It is surprising to me how many times I have made an idea-related connection with another human being on Twitter, formed some sort of “friendship” with them online, and only much later have the chance to meet them in person.

I can think of a dozen or so people that I would consider friends which I first got to know this way… in some cases years passed between first knowing them and meeting them.

To me, this is interesting because conventional wisdom would say one of the following is true:

• Social media isolates people.
• Social media helps people connect with people they already know.
• Social media connects people with other weirdos that they never actually meet.

My experience is a lot of 2 and some 3. My experience of making new friends over Twitter before ever meeting them doesn’t fit into any of those three buckets. I find that exciting. (Yes, I realize that this only works for me...

In this day and age, the feedback loop for amateur & professional writers is incredibly tight. Anyone with a blog/twitter has realtime access to all sorts of external methods of validation through Google analytics, retweets, votes on HN, etc.

This feedback loop can drastically change the incentives for those doing the writing. Specifically, writing things that other people rapidly propagate is addicting.

I don’t use the term “addicting” lightly… I actually get an adrenaline rush.

During my blogging/tweeting practice I have been surprised by the huge variability in the amount of feedback/retweets that a post generates. The content that works best for me are droll posts that manage to be both edgy and the generally accepted correct opinion.

With this in mind, it’s much easier for me to see how anyone can build a following by taking strong, predictable positions on relatively safe...