Taylor Hicks ~~ "View from my wine glass"

I stepped into Twitter like Taylor Hicks stepped onto Broadway—easing in just to get my feet wet.

Taylor says of Broadway, “Never in a million years did I think I’d be starring on Broadway. It is a way to get my feet wet in a small role.” He did all right on Broadway and beyond.

Never in a million years did I think I’d have Tweet Deck search columns spread across my computer screen looking at multiple accounts and, of course, following Taylor Hicks. I think I’m doing all right.

Taylor Hicks uses Twitter—the world uses Twitter.

Early Saturday morning as Chile reeled in a deadly earthquate, Taylor friend and fellow Idol, Elliott Yamin, tweeted from Chile that he was in the middle of the earthquake and that there was chaos in the streets.

Only a couple of hours later and a continent away, Taylor tweeted as he was returning home in Milwaukee in the wee hours:

“just got home from hanging with some really talented cool and nice people. i am blessed.”

After his evening performance in “Grease,” Taylor had said he would be hanging out with Rascal Flatts.

The connections we can make now are mind-boggling. Taylor tweets almost every day often with pictures included by Twitpic.

Dinner in Washington, DC last week brought a stunning view of the Capital:

“View from my wine glass. I am blessed.”

For fans who follow the artist, it is like going along and being involved in a small way in his daily life.

For someone who only has one active email address, Twitter was an uncertain step into the big world. I was still trying to organize emails and find things on my desktop. I was still learning to navigate websites, download from sendspace, and setup online banking. iTunes, YouTube , and weii games were rarely on my radar.

I made the big jump onto Broadway though, and found it really was easy to set up a twitter account. I just wanted to follow Taylor Hicks. That’s what you do. Find people you are interested in and “follow” them and you receive their tweets. They might even “follow” you back. No, Taylor didn’t follow me back.

As things sometimes do, my twitter took on wings and flew. There were apps like Tweet Deck where I could watch tweets from different people or accounts. I could RT (retweet) tweets if I liked them so that more people would read them. If I found a picture, I could send it with Twitpic. For an important article or review, I could include the url link. Twitter would even squash the url so that it didn’t take up too much of the precious 140 characters of each tweet. Yes, you have to be succinct. Okay.

I could bring attention to things I wanted to. There was a certain power in the connection, not that people were waiting for my tweets, but it did seem like a “voice” that reached further than I had ever imagined.

I received surprises. When a picture of Taylor and friends in the White House appeared (because “Taylor Hicks” was in the photographer’s tweet) I started a search column for that photographer, got any other tweets he was sending, and found out about him. That picture was quickly circulated in Taylor world even though it started with a White House photographer. I kept my search column up and “followed” for a few hours. Late that evening, he tweeted a picture of the White House from outside with, “Good night from the White House.” It was rather surreal to see our nation’s house at that very moment. And rather cool.

I searched "Elliott Yamin" last tonight and found out that he was safe and on a bus making his way to Santiago, Chile, tweeting along the way. That was surreal too—how easy it was to find his latest words and go back and read his tweets during the harrowing experience.

Twitter is a place to learn, share, and connect. A new interview or picture of Taylor is quickly tweeted and RT and spreads out like ripples on a lake. It goes to one level of followers, then to their followers, and so on.

It’s easy to start, and it can be whatever you want to make it.

Taylor started very simply with, “Hello, is this thing on” in California. Where else? Now he’s tweeting in the moment with pictures as well as purpose. He was one of the first to appeal for help for Haiti.

Twitter can be a lot of things, just like our dang-fangled computers! You should check out how it can make your life brighter, broader and connected!

Life is all about connections. Twitter gives you the ultimate umbilical cord to the world.

You might start with a connection that I can highly recommend.

Follow TaylorRHicks on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/TaylorRHicks

After all, TaylorRHicks is on the Twitter Wall of Fame! Now, that’s another whole story!

My Tweet Deck is beeping…

From Milwaukee last week: "Elvis in snow storm."