Okay, so maybe I was wrong about Twitter

I love to stand corrected. Really, I do. Sitting, reclining, even dancing - I'm open to correction. Goodness knows I offer it to my nearest and dearest, regularly; when they use the word "comprise" the wrong way, or pronounce a French word badly. So I'm happy to report that I may have been wrong to dismiss Twitter so roundly, a few blogs ago.

The Economist has come out with a truly wonderful and deeply comprehensive survey of social media in the business context, and they seem quite willing to entertain the idea that there's something in all that Tweeting, in terms of useful business communication. Zappos.com, for example, the shoe company owned by Amazon, actually encourages its employees to Tweet. "The argument for using a system that allows the world to see what a firm’s employees are up to is that it helps make faceless corporations seem more human in the eyes of their customers," says the venerable magazine.

There are still causes for pause. A survey referred to in the Economist survey, conducted by the Harvard Business School in May 2009, found that, of 300,000 Twitter users, more than half of them Tweeted less than once every 74 days, and that 10% of Twitter users accounted for 90% of the Tweets. This compares unfavorably with other online social networks, where the most active users typically account for 30% of the content.

Facebook, by contrast, has solidly proven its commercial worth. According to The Economist, Sony found that Facebook ads for "District 9" and "Julie & Julia", which were tailored to the age and gender most likely to watch those movies, were significantly more effective than conventional advertising.

Speaking of movies, I went to see "Avatar" last night. I know, I'm probably the last person you know to see it, but at least I made the full commitment, and paid $17.50 for the dazzling Imax 3D experience. I found the film astonishing from a technical point of view, but then I'm such a greenhorn I caught myself saying "Wow!" at the first 3D trailer that came up. Not the trailer itself, even, just the notice that said "This film has been deemed suitable for..." where the letters were floating in front of the green screen. So, you know, obviously the 3D thing was new to me. Much as the film was overlong and had a plot so thin you could blow your nose on it, I was so taken with the new format, I was all for buying my own 3D glasses (sharing eyeglasses with a previous audience in Manhattan is not really very appealing) and seeing everything in that format I could lay my eyeballs on. However, by the time I got home, I realized my husband had a 3-aspirin headache, and neither of us slept at all well that night. The right kind of scan would no doubt have found all sorts of activity lighting up in parts of our brains that really oughtn't to be that lit up at 1am. The dreams were not nice, either. Still, I'm eager to see Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland", which should be a real trip. And it won't have stupid, knock-you-over-the-head plot details like the rare mineral for which the dastardly capitalists in "Avatar" are breaking up the locals' village being called "unobtanium". I mean. Really.