Should you blog?  Should you tweet?  How should I know?

In a way, it’s like asking “Should I eat more grapes?” or “Should I learn ceili dancing?”  Whether these things make sense for you isn’t anything I can talk about.  Even the dancing depends: some people get into the set-versus-ceili cultural battles; some are interested in Ireland; some just like to dance.

I don’t exactly see a chasm when it comes to software tools, but I do see a bimodal distribution.  The most time you spend on Twitter, the more you seem to see people who seem to use it as one of their major channels.

Just as if you’re a relentless liveblogger or tweeter-from-conferences, you’re surprised that nontapping participants are occasionally irritated by your clickety-clacking.

This TechCrunch article says nearly 30% Twitter accounts have no followers, and 50% have fewer than 10.  Flipping the coin, 24% aren’t following anyone, and a further 43% follow fewer than 10.

I don’t see that as good or bad; as the article points out, some people are content to just read; others have simply abandoned their account.

Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere report for 2008 cited 133 million “blog records” noted by Technorati since 2002, with 7.4 million of them having a post within the previous 120 days.  (Lots of interesting data there.)

Some time back, having seen an estimate of around 6 million Twitter accounts, I noted that that was half the number of U.S. households with pet birds.  I wasn’t disdaining Twitter, just trying to balance the notion that everybody’s using it.

The same with blogs.  I find mine useful, though the number of posts per week has fallen off lately.  My mantra is that this is for myself; if I don’t have anything to say, or any time to post, then I don’t worry too much about it.

On the other hand, like exercise and financial planning, it’s not something that happens without deliberate attention.

And that’s the connection of all of this with learning.  Can you use tools like Twitter and blogging to explore new areas?  Stay aware of your own questions and your own progress?  Engage with others interested in the same topics?  Sure.

Whether you will or not, I can’t say.

CC-licensed parakeet photo by striatic.