The Wine Lover's Break Room--for Techies Only

Ever wonder where wine bloggers go when they aren't blogging? Many of them work for a living (!), but since they are creatures who live partially online, they often take their coffee breaks in a virtual break room on Twitter, the micro-blogging platform that lets you chat to friends in 140 characters or less. (image from animationrollercoaster)

Increasingly, however, Twitter has been a problem. You show up in the break room and you can't get on because the servers are overloaded, you can't check messages because the servers are overloaded, you can't snoop on old conversations because the servers are overloaded. You get the picture.

Frustrated with the slowdowns, stoppages, and inflexibility of Twitter, Catavino (with some help from Twisted Oak's El Jefe) started an exodus to another micro-blogging platform called Pownce. This service lets you upload videos, texts, pictures, and messages. Problem is, fewer people are on Pownce, and even though it works consistently, it's slower.

I was bored and fidgety yesterday, and found two tools for micro-bloggers that you may want to check out if you are into this world of techie procrastination. The first is Summize. This site pops up with a simple search window, and you can enter the username of any of your friends, or your own username, to take a look at past conversations and posts on Twitter. You can even create a feed in your reader for a particular search term like "@YOURUSERNAME" which will update your feed whenever someone replies to you on Twitter.

The second is HelloTxt. This is a micro-blogging platform that enables you to post an update once to multiple services (such as Twitter, Pownce, and Facebook, among many others). You can also monitor your friends' updates to Twitter and Facebook. They are working on Pownce but it isn't fully functional yet so you will still have to go over to Pownce and follow conversations and replies if you are active there.

If you spend inordinate amounts of your time online like we do, and feel like hanging out in the "break room" with a lot of wine bloggers, head over to twitter, Pownce, or wherever you like to hang out online and search for us. We're easy to find! Just search on our blog name, our blogging handle (like drdebs), or even an email. Send a friend request, and you'll be in for a wild ride (especially on Fridays when we all seem to go collectively and individually bonkers). Wine recommendations, recipe tips, baby updates, networking, ideas for collaboration, whining, weather updates--everything that happens in your break room at work happens in these virtual rooms, too. You can even complain about your real job, if you feel like it.