Using Twitter Favorites Page as a news and information file

I've never enjoyed using the Bookmarks option on search engines. They've always just felt clunky, to me. But I do like to save interesting articles and important information, as I come across them on the web. And today, I stumbled upon a better way to save my favorite pieces of news and information.

Today has been a fascinating day. It all started when @daltukhov started following me on Twitter. I followed him back, because I try to follow my followers back unless they don't look like real people, or seem really spammy. (If your user name is fiwndke13 and your "real name" is ctwoi34wf; or if your auto-posts are threatening to take over my Twitter feed--I will not follow you back!)

@daltukhov is a follow I would highly recommend. I found in his Twitter stream, almost immediately, a news item entitled "Twitter stream breaks Iran news dam." I read it, turned into a goose bump, and clicked the little star to the right of @daltukhov's tweet. My first Favorite had been filed.

The news article led me to @patrickmeier, who led me to a blog post entitled "How to Communicate Securely in Repressive Environments." Now, a main plot element of For Cory's Sake is about people trying to communicate in a repressive environment. Another star got clicked.

I was starting to sniff usefulness. I ran down @toniandrews' stream until I found the link to a review of Angel of Mercy that I had found "useful." Click! I was beginning to see a big picture.

I clicked a few more stars, actually one more each for @daltukhov, @patrickmeier and @toniandrews tweets. Then I looked at my Favorites page. It is aesthetically pleasing, with biggish font, links in blue and pretty yellow stars. A succinct description precedes each link. I had found my file box.

I can access my Favorites page superfast. @ClarkCovington turned me on to Google Chrome. (I know, I know--where have I been?) The anticipation of this search engine puts it one step below mindreader. I only need type the letter "t," and chivalrous Chromeo fills the entire Twitter address in for me. I hit *Enter*. I click on the Favorites link, to the right of my Home page feed, and I'm immediately looking at an aesthetically pleasing list of links and information, complete with compact but perfectly complete descriptions.

I really do Twitter this much . . .