Can you Twitter if you are paranoid?

I found  Twitter from someone's recommendation on ActiveRain. 

I am not sure whose.  I kind of remember it as Jeff Turner...

I never understood Twitter but I have been a member since March. I update it every few weeks whether I need to or not. That shows I am not using Twitter right.  I just noticed you can say if you are at home, at work... somehow that bothers me but then again I am paranoid.

Marc Davison of  1000watt Consulting spoke at our company (Real Living HER)  meeting yesterday.  Davison recommended Twitter. His explanation made Twitter a bit clearer than it had been.  

None of my friends Twitter.  Most of my friends don't blog, many don't check their email with any frequency, I don't see them Twittering soon. I don't know if any of my clients Twitter.

When I recently commented on Jeff Turner's March entry about Twitter asking if he was still twittering he responded yes and:

"I can see apps being built on it's API to allow more effective group communication."

Like real estate teams?  Real Estate companies? 

I got an email from Twitter Tuesday that someone is "following me."  The name kinda sorta sounds familiar. I assumed it was someone from ActiveRain but it is someone in Columbus.  I'll be checking to see if he is someone from my company... actually I think he may be a friend of a friend.  Do we follow friends of friends until our friends become members of Twitter so we can follow them?

I have Twitter on my Discover Columbus blogin the side bar.  I used to have Twitter on ActiveRain in the sidebar but I removed it.

After the Real Living HER marketing presentation where they (Marc Davison or Alex Wright Green our marketing guru... I am sure Alex has another title, a real title.... ) mentioned Twitter, Linked In, MySpace and ActiveRain (among other social media the good, the bad and the ugly) I am trying to get profiles in place on each.  I joined, I accept friends, I even have a couple of followers  but I am not active on much of any of it really, except ActiveRain. I don't remember anyone mentioning Facebook  (or MySpace) during the company meeting Tuesday but Alex from marketing "friended"  me yesterday... or asked me to be friends.   

I "poked" Patty Abass, a co-worker yesterday.  Poking is Facebook.  Facebooks on the front cover of Newsweek August 27, 2007 edition. Journalist Steven Levy has a big Facebook article including a sub article "Is it OK to Poke You?" about Facebook ettiquette.   Patty poked me, I'm just poking back.  But maybe I poked Patty first.  I don't remember....

Personally I like Facebook better than MySpace. I don't get Twitter and I admit I am paranoid about having followers. 

I got an email from someone via ActiveRain last week asking for info from MLS about homes on a particular street.  Not homes for sale.  History. I wrote back "Do I know you?"  I have not heard back from the anonymous person.  The email was not really asking if I would pull the info, it was instructing me to pull the info and how detailed the anonymous person wanted the information from two to three years ago.  I felt the email was written as an assignment rather than a request. More importantly the information requested is not public information, I felt like the request was an invasion of someone's privacy.  I just could not tell whose privacy. A homeowners? A buyers?  A sellers?  A listing agents?  A selling agents?  I could not tell why someone would anonymously request that information from astranger via the Internet.  A stranger who has nothing to do with any of the information requested.  

Real estate agents, what would you have done?

I have worked with buyers who found me from my blog.  You know nothing about them but they know you. 

Back to social media, Twitter, Facebook...  I worry about all this what if I get confused and Poke someone on Twitter and follow someone on Facebook? 

When people ask me about Twitter I am going to start saying  "I can see apps being built on it's API to allow more effective group communication."  hopefully that will stop them dead in their tracks. I don't know if I am comfortable with some of Web 2.0 but then again I am paranoid.