Part chat room, part text messaging – we can’t be entirely sure what Twitter is. But it certainly is fun and today marks our 10,000th tweet. Surely to heavens this is a milestone of some sort in the year 2011.

Right? RIGHT?

*bursts into tears and runs back into his Mom’s basement*

For the uninitiated, Twitter is this thing you can access online and on your phone where you can send out 140 character messages like a text. And unlike a text you have to send to one particular person, this message is read by all of your followers – people who have signed up for twitter themselves and have selected you as someone who’s tweets they would like to read.

Its like having hockey players, media types, celebrities and all of your friends in a big chat room that is open 24/7/365.

Its a wild time.

Back in 2009 bingofuel got all up in our grill about getting on board with Twitter. "Listen Wanye" he began, "I’m not quite sure what this thing is. But I’m betting that it is important. We need to get the Nations on it, we need to get ourselves on it and then we can figure out what it does."

And so get on it we did, signing up for accounts for FlamesNation, OilersNation and CanucksArmy. We wrote little scripts that tweeted links to new articles as they appeared. In the past 12 months over 180,000 visitors to OilersNation alone have come from this one lil Twitter account.

It has truly revolutionized our business.

Once we got the sites on the twitterz, we started tweeting too, not knowing what exactly we were doing. Bingofuel tweeted about things going on around town and links to articles of all subjects. He quickly became one of the most followed people in Edmonton.

We began following gangster rappers, porn stars and hockey bloggers of all types. Then we started yelling about the Oilers with our fellow fans. Then we started getting into dust ups with fans of other teams.

It’s just a tremendous time once you get the hang of it.

As time wore on we have been able to sweat the different personalities on the Nation into joining Twitter. First it was Jason Gregor. "Listen Gregor" we began, "remember when we first started working together and you thought the internet was a wild rumour started by geeks like us? Well there is another technology you might want to get involved in."

A bit confused at first like we all are when we join, Gregor got into it with gusto and now tweets on the regular. Willis got involved, as did Robin Brownlee. Even Lowetide – who at first couldn’t help laughing whenever he mentioned the ‘hash’ in hashtag – has gotten on board.

Never a hockey game goes by now where we aren’t glued to the twitter on the regular and marvelling at the digital age in which we live.

The other night we ran into some teenaged readers of the Nation at a local watering hole. We got to talking about the site and all of the writers on here and the one chap said "Oh I don’t even read the site anymore. Its too much trouble. I just follow everyone on twitter. I get all my news and have way more fun on there. But I love OilersNation a ton."

We stood there blinking in disbelief knowing that the world we live in is changing at a very rapid rate. Then we all had a shot of Jack Daniels which we agreed would be great even in the year 2111 when we all follow the Oilers on the cybernet v5.7*

On this day of our 10,000th tweet we invite everyone who is on the fence about joining twitter to get a stick and get in the game. You don’t have to say anything (at first) but once you get your feet wet (you will) we heartily suggest you send your ol’ pal Wanye a tweet. Or Gregor. Or Lowetide. Or even Robin Brownlee who is tweeting a way like a regular @souljaboy these days. 

Plus In January 2012 we will be embarking on a great big backpacking trip and will be gone for several weeks. And we will be buying an unlocked international blackberry and bringing the Twitter with us. You wouldn’t want to miss that would you?**

Leave your twitter handles in the comments so we can follow everyone. Its sort of like plentyoffish but with less herpes!

If it weren’t for our beloved advertisers OilersNation would still be a site staffed only by yours truly, writing 50 word articles about the upcoming season of Two and a Half Men. Think that Brownlee digs for the scoop for free? Think Jason Strudwick gets out of bed in the morning for less than $10,000? 

Fat chance.

We love each and every one of our advertisers who have taken a chance on non conventional media as a means to promote their business. One of these great folks is Rayna Boychuck who is a mortgage broker at Centum Mortgages and an advertiser on NationRadio.

In the year 2011 things are changing like never before. "Sick" means "good," "please" means "thank you" and yes you should listen to your 11th favourite writer at OilersNation for who to go get a mortgage through. We strongly suggest you give Rayna a call at 587.987.1013 or send her an email at rayna_boychuk@centum.ca if you are looking to buy a house and need a mortgage.

Are we qualified to give this advice? Yes. Yes, we like to think that we are. And Rayna thinks so too and parts with hard earned money in the hopes some business comes back the Centum way. 

If you don’t give her a call we can’t help but think that she will cancel her ad, NationRadio will immediately close and we will be forced to move to Iqualit to start again.***

So far here is a list of your fellow citizens on the Nation:

@hungoverman1971
@joshthegooglist
@dallylamma
@TheTowelBoy
@geoilergist
@FireguyD3
@TigerUnderGlass
@mrpederson
@drescher33
@Bschambz
@joshaughnessy
@SHMcSteeley
@alanhull
@Br_DaSilva
@Archaeologuy
@Mooses69
@ItsTheBGB
@borisnikov
@PutzStew
@buck75
@batuli
@Archaeologuy
@bhlazo
@pipewrench77
@Riley_Kim
@darthlanden

We have followed everyone in this list and will continue to add in additional folks as they make themselves known. BLOW OUR SOCKS OFF WITH THE FUNNY!