#1220 Twax Two

I did a piece recently on a new sort of tax revenue—taxing Twitterers. It fit the great sin-tax model of taxing folks who are addicted to something.
I called the new Twitter tax a Twax. My friend Rick suggested that I should apply similar taxes to the other addictive posting things. Perhaps a Myspace tax. They would pay a hefty amount and we would call it a Max. There would also be a Facebook tax, called a Fax. Then the tax police could say, just give me the fax man.
Speaking of facts, a few Twitter facts are now emerging from academia. Researchers have actually demonstrated the smart-phone addiction. When you take one away from people they twitch and get short of breath and suffer anxiety and stuff. Texting, Twittering, and twiddling your smart-phone are true addictive behaviors.
Kind of takes away from some of the darkness of addiction. I can see them at the rehab.
“Yeah, I’m a mainline heroin user, what about you?”
“Um...I’m a heavy tweeter.”
Another interesting result of Twitter research, or tweeter twaddle as I like to call it, is that the 80/20 rule applies. Less than 20% of the people do more than 80% of the Tweeting. So Twitter isn’t as socially networky as we think.
Twee-searchers defined a twue Tweeter as one who has made at least 10 tweets, follows at least ten people, and has at least ten followers. Less than twenty percent of the people signed up with Twitter qualify.
Great news for society, bad news for my new tax plan. I might have to broaden it out to include all texting.
We could calling tax-ting. Or maybe just tex-es.
Yeah...all your taxes would be from tex-es.
America, ya gotta love it.