Inspired by Matt Cutts and his 30 Days Challenges, I’ve decided to have a go myself, instead of setting any specific (and year-long-lasting, doomed-to-failure) New Year Resolutions. The challenges I have in mind are similar or the same to some Matt completed: Some of them are about doing something regularly, others are about not doing something, and others still are about using the 30 day period to achieve a specific goal.

So my first 30-day challenge is to take a break from Twitter.

I’ve been toying with this idea for a while. It’s not an attempt to be online less and interacting socially less. The thoughts were initially triggered with the nosedive Twitter’s standing took in the developer community when they poked a blunt stick in the faces of some of the very developers that helped Twitter succeed, by changing the API usage terms. But it’s also to do with my interest in Google+, and wanting to see that platform and community succeed. I like the idea of Google+ and despite it only having a read-only API for now, I’m encouraged by the direction in which it’s being grown.

It’s not going to be easy to take 30 days off Twitter, that’s for sure. Many of my friends and work colleagues hang out on Twitter and I get a lot of Instapaper fodder there too. But perhaps a move to Google+ will help me make my mind up once and for all whether it’s a viable new platform to replace what I use Twitter for. I’m not expecting other people to make the move, or at least give Google+ a try, but if they do, that’s great.

Ok, so today I tweeted “I’m intending this to be my last (non-automated!) Tweet for January“. Off we go!