Well  - sounds of a throat clearing - once, then once again.  "Is my face red" I stated declaratively.

This post has to be post #2a because I only, maybe, partially answered post question #2 correctly. If you remember, in post #2 I boasted about my background in IT Education from back in the 1990s and into the early 21st century. I seem to remember mentioning having seen the coming of Facebook.

For this, I can't even blame the caffeine.

Well - I didn't feel that solid in my answer but at the time I must have felt solid enough to make the post.  That was until I got to class and took a closer look at my notes.  Wow - not even close.
It's Tweeter *%#! not Facebook.

I never saw Tweeter coming. Ok, I never saw Facebook coming either, at least not specifically.  I never even saw a way you could track tweets coming but I knew someone would find a way to make money from all the info being stored on all those servers.
I have a Tweeter account and have for maybe close to a year. I have Tweeter for Dummies but haven't used either one.  No one Tweets me, I wonder why.

So here goes Post #2a - first, I have mixed emotions about the type and amount of tweets' data needed to create the tweets usage map shown to us in class. 
Although I did find it fascinating to see the similarities in behaviors of people from different parts of the world. It was as if I was watching a worldwide human pulse as the images on the screen grew larger and smaller, darker or lighter, depending on the Tweeter usage around the world.

As a means of understanding the emotional aspects of people using Tweeter, based on time of day, day of the week, and the context of the message this information could be good research material for the Social Sciences, such as Sociology.  As an American citizen keen on Privacy I always feel uncomfortable signing my personal privacy away to use a product - no matter how cool and versatile it may be. 

So no, I didn't specifically see Facebook or Tweeter coming but I certainly was part of  conversations focused on the hopes and the fears that the collectivism of the Internet could bring.
Anyone read a Brave New World recently?