It’s still kinda odd to me the way the internet can make you feel like you have some kind of connection with someone you’ve never met, or even had a conversation with.

I follow the twitters (that feels so corny to actually write) of this woman named Veronica Belmont.

I heard of her because she is on this technology podcast that I used to listen to, but even though I stopped listening to the podcast, I kept following her blog. Now a blog is pretty personal, but I feel like following twitters is even more personal, because sending one is almost an impulsive act. It’s whatever is on your mind at that second, whereas a blog is more thought out and considered.

An example: the other day Veronica sent out a twitter out about some random funny thing her brother said. Not worth a full blog post, but great for twitter. It’s like what that person would say to you if you were standing next to them.

Reading what her and other people write and sometimes feeling like I probably know what they’re like makes me wonder if reading all of the publicly accessible information about someone could really give you a pretty good picture of what someone is like. Like I wonder if someone went and googled my name, and then went and looked at the posts here on this blog, comments I’ve put on other people’s Friendster, Myspace and Facebook pages(I know, the post-college social networking trifecta), the comments they’ve put on mine, my twitters, my bookmarks, my musical tastes, my photos (nothing there yet because I’m wary of putting pics of myself and my friends out into the interwebs – that may change once I get more comfortable with the idea) and, soon, my website (don’t even bother clicking yet, got some other projects I have to finish first), and my daily reading (also nothing yet, just discovered that feature), would that person get a good sense of what I’m like as a person?

Of course I doubt even all of that info would show the whole picture. Most people would probably agree that their whole personality couldn’t be captured just by looking at some of the stuff they put online, because there is so much more. Like if you looked at my interests I think you could almost confuse me with some young(-ish) white guy that lives in San Francisco. But even though you wouldn’t get the complete picture, you’d probably still get a heluva lot.

Just a thought.

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