Tag Archives: Twitter

Twitter: 140 characters, 0 thought and effort

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TwitterlogoI haven’t said much about Twitter of late. In part because it’s just too exhausting trying to explain it. But I’m relying on it more and more. It’s the one social networking tool that seems to work for me.

smays.com (the blog) is where I think (a little) about what I want to say before I post it. http://twitter.com/smaysdotcom is where I poop out 140 characters without using any neurons whatsoever. It’s so easy, in fact, I’ve have twittered almost 2,000 times.

Increasingly, Twitter is how I keep up with many of my online pals. If you decide to give Twitter a try, let me know. But please don’t ask me to explain it or justify my interest in this tool. I wouldn’t know where to begin.

If you don’t have time or inclination to blog, you might consider giving Twitter a try. Do it for a week. If you’re a regular reader of smays.com, follow my Twitter feed for that week instead.

Hunt For Bin Laden Moves To Twitter – Podcasting News

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A draft US Army intelligence report looks at ways Twitter, social media and other new technologies could be used by terrorists. The report bases its concerns on the fact that Twitter has ”become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences.”

Hunt For Bin Laden Moves To Twitter

 

New look for Mizzou website

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MuoasBranden Miller tweets the new look for MUTigers.com, the website of the Missouri Tigers. Mizzou is one of the universities with which Learfield Sports works, but I have nothing to do with the websites.

But I’ve always thought most of them were cramped, too busy and impossible to navigate. This new design is a huge improvement. I haven’t poked around on the new site yet but plan to later today.

I hope similar make-overs are planned for our other properties.

In Praise of Political Tweets – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com

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NYTimes’ Saul Hansell thinks Twitter might well be the birth of a media form that combines talk radio, Digg and late-night comedians.

“Like talk radio, you get an unvarnished and largely real-time window into what a wide swath of people are actually talking about. Like Digg, you see people point to the articles and videos that they want to share. And like late-night TV (or a politician’s sound bite for the evening news), there is a premium on pithy one-liners that try to get to the heart of the matter.”

Kevin O’Keefe on Twitter

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“Just anecdotal evidence, but I find Twitter users a fairly affluent and upwardly mobile group. They tend toward being business people, as opposed to kids. I’ve not only met people I am now following, but I’ve been turned onto upcoming events of interest that I would have never known of but for Twitter. In one case I ‘direct tweeted’ a person who just moved to Seattle to head up a new group at Microsoft. On another occasion I connected with a leader in the Search Engine Optimization industry. And this doesn’t include the local Seattle lawyers I am making connections with via Twitter.”

It’s probably just frustration with trying to get some “hot new thing,” but I frequently encounter an almost angry tone on the subject of Twitter:“I don’t get it! This is bullshit! What a waste of time!”

I try to remember it took me more than a year for the Twitter to click [Twitterclick:  noun. Small, sub-audible sound in the frontal lobe associated with Twittercognizance]

election.twitter.com

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People of a certain age might remember old TV shows that used an “applause meter” (it was just an audio level meter) to allow the studio audience to “vote” on something or someone. The kids at Twitter have come up with a 21st century twist for tomorrow night’s debate. From NYT’s The Caucus:

“If Senators John McCain and Barack Obama actually do debate Friday night, you will be able to watch what thousands of viewers think of their verbal sparring almost as they talk. Twitter, the service that lets techno-hipsters broadcast their thoughts in 140-character bursts, is setting up a special politics page to make it easy to tune into the chatter.

At midnight Thursday, the company is launching election.twitter.com, the first specialized section of its site. Like Twitter’s main service, it is dominated by a big white box. But instead of typing an answer to “What are you doing?” the election site asks, “What do you think?”

Below that box is a constantly scrolling display of the thoughts (called “tweets” in Twitterspeak) of other Twitter users. These include all the tweets entered on the election page as well as those entered in any other part of the service with obvious election-related phrases, such as “Palin.”

I think our company should do this very thing for each of the colleges we work with. Sure, you’d get a few fans tweeting that the coach made a bad call but I suspect the majority of posts would be supportive. And what a sense of “being part of the crowd” this would create for fans listening to the radio or watching TV. Might even be something a hip, web-savvy company would want to sponsor.

Tie me up and blog me

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I think I could count on one hand the number of times I heard or read the word “snarky” before email (and blogging) came along. I subscribe to he notion snarkiness requires a certain level of wit and charm. Otherwise, it’s just bitchy or whiny.

My first snark crush (I’m still not over her) was the Wonkette. The nome de blog of Ana Marie Cox. Ms. Cox was an early blogger who now snarks (last time, I promise) on Time’s Swampland. I trot along after her on Twitter and found a link to a delightful exchange with Megan at Jezebel.com.

“Since the world is ending around us, it’s important to take note of what parts of our civilization fell and in what order. And, really, there’s no one better at documenting mayhem than the original Wonkette (the rest of us are just pale imitations), Ana Marie Cox.”

And then there’s this exchange regarding McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds:

ANA MARIE: “They really need to stop sending the twelve-year-old intern out to the morning shows. Or cable shows, I mean. I think I was thinking “morning show” because he’s getting his ass kicked, in all cases, by heavily rougued faux-next-girls! GIRLS!

MEGAN: Actually, the man just needs to, like, fucking prepare before he goes. Your candidate is out lying like he’s Dick Cheney or something, you gotta put your big boy panties on just like Ari Fleischer did and take it. I think the real problem is that Tucker Bounds likes getting spanked by hot women.

I’ve heard the “big boy panties” reference before but it was “big girl panties.” Someone in the Bush administration?

Beyond the blog

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TwittergoogleshareLike a lot of bloggers, I’m spending more and more time feeding my Twitter page. My friend David describes his “tweets” as the same smart-ass remarks he blurted out in class that left his pals in stitches and earned him a trip to the principal’s office. Twitter can be a little more personal and real-time than a blog post (“I’m in caffeine extremis at Coffee Zone, listening to Amy Winehouse”).

I’m also “sharing” more stuff from my Google Reader. I can hundreds of stories (from blogs and news sites) every day and when I see one I think is interesting, I “share” it and a link shows up in a light blue box on the right side of this page. To see more than the last 5 items, click the “Read More” link at the bottom. I usually don’t add anything to these. I just post them. But I really believe I’m better at spotting interesting/amusing stuff than coming up with it myself.

So, if you drop in and don’t see anything of interest, check the Twitter feed (which you can “follow”) and the Google Shared page.

Twittering politics

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Good piece at washingtonpost.com on how folks are using Twitter to cover politics. A couple of nuggets from Slate’s John Dickerson:

“If I have a thought that occurs to me, I’ll fire it off,” Dickerson says. “Sometimes it ends up being the lead of a piece, or the notion a piece gets framed around.” At the same time, he says, “there’s an element of narcissism and class clownery. A wisecrack comes into your head and you want to share it.”

Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar:

“posting my real-time thoughts, impressions and wisecracks without having to worry about fleshing them out for a proper blog post. Working within that 140-character limit — and still managing to get out your observation, your comment, your setup and punch line or what have you — is great training for a writer.”

After a slow start, I’ve come to rely on –and enjoy– Twitter almost as much as blogging. You can follow my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/smaysdotcom. You’ll need to set up an account but it’s free and takes about 2 min.

Reporting from the road

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Our company has three reporters in Denver (for three different networks) covering the state delegations for their respective networks. Where they were once strictly radio reporters, today they’re also posting stories to websites; blogging and Twittering.

LaptopI could be wrong, but I seem to recall one convention when we actually shipped a couple of cart machines so the reporter could produce his/her reports that where then phoned back to the network for broadcast to affiliate stations over the satellite network. We still distribute by satellite but a lot of our affiliates get a lot of our reports on the web.

I was reminded of these Dark Days by a photo O. Kay Henderson took of her equipment set-up (annotated) in her hotel room in Denver. Blackberry, wireless data cards, laptops, minidisks… it all fits in a couple of carry-on’s.