If you’re like me and are immersed in social networking and Web 2.0, then you should know what Twitter is. For those of you who don’t, I’ll try to explain it in as simple terms as possible.

Twitter allows you to “micro-blog.” That is, to create a profile on Twitter.com and the constantly feed it with your current thoughts in 140 characters or less. There are no photos, no video–it’s simply just a running text feed of your current status. Sort of like your Facebook feed, but you can port your Twitter status updates into Facebook and other social networks, while you can’t yet do the reverse with your MySpace or Facebook status updates.

With Twitter, you can follow people’s feeds and they can follow yours. I’m following a few hundred digerati, DJs and music industry professionals and have reached over 1,000 posts. Twitter has become such a phenomenon, that the site has had difficulty as of late staying online. The criticism is that they built the site using Ruby On Rails server technology, which is said to not scale as efficiently as other technologies available. Nevertheless, Twitter just raised a $15 Million round of funding and that should quiet the critics and hopefully smooth out their operations.

What’s great about Twitter is that people from all over the world are already jumping on the bandwagon, typing in the minutiae of their lives. My girlfriend, Missy, thinks Twitter is useless. That is, until a blogger in Egypt twittered that he’d been unfairly arrested. The “twitterspehere” the blogger operates in quickly came to his rescue. That changed Missy’s mind (for now). That is, until she sees me post something about her…lol.

Anyway, the point of the story. Yes…I’m getting to the point here, is that the user @aztrovoi contacted me through Twitter–all the way from Mexico. Who knew I had fans in Mexico!

Why the “@” symbol? Twitter uses the “@” symbol to allow sending direct messages to folks. So, if you want to post and address your post to me so that I see it in my “Replies” box, just put the “@” symbol in front of my user name: djtonyz. The message will go to both community and me.

The power of Web 2.0 is amazing. So many of my friends and colleagues are now following my updates through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and many other networks I’m part of. This gives me the ability to communicate what’s happening in my world everyday, and helps all my contacts stay up on my status.

Sure, it’s a lot of work constantly managing your online life. But, the means justifies the end! As I begin to build my off line DJ career again, all these tools have become necessary to promote and market oneself. You have to take advantage of them, because that’s where the people are.

So, I’ve been trolling the Expo floor looking for music industry compatriots. Nada. Nill. Nothing. I haven’t seen one person I know from the music industry here at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo.

Now, I know we have our own conferences and agendas, but this Web 2.0 Expo is about SOCIAL MEDIA! One would think there should be record industry folk, artists, managers and other music industry people trying to learn and understand Facebook application development, how Open Social is going to transform their online promotion efforts, what cool mobile and web applications are in the works. Companies that showcase here don’t showcase at Music 2.0 conferences and vice versa.

I call for a convergent strategy. Music 2.0 folks should embrace Web 2.0 product development so they can learn how long it takes, how much it costs, how things go viral, the power of blogs and search and all the other intangible factors that going into making the 2.0 world such a force. They should be reaching out to the technology folks here to understand the power of the medium. I mean, how many folks do you know Twitter each other to meet at parties in NYC? Not many that I’m aware of. They may use it, but being out here you get the ethnographic viewpoint of why Twitter is so powerful. Artists should be using Twitter. DJs should also use Twitter to announce tracks they are playing, as they are being played. There are all sorts of uses.

I learned a lot here and will bring it back to NYC for much discussion. There is a Web 2.0 Expo scheduled for NYC in September. Maybe everyone’s holding out until then?

Oh…I almost forgot. The one company I met with, MixMatchMusic.com, are currently in beta. They’re building an online sequencing tool for musicians and DJs to produce with. It’s a software as a service online application. Their competitors are companies like Jamglue.com and SpliceMusic.com. They’ve got a bit of a different angle on it. I got an invite to the private beta and will let you know what I think in a future post.

Call me crazy, but isn’t the purpose of LinkedIn to set up a profile and network with other users yourself? I got this message today from from a colleague of a guy named Pete Basset of QuiteGreat.co.uk. If Pete couldn’t take the time to contact me himself, then why should I take the time to network with him? So, I hit delete.

Now, it seems that Pete owns a PR and communications company. I guess he must be using LinkedIn like he does the press. He’s got his lackey blanketing everyone to see what sticks.

How many of you use someone else to troll through your LinkedIn or Facebook friends to make your connections, instead of doing it yourself? If you’re a fairly discerning person, why would you entrust someone to make friends or business relationships with people you might not really want to know? And, lastly, what if your lackey started hitting up people you really don’t like? Not much of a filter, is it?

There are people I come across on LinkedIn that I’d never invite into my network of friends. If the person I assign the task to has to come back to me and ask if it’s okay to send a message to this person or that person, did you really save time in the first place?

That being said, until technology advances to the point someone can think like me, act like me and be just about as picky as I am about who I let into my social web–be sure you’ll never get a message from someone I directed to use my profile to contact you.