My Twitter Resistance.. and why it may be at an end

Ever since attending the Boston KM Forum's event KM 2.0: Real of Hype? I've been thinking quite a bit about my resistance to certain new technologies, specifically Twitter. Most of the attendees whose background was more in modern, applied KM than old-school theoretical praised Twitter over and over. But it still wasn't enough to convince me.

First, I don't have a critical mass of friends on Twitter. I think I have one. Meanwhile, most of my friends and acquaintances are on Facebook, so I can use that (for now) as my passive "keeping in touch" mechanism.

Second, I'm not sure who I would opt to follow and I think it would be a not-so-small blow to my ego that there's no real reason for anyone to follow me professionally. Clearly, I am already intellectually aware of this information, but the tangible evidence is just not something I want to sign up for at this point.

But then I read this great post - Claim Your Brand Name Or Suffer (linked via KM Forum attendee Doug Cornelius' blog) - and it has given me plenty of motivation. After all, I've already ceded the top billion or so Google search results for my name to Middle East expert Amy Hawthorne. Why let her have my Twitter presence (*gasp* maybe she already does!)?

And I'm sure after about a week, I'll wonder why I ever thought Twitter wouldn't be useful. After all, I only jumped ship from Yahoo to GMail because I got in during the first few waves and secured my good name. Now, I have relegated Yahoo to my "spam account" and curse its clunkiness and non-Googleness every time I log in to clean it up.