Don't know what you've got till it's gone . . .

The power of social media was brought home this morning by two very different events: A Tweetup and a computer catastrophe.
Twitter users got together at 7:15 a.m. for the first Wichita Tweetup (and large doses of caffeine). It allowed us to socialize beyond our tweets' 140-character limit, and talk about how microblogging has become integrated into our work and personal lives.
Afterward, many of us discovered that last night something had rolled through Twitter like an F-5. The virtual twister wiped out about half my contacts, but I was among the lucky; one of my Tweeples lost more than 1,000. It wasn't only the tedious work of rebuilding a social network that proved painful, however. The sense of disconnection - of missing out on something important, inspiring or funny, news from people we've come to care about - was disconcerting for many tweeters. We've quickly become a community.