I. Don't. Get it.

Here are a few things that I just... don't... get.

1. Twilight
 - It's not that I don't get Twilight, as a movie.  I just don't get the fanaticism with it, especially by anyone over age 19.  What's the deal?  I mean, you're showing up to your HOA meeting wearing a Team Jacob T-shit?  Really?  And for the record, I feel similarly about the Harry Potter series.

2. Netbooks
- So let me get this straight.  I want a laptop computer that's slightly smaller than a regular laptop, but not enough so that it fits in a purse or a pocket; it's got a weak processor, less memory and a smaller hard drive than even a low-end laptop for almost the same price; it does about everything that my smart phone does, except make phone calls; and this is a well-spent $400 why??  (here's more from someone who agrees with me - http://tinyurl.com/whynetbooks)

3. The Hills
- I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. What is this show?  Is this reality television?  "Blurring the lines" of reality TV is an understatement.  They're rich, attractive, privileged and we watch them skip around town doing a whole lot of nothing in sort-of-natural/sort-of-staged situations?  At some point TV production companies stopped needing a "hook" to get a show on the air.  Is Ryan Seacrest somehow to blame for this?

4. Daylight Savings Time
- You're a liar if you say this has never bugged you.  Not the time itself, but the changing back and forth every year.  What's the point?  Nobody ever seems to know the reason why we do this.  Supposedly, it has something to do with taking advantage of extra sunlight in the summer afternoons, so people don't have to get up earlier to take advantage of the extra sunlight in the mornings.  And although it was conceived before mainstream electricity, it (supposedly) helps conserve energy as well.  But is this all really true?  In the modern world we live in, are we really reaping any benefit from this anymore?  Even if you are in favor of the "extra" afternoon sunlight in the summer, then why do we need to change back in the winter?  Are you telling me you like when it gets dark at 4:30pm?  Why not just keep it all year round?  Why do we need to change back and forth every year?  The act of changing the clocks twice every year seems to create more problems than any perceived benefit.  Ridiculous.

5. Facebook Poking
- I've touched on this before.  Go poke someone on Facebook then come back and tell me what the point was.  Exactly.  There is no point.  Basically, you're saying, "hey, I want to contact you, but I have nothing to say.  So maybe, if you have something to say to me, you'll reply.  Or if you don't have anything to say to me either, then just poke me back.  Then we'll have established that we're still alive, we know each other, and we both have nothing to say to each other.  Then we'll move on.  Sounds good."  I used to do this all the time before Facebook was around.  I'd call my friends on the phone and say nothing when they answered, hoping they saw the caller i.d. and had something to say back to me.  The best was when it would go to voice mail because I could just leave a silent message.

6. Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button
- Do they have numbers supporting the continued existence of this stupid thing?  Do you ever go to Google in search of something, but rather than seeking out exactly what you're looking for, you think to yourself, "Hey, I've got some extra time here.  Let's play a game of chance and see if Google can correctly guess the exact page that I'm trying to find.  I mean, the web's not that big, is it?  I like my chances."

7. Tagging people in Facebook notes
- What does this mean, exactly?  You're not really in my note and I'm not talking about you.  But I just felt compelled to list your name next to my note for all to see and speculate about why you (and they) were tagged.  I'm going to go experiment with this now and tag a bunch of my friends, whom I will handpick for very secret and poignant reasons of course, and see if they can figure it out.  "Tag!"  There you go.

Is Twitter doomed?

Twitter, doomed, you say?  What gives?  I thought this was the next big thing?  Bigger than email, right?  I mean, I just tweeted from the delivery room that I named by new baby "Tweet."  Bad move??

Okay, well maybe "doomed" is too strong of a word.  Twitter is not going away and still is entrenching itself firmly into the lexicon of that group of people we so technically refer to as, "almost everybody."

But hear me out on this one.  There have been plenty of concerns over the past year about the proper direction for Twitter to move and what the next big step for Twitter should look like.  Mashable reported last month that Twitter's #'s have flatlined for several months, just as they should be picking up steam.  Why is it happening?  Is it just a glitch or a concerning trend?

Several bloggers and commenters in the Mashable community point to the size constraints and "stripped down" features of Twitter vs. Facebook.  I think that's part of the story.  But my take is more that Twitter is harder to explain to people and harder to get "everybody you know" to use it, as opposed to facebook.  With less to do and less "clutter" than facebook, you'd think that "less is more" would help Twitter.  But in fact, it's just the opposite.  You can only "sell" FB or Twitter so much to somebody until they just have to go on and do it themselves.  Once they do, Facebook is much more self-explanatory, whereas Twitter often elicits an "okay, now what am I supposed to do with this?" response.

Twitter is fantastic for broadcasting to an audience (i.e. celebrities) and for everyday people to get news and info from celebrities and/or media outlets.  HOWEVER, it is difficult for the average Joe to build an audience and thus, find good reason to Tweet regularly.  I know many people who created Twitter accounts and then abandoned them shortly thereafter because they "didn't get it" or simply "did not see the point."  But with Facebook, once you get a friend to join, they usually get sucked in and latch on easily.

Unless you have a business to market or an existing audience derived from another medium, it is very difficult to embrace Twitter (as an active tweeter, not follower).  In essence, Twitter is at risk of defaulting to "just another broadcasting medium," a "one-way street" if you will, as opposed to Facebook, which is a truer embodiment of the multi-directional "connect" aspects of a social media tool.