Sure seems like everybody's talking about Twitter all of a sudden, doesn't it?  From my point of view, it ramped up really fast over the last few weeks.  Karen Palacios-Jansen, my co-host at Inside The LPGA, mentioned during a recent show that she was on Twitter and was going to post updates on her Masters trip.  So I signed up for an account and started following Karen and a few other folks.  After a few gyrations (and a helpful hint or five from Ryan at Waggle Room), my blog posts were tweeting.  Then the news was full of Ashton Kutcher battling CNN for a million followers...

Why Twitter has gotten so popular is for sociologists - professional and otherwise - to discuss.  Since I'm an LPGA blogger, I'm going to look at it through that narrow lens.  In my opinion, any form of media which allows the Tour to make connections with its fans is a good one and Twitter certainly does that.  The LPGA has its own Twitter account and so do many tournaments (Kraft Nabisco and the LPGA Championship, for example).  Those accounts are like mine, tweeting updates which you could also find on their websites if you were stationary enough to be at home or in your office tied to a computer.

The prevailing attraction to Twitter so far seems to be the number of celebrities who use it.  From the afore-mentioned Kutcher to Shaquille O'Neal to Lance Armstrong to even Stewart Cink, people seem to want to know what these folks are doing when they aren't performing for us.  I'll avoid going too much into the obvious irony in that statement - the irony that is, by using Twitter the celebrities are still in some way "performing for us" via cellphone.  The need to know what they are doing - and know it Right Now - is somewhat lost on me.  Yeah, it's cool to get the occasional glimpse into the daily life of Morgan Pressel (by far the highest volume Tour Twitterer) but I don't find myself "following" the Twitter "board" like I follow the LPGA leaderboard Thursday thru Sunday.

But I feel certain that I'm in the minority.  For similar reasons to those that allow Entertainment Tonight and the E! network to thrive, the tweeting of Pressel, Nicole Hage, Anna Rawson and Natalie Gulbis has a great chance to increase exposure for the LPGA.  The everyday access through Twitter accentuates the already accessible nature of LPGA players, which is a huge advantage they have over their male counterparts and other sports stars in general.  The Tour's influx of young talent should naturally pick up on this new (and convenient) method of keeping their fans in touch.

I'm probably a day late and a dollar short on these observations (and way out of date with my colloquialisms) but wanted to put in my two cents...oh, never mind.  I'm sure a lot of you have more experience with Twitter or have thought more about its ramifications than I have.  Are there any negative aspects about Tour players using Twitter, like maybe encouraging stalkers?  Tell me what you think.