Social Networking == Quicksand

With the exciting news that AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE finaled in the RWA Golden Heart contest, I feel like I need to be building out my web presence in anticipation of the day when I sell my novel (or the day when I realize I'm never going to sell my novel and need some e-friends to cry to). In my quest to efficiently tackle the online space, I set up a new Sara Ramsey Facebook account and decided to dedicate more time to blogging here. I've been on Facebook for around twenty-four hours, but thanks to some support from my personal friends and the addition of quite a few of my fellow finalists, I've built up a not-too-shabby friend list. I'm looking forward to branching out more into the publishing world as I start to build out content, but I feel like this is a good start.

However, social networking is such a time sink that I wonder if I would be better off spending the time writing. In addition to Facebook and the blog, I also started a Twitter account today (you can follow me @ramseyromance -- linked to in the sidebar on this page). I've stayed away from Twitter, believing it to be yet another plague in the multitude of procrastination-enabling addictions that litter the web. With my blogs, my website, my email, my Google Reader, and the fact that I work for a tech company and spend ten hours a day online there, I'm already online enough -- Twitter seemed like the last straw. But I signed up today because it's all the rage, and I need to go where the potential readers are. Whether I'll stick with Twitter remains to be seen (the pressure to come up with something witty in 140 characters is intense, particularly since I'm used to writing 140 lines), but I do feel like there's some happy medium between the amount of time I spent getting things set up today and the practically nonexistent social networking that I do in my personal life.

What do you think about Twitter? Is it the Facebook-killer, or a flash in the pan?