it.

Let's consider this "microblogging." What is this Twitter I speak of?

Here's twittervision. Nuff said.

Here's a British newspaper, pondering Twitter changing news habits.

Here's an educator, pondering Twitter in education.

From a technical perspective, duh...

> The ability to systematically scrape people's experiences with tidbit summaries for syndication can only be accelerating.

> The ability to systematically deliver said syndications to folks on a couch (like moi) can only be accelerating.

But from a psychological perspective...

> Is it really of value to "tune in" to banter like this?

Tonight I feel connected to both a high school buddy from 20 years ago (in Oregon) and a few dozen people who's observations seemed to line a physical path as the moon's shadow travelled -- between my door (in Denver) and his (in Oregon). Come on: that's awesome!

Bravo, Twitter.