The New York Times has included the term e-mail bankruptcy in list of buzz-words for 2007:

e-mail bankruptcy n.

What you’re declaring when you choose to delete or ignore a very large number of e-mail messages after falling behind in reading and responding to them. This often includes sending a boilerplate message explaining that old messages will never receive a personal, specific response. Although the Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig is often credited with coining this term, at best he can be said to have popularized it. Its first use was in 2002, two years before Mr. Lessig publicly declared his own e-mail bankruptcy.

Personally, I've never had the need to declare e-mail bankruptcy. In spite of the dozens of legitimate email messages I receive daily, I've managed to successfully stay on top of the onslaught (granted, I'm no Leo Laporte). Besides, what's so hard about seeing the name of the sender and then promptly pressing the *delete* key?

Twitter, though is different. You can say that again! Twitter, though, is different.

In reality, Chris Craft's recent tweets were the straw that broke the camel's back - because I feel his pain and can empathize completely with his frustration. To recap:

With Twitter, it's more about conversation - or conversationS - nearly all of them quite public, varied, and ofttimes scattered. Much like @crafty184, I've found that as I follow more and more people, I'm more and more lost in the myriad of conversations. Hence:


That said:

• Please don't be offended if I don't add you to my list of Twitter friends. Don't worry, I'm still interested in hearing from you - if you're an educator, a friend, or an overall swell person - and will because...
  
• I'll be watching for direct @ddraper replies in Twitterific and using the Twitter web interface. Apparently and unfortunately, some of those replies sometimes fall through the cracks. Thus...
• I'll also be tracking all @ddraper replies via Sue's great tutorial - and yes, I realize that Tweet Scan is better than hashtags. Sheesh, can't I be the devil's advocate every once in a while. :)
• I think I'll stick loosely with the Hutterite philosophy regarding community size: 150's the magic number. Hey, if it's good enough for Gladwell, it's good enough for me.

Because let's face it. What good is a conversation if you're not able to follow it?

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