It’s been a week since I began exploring online communities, such as twitter, flicker, WebShots, and Ustream.  I believe it is safe to say that I have found twitter more engaging than the others.  It’s hard to say how long it will remain so engaging, given the fact that the people I follow don’t know me. 

I don’t really know the people I follow on twitter either, but the list of who I follow is growing.  The first people I picked to follow were people who I’ve found interesting to listen to on podcasts.  From there, I’ve added people found on twitter who had interesting things to say in articles linked to twitter.

Leo Laporte brought up some interesting points about the changing nature of delivering news in Episode 138 of This Week in Tech (TWiT).  Twitter was suggested as an early signal source for news, but it was argued that it also narrowed the scope of news that a twitterer would see.

After a week of following tweets on twitter, I have been exposed to a ton of new news.  It’s been fascinating, but no single news source can keep a person informed.  It’s great to have such a variety of new sources to choose from, but I agree with comments made by several of the guests on TWiT Episode 138.  Serendipity is lost with such tight focusing of the news one comsumes, but there’s no law that says one can only consume news one way. 

Following twitter has introduced me to a wider variety of news sources than I had and I’ve learned things that I wouldn’t have otherwise.  I expect that I will continue with twitter for awhile, but it seems that it will be more for the news than for the community experience.