According to Wikipedia:

Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging  service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”. It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 300 million users as of 2011, generating over 300 million tweets and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day. It has been described as “the SMS of the Internet.”

That’s a whole lot of people, a whole lot of tweeting, and a whole lot of social interaction.  When Twitter initially became popular, I unappologetically declared it the stupidest thing in the world.  I imagined senseless celebrities tweeting intellectual poison to millions of fans.  I imagined things such as this:

@KimKardashian: Spray on tanner in my mouth; how many calories is that? #WatchingMyFigure

Fortunately my militant anti-Twitter stand has relaxed, and I’ve realized that while there certainly are spoiled celebrities who tweet their #FirstWorldProblems, there are a great deal of Tweeters who use the service to connect for social and professional purposes.  I had been debating using the service for a while, and after some recent conversations with friends of mine who are working in marketing, I decided that I should get with the times and create my own twitter account.

I’ll be using it to post links to some of my blog posts, retweets from the people I follow, tips from training sessions, and the occasional joke or two.  Most importantly, I view it as another opportunity to connect with intelligent people with an inclination to leading an active, healthy lifestyle.  In some ways, it’s like an interactive RSS feed, with an ongoing commentary.  What about this gem recently posted by The Dark Lord:

That’s what I’m talking about!  Pure genius!  In all seriousness though, I’m excited to do some following, share some information, and learn from others.  Without further ado, here’s my user name so you can check out the good content that’s sure to be heading your way:

@Harold_Gibbons

In other news, I’ve created a Contact page that includes links to my e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts so that you can get in contact with me.  If you’d like to meet for a cup of coffee and a long walk on the beach, let me know.  If you want to deadlift, let me know.  However, if you want to jog, please don’t contact me, because you should know how much I dislike jogging.  We either run or walk, there’s no in-between.

I basically wrote this post to a) Tell you I made a Twitter account, which you should follow, b) Tell you I made a Contact page, in case you’d like to contact me, and c) Use that awesome Voldemort tweet that a friend showed me a few weeks ago.  Awesome.