I got an email from my pal Ken the other day, to wit:
"If you really want to bring CRW into the 21st century, start a Twitter following for rides."
with a link to a site that was talking about sports organization tweeting.
My first reaction was, nah, I'd rather leave CRW in the Dark Ages. After all, we're all riding around on bicycles when the rest of the universe has discovered the internal combustion engine. Twitter would really be a culture shock.
I have to admit to being a rare mix of troglodyte and techno-geek. I mean, I do computer programming for a living, and am exposed to all the latest whiz-bang technology. But being ancient enough to have gone through a dozen programming languages, my initial reaction to much new stuff is "deja vu all over again." So, my take on Twitter was that I really didn't need minute by minute updates on the activities of my 4000 closest friends. Since I'm generally an anti-social curmudgeon, the concept of social networking doesn't have a lot of appeal.
But the web page had all sorts of reasons why your members would want to be tweeting each other. Like "Provide up-to-the-minute injury updates." Yes, that sounds useful. I can see it now "10:00 AM, Jack's collarbone is still broken and likely to remain that way for a while" or at least until the next twit.
Maybe I could tweet all the club members next time I got lost on a ride "I'm standing next to a big yellow mailbox in a town that could be Acton or maybe Dracut and ..."
Since they were mostly talking about organizations like football teams there was a lot of talk about fans. I'm not sure any of our CRW personalities have a healthy fan base, but you never know. The infamous clavicle club might want up to the minute news when it gets a new member.
For instance, my buddy Eli showed me a new app for his phone where he would send out his location information to his fans, who presumably were sitting on the edge of their chairs tracking his progress on their computer, or perhaps their own phone. Not only did it tell you where he was, it gave you a trail of where he'd been, kind of like a snail. Of course, this could be really useful in keeping track of errant riders, but the ones most likely to stray are neanderthals like me who would not be equipped with tracking devices.
To be a successful tweeter you have to be connected. Not in the Tony Soprano mafia sense, but you have to always have internet access, i.e., a smart phone. I have to admit when I first saw one of these, I was instantly in love. The only problem with having a smart phone is the phone part. I will answer the telephone only under duress, and since caller id was included in our new internet phone package, you have to be one of the anointed ones to scale the bastions of Fort Donohue. Why would I want a device that will allow the great unwashed another avenue to annoy me? Because it is so extremely cool. But paying a monthly fee for a phone I would never use as a phone seemed wrong.
Susan finally bought one, so I inherited her dumb phone. This had a cheapo pay as you go plan so I only pay for what I use. Seemed like a good thing to have, since now that Susan is "connected" I could pester her whenever I was out on a ride and "in difficulty" as Phil Liggett used to say. This can range from an actual emergency (though I must admit when I did break my collarbone, the call for help was made on a land line), to being lost, to mechanicals (like when my freewheel started freewheeling in both directions). Of course, this is a slippery slope. I could start calling her every time I encountered a nasty headwind or a few drops of rain.
No worries there, since it appears my dumb phone does not actually work most of the time. The cheapo plan seems to come with cheapo service. So, when I tried to make a test call from my new cell phone to Susan's in the house, it didn't work. We knew this, which is one of the reasons why Susan wanted another phone in the first place. No matter, I wouldn't be calling for help from home anyway. Second attempt, I took my phone to work, and called her from there. Big modern building high on the plains of Littleton, should certainly be able to get a signal there. Wrong. Being an engineer, I postulated that if I weren't able to get a signal at home, and I couldn't get one at work, chances of getting one in between were not good. Of course, I really should try it along the way, but it's winter and I don't like to stop anyway, so the final outcome may have to wait until Spring
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