Good to finally find out your username. I kept looking for Jad and couldn't find you and @Radiolab is already taken but someone else.

As for you negative lot, do you feel equally strong about the telephone, email or IMing? Twitter is just another communication tool, don't feel compelled to use it if it's not for you.

Your hate is misplaced. Maybe you just hate that technology changes and you feel you must change, too? You shouldn't. Different strokes.

Meh(as Homer would say) - new study claims that their audience retention rate points to 60% of all users stop "twittering" within the first month.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE53S1A720090429

It would be more interesting if you used it for asking theoretical questions or feeding us with small bit of brain food every so often...rather than... Jad is standing in the elevator or Jad is looking at ants- again!

The same things will happen to twitter that happens to most of these online communities. It will be infiltrated by businesses and destroyed. That hasn't happened yet?

Yes, I meant the former. But I don't mean that all news is gossip. I mean that news tends to be used as gossip. Why do we need to be so up to date all the time? People devour the days news and scoff at three day old newspapers as thought they were valueless trash!

I tend to think that Thoreau liked to exaggerate for effect (Walden is, after all, basically journalistic). His point seems to be that if we read in order to find out what's happening, we are engaging in gossip. Rather, we ought to read texts that transcend the manifold occasions for which they were written.

Worth a shot. If it is as bad as some of you say, Radiolab can always quit(ter) it, right? I am actually somewhat high-tech, but twitter-ignorant, so my questions are real:

JERRY, How does joing twitter change the show from cool to lamo? Jad & Rob, does this change the show?

RYAN, It seems you have experience with twitter that makes your funny comment actually more about twitter than its impact on the show. Please say more.

RYAN (same Ryan?), How does your questioning of the productivity of making a second blog (albeit limited to 150 characters) relate to your opinion about the productivity of first blog, and about the productivity of blogs in general?

ANONYMOUS, Does your identification with Thoreau's opinion about daily papers mean that you think twitter is bad, or gossipy, like a daily, or that you think Thoreau's opinion is now old-hat, and therefore twitter ought to be given a chance to take its place among other forms of communication? I am actually not sure from what you wrote, but I think you meant the former, right?

E, You are kinda funny. Is Radiolab twittering really a bad thing, or are you over-shooting for the humor? Do Rob and Jad read the blogs? If not, will they read the twittering? This seems like it might be useful for them in a real way.

I look forward to finding out more about the twittering. I Like the idea of the challenge of economy of text, which as you can see here (and in the blog about the "In Silence" podcast) is not my concern.

A couple cartoonists have already summed up my feelings about twitter, so I'll leave it to to them:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20090302 (a week-long tirade by Gary Trudeau)
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/ (PG-13)

You guys are now on twitter :*(
So sad, I really am about to cry. Seriously. No, really.
I can accept that it was bound to happen that being out there you'd feel compelled to start twittering. It really did in some way seem inevitable but part of me mourns that this happened, lending your good name to this "thing". You have a web page, you have a blog where we can comment, you are responsive with your email was this really necessary? I guess it was. Good luck with it, do your best as you always do. sniff... I just need a moment to collect myself.

My attitude towards Twitter is an echo of Thoreau's attitude toward the Daily Newspaper. He wrote in Walden: "If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher, all news, as it is called is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip"

I think Twitter CAN be useful by making people concise when asking questions or making useful comments. It is used very well by NPR PlanetMoney to get questions from listeners for guests. The key was to not do this LIVE as a gimmick, but take questions ahead of time via Twitter and select the best. The space restriction forces people to think before rambling through a question. Most of use need that - just look how long my comment is!! My apologies!

I'm just not seeing how making a second blog with a 150 character limit is productive, for anyone...

Twitter is an amazing tool for business if you know how to use it. If you get really involved with it, you can create a very large REAL community around your brand and very easily maintain them. Congrats to RadioLab for joining, don't let these haters deter you have made a smart decision that is long overdue.

You guys may see it as stupid and banal for a personal level, but don't slam Jad and Robert for wanting to stay more quickly in tune w/ their listeners.

I don't happen to be a twit. It doesn't seem to be of any value. Yet, there is more reason for Radio Lab to tweet than the average Joe. They might find it aids in broadening the programs audience. Although I might find the twitterverse nonsense, to each his own.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I so wish this fad hadn't caught on... but clearly no one asked me.

Yeah @jerry, lighten up, huh? Jad and Robert, welcome to the twitterverse. Love the soundtrack.

@ jerry: why the twitter hate?

You joined twitter, thus making the coolest radio show on NPR just another lamo show.