The original idea of the drop-in sessions was that people would show up with wireless laptops for one-on-one sessions. Mostly, I had hoped to help true newbies in the Providence & Beyond network get a little guidance and hand-on experience with the web 2 tools.

As it turned out, only one of the five dropper-inners was from P&B. Plus, we only had 2 computers to share. So instead, I gave a mini-version of my web 2.0 spiel and then we talked together about a wide range of web 2 opportunities.

As is more and more common these days, there were a lot of questions about Twitter. It's sometimes hard to explain why Twitter is so important among the web 2 crowd. As Jeff asked, "Where's the depth?" 

It's hard to get much depth in 140 characters - the limit for a Twitter message. Rather, Twitter is about breadth and speed. My Twitter network has people all around the world. I see many "good morning" messages from Asia and Austraila as I'm getting ready for bed. It's a 24-hour source of first hand news and comment.

I admit that most of the news is along the lines of "this milk's gone bad".  But when something important happens, it generally gets out on Twitter before it reaches the news wires. 

This is not to say that Twitter has no depth. Or, more accurately, Twitter is backed up by all the depth you could want. Many Twitter messages include a link to something on the Internet like a blog post, a video, etc. Thus, Twitter acts as gateway where larger content documents are given in abstracts of 140 characters or less. 

Our next drop-in session will be next Wednesday, December 17th from 4 - 6 pm. RSVP if you can, or just drop in. As always, bring a laptop - wireless preferred. 

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