To columnists, writing about Twitter is kind of like jury duty - we all have to do it once, just to get it over with.

I took up the topic in today's ink-and-paper Salt Lake Tribune, in a Culture Vulture column that detailed the mundane and profound aspects of the Twitterverse - where random navelgazing and nuggets of poetic brilliance can sit side by side.

Meanwhile, the Tribune's colleague Rebecca Walsh also wrote about Twitter, both the pitfalls and promise of the micro-blogging network.

One writer who won't be joining the Twitter world is Roger Ebert, who wrote an eloquent and way-too-long-for-Twitter treatise on the history of communication and where the current technology might take us. Between mentions of early hominids and recounted interviews with the late futurist Arthur C. Clarke, Ebert offers up this bit of wisdom:

I will never become a Twit. I apparently have dozens or hundreds of "friends" on FaceBook; the problem is, the account under my name is a fraud. But this is not the place to deplore Twitter or FaceBook. They are facts of life. I am told I should have accounts on both: They will promote my reviews, let people feel more involved in my life, and make it easy for me to contact them. After nearly 2 million comments on my blog and 9,943 messages in my current "sent mail" file, that's just what I need. More friends.

Unlike Ebert, I have become a Twit - you can find me at twitter.com/moviecricket.

Labels: internet, Twitter