My Billings Gazette

I've written before about Twitter, on the old site. As yet, I'm still in my long-gestating making-your-acquaintance phase with the application. But I have begun to grasp the possibilities.

Others, it seems, have to, in ways good and bad.

I was scanning the sports wire just a few minutes ago, and two Twitter-related stories moved within minutes of each other.

The first:

ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is suing the social-networking site Twitter, claiming an unauthorized page that used his name to make light of drunken driving and two Cardinals pitchers who died damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress.

The second:

Lance Armstrong has announced the birth of his son on the social-networking site Twitter.

Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven straight years after overcoming testicular cancer, posted a tweet about 11:15 p.m. EDT Thursday welcoming Max Armstrong to the world. He said his son and girlfriend, Anna Hansen, were both fine and attached a picture of the newborn.

(In case you're wondering, Example No. 1 would be the bad way.)

A few thoughts here. First, I'm all for low barriers of entry to the online world, but it seems to me that Tony La Russa has a credible case here, one that can't be compromised by his shortcomings as a baseball manager.

Second, the Armstrong example is a great example of Twitter's utility, giving someone with a lot of followers -- and Armstrong is one of the Twittersphere's most prominent users -- instant access to an audience when he/she has something to say.

Finally, I'm a little alarmed at how the Associated Press, in the Armstrong story, so blithely tossed the word "tweet" out there. (A "tweet," for the uninitiated, is shorthand for a Twitter message, because, you know, "Twitter message" is so pedestrian.)

I will continue to play along -- you can follow me here -- but I will resist "tweet" for as long as I can. What can I say? I'm a nonconformist.