Twitter is a micro-blogging site. That's a blog that requires you to post your thoughts in 140 characters or less. It can be a very useful site - I've used it to share lesson plan links with other teachers. The problem is that for many people it has become a contest to build as big a network as you can without investigating who you've added in any depth. Many people also link their Twitter accounts to Facebook, so when you post on one site, your status appears on the other.
What happened...
On May 24th, Izzy wrote the twitter message at the side. And then, four days later he posted,
"Well, it's confirmed. Someone stole my Mac Pro and two displays while I'm visiting relatives here in Kansas City."
A blogger at http://ptgtravel.blogspot.com/2009/06/twitter-robbery-of-arizona-man-could.html had the following advice and comments about the incident. The bolding is mine...
"We live in a very transparent world when it comes to internet personalities -- most of the "interwebz people" aren't hidden behind some odd name or false front anymore, particularly if they earn their living online. Which means that if you see Person X tweet that they're somewhere on vacation, and that person has a website where they make a living, you can probably find out where they live (or at the very least, check the WhoIs.net registration for the site) or at the very least get your Google/White Pages on.
Izzy actually has his full name, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and mobile phone number on his website. That's not particularly shocking, because it's his business site, but the thing is with a mobile number and a first and last name, you can track anyone in the world down to their home address pretty quickly. Which is what someone, obviously, decided to do.
Either that or one of Izzy's friends is a real jerk. The lesson? Well, it's not that "Twitter is evil" or the "Internet will kill us all" as many people will probably shout once they see his story all over the news (it's been picked up by ABC, NBC, CBS and then tweeted by IJustine, who's actually bigger than all of those, somehow).
The lesson is that you have to be careful when you broadcast something on the interwebz. Yes, it's that simple: just think before you tweet, folks."
Shayne Train, Education, Educational Technology, Computer Literacy, Web Tools