Well, David Pogue (and his 500,000 followers) takes a shot at an explanation via example in The World According to Twitter.  Here is the publisher’s explanation of the book:

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue has tapped into the brilliance of his half-million followers on Twitter by posting a different, thought-provoking question every night. The questions ranged from the earnest (“What’s your greatest regret?”) to the creative (“Make up a concept for a doomed TV show”) to the curious (“What’s your great idea to improve the cell phone?”). Out of 25,000 tweets, Pogue has gathered the very best 2,524 into this irresistible, clever, laugh-out-loud funny book. The World According to Twitter is truly a grand social networking experiment, in which thousands of voices have come together to produce a unique and wonderful record of shared human experience.

Whether you think a book like this is worth ten bucks or not is highly subjective of course.  Your sense of humor and taste in general will determine how valuable you find a collection like this to be. (I received a free copy of this book so make of that what you will. Hi, FTC!)

But one thing I like about the book is that it highlights how creative and interactive Twitter can be.  There are probably a great many folks who just tweet mundane happenings in their lives, and there are obviously a fair amount of spammers and hacks, but there are also a great many funny, creative, and insightful people.

By asking questions and reproducing the best responses Pogue has produced a paper trail as it were illustrating this brighter side of the Twitter phenomenon.  From movie sequels and prequels to puns and jokes to real life expriences people find a way to pack quite a punch into 140 characters or less.

Part humor, part sociology, part folk art, part social networking The World According to Twitter is an interesting slice of culture while at the same time an explanation for the popularity and often addictive nature of Twitter.

2006: 74

2007: 80

2008: 76

So I reached my goal every year except one and then only by one book.  Pretty good considering I have two young children.

BTW, If you want to follow my reading throughout the year, you can connect with me at Good Reads or at Living Social.

Do you set reading goals for yourself?  If so how many and how did you do?