After buying into the social media presentation on Twitter last week (see Ain’t That Tweet entry), I decided to get a Smart Phone for keeping up with the email and twitter stuff. My old cell phone was more than nine years, old, and my phone company was offering some hefty incentives, so I upgraded. The new monster is a bit intimidating, in a way my old cell phone (or even my beloved PC) could never imagine.
First of all, it vibrates. I only used my old phone for outgoing calls, so vibration was never a problem. In fact, I didn’t even know how to check my messages on the old phone; anyone who called me was out of luck, unless I could figure out how to answer before the durn thing went to voicemail. After hearing the ringtones, I decided I WANTED to use the vibrate option, but the first few times it vibrated, I was so surprised, I dropped it. Fortunately, the new phone is built to take it. The salesman said it was made out of something called “Gorilla Glass”. I don’t know if that is the real name for it, or if it was his nickname for it, but it seems to be pretty rugged. I named my smart phone Beastie.
So I installed the new software on the phone. It’s pretty cool; I can get my mail and see tweets just fine. I realized I had all these company tweets from publishers; they didn’t say anything worthwhile. I couldn’t seem to do anything administratively on Twitter from the Beastie, so I logged onto the PC and got myself squared away there. Perfect. I’m now following 4 real people (instead of 4 people and a bunch of professional media sites). I even sent my first tweet from my PC. Looks like it worked. Okay. But then, the Beastie instructions told me to set up my Instant Messaging stuff. I did what it told me, and it looks like I’ve accidently tweeted myself. I don’t know how I did that. And now my IM app keeps buzzing me every time I get a new IM. And I don’t know any of the people I’m getting messages from! And they all want to know where the party is! What party? Who are these people? I can’t delete them, I don’t know how! So I’ve turned off Beastie for now. Maybe I’ll turn it back on after the party. Whenever that is.