Twitter Headlines: Library of Congress, Retirement, Divorce, iPhone

I know this semi-regular Wednesday feature declares to report on Twitter Headlines, but the fact is that I don't care that Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan show up in my search every week. No. More. Attention. Go talk to Perez Hilton if you're that interested in their shenanigans or that it's news that there is a lack of shenanigans. Granted, if they showed up in the same article...

Tweeting for Posterity

This is a very interesting article about the collection and analysis of Tweets, noting that in April the Library of Congress announced that it will be obtaining the entire archive of Twitter which, as of now, is already 5 terabytes in <= 140-character slices. What an odd slice of human history / culture / eccentricity. I can't wait to see what the culture crunchers have to say in a couple decades.


Retirement!

While I'm reticent to post any vapid celebrity Twitter information, two huge legends of sports and media have decided to announce their retirement through Twitter: Lance Armstrong and Larry King.


Divorce Court

Looks like the lawyers are getting in on the social media scouring we're all starting to get accustomed to. In divorce cases, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and MySpace (jk - no one uses MySpace anymore) are being used as evidence of intent, flirting, and any other behavior that would be relevant in divorce proceedings. But in a world where prospective and current employers and higher education institutions treat a social media search as common as a background or credit check, can anyone say they're surprised by anything except that it took this long?


iPhone

It appears that 1) iPhone 4 has some problems and 2) there's a fake Steve Jobs Tweeting about a recall. In other news: I'm writing a blog post and the sun will rise tomorrow morning a little later than it did today.

Twitter Wednesday: Deplorable!

I was all ready to get back to an old tradition of mine of picking the web headlines clean of Twitter-related headlines and reporting openly to you - and then I saw what was out there. Boo!

My duty is to report, but I'm not even pushing links here the information is so nonsensical and trivial. Really, you're better off - and probably smarter - for NOT having read what is to follow. Okay. Here we go...

Lindsay Lohan has been taking a little time off personally collapsing her celebrity status and found out that she still has some Twitter star power. So she's got that goin' for her. Amanda Bynes announced her 24-year old retirement on Twitter. There's a thin line between barely having acting gigs in the last decade and retirement. It's called unemployment. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev joined Twitter. Huh? Rep. "I'm sorry BP" Joe Barton has a Twitter account. And after apologizing to BP and unapologizing for the apology on Twitter, apparently there was a retraction of the unapology post. Politicians are so good at the technologies (see my upcoming post). Oh, and Kim Kardashian Tweeted "Ewww" about a woman breastfeeding next to her. [Insert vapid celebrity plastic surgery joke here.] And...item! Heidi Montag Accuses Spencer Pratt of Being a Famewhore. Yeah...uh, who? And unsurprisingly, news like the World Cup and that earthquake in Canada that we didn't really quite feel here in Cincinnati is still being disseminated via Twitter.

I warned you that it was mind-numbing. "Huh? What was I reading?" you reply.

Wednesday Twitter: I'm Sorry: Hollywood n Drama

I scraped and plodded and searched but it looks like all the Twitter stuff this week is, well, crap. So let's just get this over with. Friday the 13th remake sequel dead in the water via Twitter, Lindsay Lohan tweeted some overly-dramatic whining about her dad and cops, Ooh, live tweet with the cast of Eclipse, and OMG Perez Hilton and Spencer Pratt start a Twitter war!

Please flush the toilet on the way out.

Twitter Headlines: Obama, Palin Accounts, Credit, and Sharia Law

Usually I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel of Twitter headlines after picking out the super-celeb and sports stories about someone famous tweeting something their manager or coach disapproves of, but this week is rife with tasty tidbits!

Obama Hacker says "Excusez-moi!"

A 25-year old French man has been apprehended as a hacker who got into Barack Obama's Twitter account. Great: another reason for Americans to baselessly hate refined wine and delicious cheeses. Of course, all the blame doesn't go to the man himself; when your password is "pelosi" it's not rocket science to hack.


Palin Takes Aim

Sarah Palin's healthcare tweet:

Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don’t Retreat Instead – RELOAD!" Pls see my Facebook page.

Oopsie! I get it. I understand the figurative language. Unfortunately, I suspect it will take less than 2 weeks for someone somewhere to take that literally and act upon it. When you're famous, social media also contains an aspect of responsibility.

(Note: She's also getting a show on Discovery)


Social Media & Your Credit?

Seriously, are we shocked by this? Years ago, I had a credit card company I'd been with for years run a credit check and - without notice - raised my rate by over 10% because they didn't like my debt-to-income ratio. Colleges and employers readily use social media checks as often as they do background checks. And now companies are checking out Twitter and Facebook for excuses to increase rates or deny you credit? I've got 3 words for you:




Amputation Chatter Cut Off in Nigeria

A Nigerian court has ordered no more chatting about a guy who was punished with amputation for stealing a cow.

An order is hereby given restraining the respondents either by themselves or their agents from opening a chat forum on Facebook, Twitter, or any blog for the purpose of the debate on the amputation of Malam Buba Bello Jangebe.

Bwa-ha-ha! A chat forum on Twitter. They must be really good at the internets.

Slightly more disturbing:

You would think that social media sites are not particularly popular with Sharia Law proponents. Wrong. After a British guy ended his marriage on Facebook last year, a couple of Sharia lawyers claimed that, rather like SMS, divorce on Facebook or Twitter would be acceptable.

Wha-what?

Not that I agree with it, but as opposed to our own courts, it's interesting to see that Sharia law has someone paying attention to emerging technology and social media.


That's it this week. Cheers!

Twitter Phishing - Social Media Fraud | kevanshome.org

Like many of you, I've received a handful of DMs from Twitter that say things like "somebody wrote something about you in this blog here http://tinyurl.com/yauj2fw" or "This you???? http://is.gd/93Hts"

No worries - the URLs have been disabled by both tinyurl and is.gd respectively.

What you would've seen had you clicked those URLs is what looks exactly like a Twitter login page. And apparently there are enough people who gawk at the login and automatically both salivate and type at the same time to see if that's them or if somebody wrote about them ...on a blog ...on Twitter :s

The Result

Luckily, it doesn't appear to be anything horribly malicious on the surface. You login to the fake site, they have an auto programming running in the back that logs on to your account and sends everyone following you a DM linking back to the site so they can do it to all of that person's followers. Perhaps there's something hiding under the surface there, but it's more of an annoyance right now.

The Source

When you click those phishing links, you end up on a page with the root domain as kevanshome.org (going there now gives you a Phishing MySpace account.

Figuring this person was at least a little savvy, I wasn't expecting much when I grabbed the WhoIs info, maybe a blocker program at the least. Nope. Here's what I found:

Domain ID:D157042268-LROR
Domain Name:KEVANSHOME.ORG
Created On:06-Sep-2009 07:34:50 UTC
Last Updated On:10-Nov-2009 14:03:03 UTC
Expiration Date:06-Sep-2010 07:34:50 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Xin Net Technology Corporation (R118-LROR)
Status:OK
Registrant ID:7kkxo6fmgfrrz7
Registrant Name:Ken Evans
Registrant Organization:Ken Evans
Registrant Street1:Star Street
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Shang Hai
Registrant State/Province:Shanghai
Registrant Postal Code:100000
Registrant Country:CN
Registrant Phone:+86.02142552594
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:+86.02142552594
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:lixing688@gmail.com
Admin ID:7kkxo6fmgfrrz7a
Admin Name:Ken Evans
Admin Organization:Ken Evans
Admin Street1:Star Street
Admin Street2:
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Shang Hai
Admin State/Province:Shanghai
Admin Postal Code:100000
Admin Country:CN
Admin Phone:+86.02142552594
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:+86.02142552594
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:lixing688@gmail.com
Tech ID:7kkxo6fmgfrrz7a
Tech Name:Ken Evans
Tech Organization:Ken Evans
Tech Street1:Star Street
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Shang Hai
Tech State/Province:Shanghai
Tech Postal Code:100000
Tech Country:CN
Tech Phone:+86.02142552594
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+86.02142552594
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:lixing688@gmail.com
Name Server:NS.XINNETDNS.COM
Name Server:NS.XINNET.CN
Name Server:
DNSSEC:Unsigned

So I know about enough to do some minor internet detectiving, but this one's a little out of my depth.

So instead of a full-on expose, this is more of a first-step fact-finding report. I might do something with it, but I know there are people out there much better equipped to dig into the information. Let me know if you find anything!

Twitter Today! Dalai, Irish, Not English?

I'd love to say this week that there's a whole buzz over some Twitter news, but after filtering out the useless celeb noise (like Adam Lambert's musings on hottest 12 guys), I'm not left with much this week.

Excitingly and somehow not-so-celeb, the Dalai Lama has opened a Twitter account - and is apparently using it. Founder Evan Williams suggested it and it was laughed off, but the next day, Here's Dalai! You can follow him at the verified account of the Dalai Lama.


And I don't usually toss out my differing projects, but my wife and I have been very involved as of late in helping get the Irish Heritage Center of Greater Cincinnati up and running for their theater opening this weekend. If you've got a few minutes, take a look at the IHC website, follow them on Twitter, and even join the Facebook Group. Thanks!


And, finally, what language you tweeting?

According to Semiocast, which examined 2.8 million tweets over two days in February, 50% of all messages sent on Twitter are in English. Japanese, Portuguese, Malay, and Spanish follow English with 14%, 9%, 6%, and 4% of tweet share, respectively. Several other languages, including Arabic and Italian, make up the remaining 17% of non-English tweets.

Very interesting that Twitter is garnering an international following. I actually picked up on the Japanese aspect a month or two ago when looking for tweets having to do with Xbox 360 game Fallout 3 and was answered with almost solidly foreign language tweets. Which raises an interesting question: Related to video games, how do the percentages fall?


Yeah folks, sorry. That's all this week. If you're really hurting for celeb news on Twitter, feel free to comment. I might be persuaded to add a "Celeb box" to each weeks' Twitter blog post if I get some comments on the subject. Cheers!

Wednesday Twitter Headlines: Security, XLIV, Space, Teens

No! No celebrity news this week! Not one blip about Fall Out Boy or Lady Gaga. Not one!

Unsecured Twitter?

But this week Twitter did say: "I's been haxed!

"A red flag was first raised on Twitter's end when it noticed an abnormally high number of followers for certain accounts. This prompted the company to investigate and eventually reset the passwords for anyone following those suspicious accounts. Twitter noted that although torrent sites have been around a while, this is the first time it's seen an attack using this angle."

It was a custom-built, torrent site back door, password reset phishing scam. W00t! As always, Twitter kinda has it under control.


Beer! I Mean Super Bowl XLIV

And if you've been waiting with baited breath to see what's going on with tweeting and Super Bowl XLIV, your wait is over: Super Bowl XLIV Earns an Official Twitter Hashtag: #SB44. I'd give you a blockquote on this one but that's the whole story. Not that this is actually news. I went to a conference this past December where a half dozen of us tweeted the event. We had a hashtag too.

Note to media: A hashtag is not earned. You don't have to file with the IRS or anything. You just make it up, let people know, and start using it.


Um, Teens and, um, Twitter

And I also noticed an abnormally large number of stories covering the fact that teens still aren't showing Twitter the love that they show Facebook. Also, this is not news, just like it wasn't news last August when I talked about it.

Maybe I need to start a blog on Twitter headlines that aren't news.


Not Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

And this one's a little older than a week, but: Tweets From Spaaaaaaace!

NASA has set up an impressive wireless connection that provides astronauts on International Space Station with Internet access so they can surf the Web, e-mail their friends and family back home, and even send Twitter messages.

Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer started using the connection this morning by sending the first tweet originating from the space station.

Sweet. Question: Is a tweet that you're going to the bathroom more interesting if you're going in a suction-powered space toilet on the ISS?

Answer: Yeah!


So what did you learn from Twitter this week? I'm always happy to read your feeback!

Wednesday Twitter: Obama, Bill Gates, Terrorism, and Celebs!

OMG! CELEBS!

Every week: celebrity drama. Let's get it over with. Awww-dang. Bow Wow's mom's on Twitter and he's not happy. He tells her to get off or he will. Ooh! And Carolina Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart announced on this Twitter account that he will have surgery on his foot today. Woo! Oh, and someone conned Gordon Ramsey of Hell's Kitchen to take a course so he could start tweeting. I feel sorry for Ramsey's money.


Bill Gates

Wait, does this belong in celebs? Looks like Bill Gates joined Twitter. Ooh, and he even did "Hello World" as his initial tweet! How quaint! Why don't you start getting into Modest Mouse 3 years after their 5th studio release?


Obama on Twitter?

Don't get all excited. He posted on someone else's account:

Early this week, US President Barack Obama posted his first ever tweet on the website during a visit to the Red Cross Disaster Operations Centre in Washington, DC to engage in a little social networking asking people to help Haiti.

His tweet simply said – "President Obama and the First Lady are here visiting (the Red Cross) disaster operation centre right now".

But he did send a tweet, which is something when it comes to politicians and technology. (See: "It's a series of tubes!")


Twitter Slows Down

I'm not sure if the fact that a technology that has held so much hype for so long settles into reality is really a news story, but Twitter's Growth is Slowing.

HubSpot, a Cambridge, Mass.-based Web analytics company, said in its latest "State of the Twittersphere" report that the growth rate dropped to 3.5% in October compared to 13% just seven months earlier.

But it's still growing? Yep. Okay then, on to...


Twitter Terrorist!

If you're pissed at the state of air travel do you:

1. Deal with it like the rest of us.
2. Whine about it like the rest of us.
3. Threaten to blow up the airport.

The man in question tweeted "Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your sh** together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

(answer:3)

Okay, I can understand the frustration if you're stuck in -- wait, what's that you say? He was just hearing reports about airport delays on the telly a couple weeks before even entering that airport? And he tossed what might be construed as a terrorist threat into the aether of the internets and thought that would be OK?

Some people should not have access to technology.


But that's it folks! The end of another week of Twitter news and events and laughs. Are you surprised? Granted, I was feeling a little smarmy, but hey, that's how it turned out this week. I guess when Twitter news presents something serious, we get serious.

Let me know your best Twitter headlines. I'll take your comments into next week's blog post!

Twitter Wed: 2009 Trends, Chris Brown, Contributors, Games?

So in 2009 --

Beat Down n Quittin'

No, sorry, let's just get this over with. Chris Brown quit Twitter. He flipped out online at Walmart when he didn't see his album. It looked like this:

im not biting my tongue about [expletive] else… the industry can kiss my [expletive].
 … yeah i said it and i aint retracting [expletive]

Oh noes! Boo hoo! Perhaps beating the snot out of Rihanna wasn't the right publicity move.
</celebrityGossip>

So in 2009...

Twitter's main trending topics for the year have been released. People topping the list were Michael Jackson, Susan Boyle, Adam Lambert, Kobe, and that guy we already talked about above. In topics, Swine flu picked up two slots in the top ten thanks to the hash tag and Iran-related pulled three, including the #1 spot. Harry Potter beat out New Moon in movies (hehehe), "Super Bowl" took sports, and "Google Wave" took the tech category.

Twitter Contributors

Twitter's branching out to business appeal by testing a contributor feature where multiple users could be included under one corporate or business entity. They've had teams of bloggers on one blog for years now. Not entirely surprising it's coming to microblogging. But Mashable has some great screen shots to round out the experience.

In a completely unrelated yet equally unsurprising move, Facebook is prepping to allow public updates to go to Twitter. Um, Linkedin went dual wield over a month ago, Tweetdeck already hooks me into Facebook, Linkedin, and MySpace, and Ping.fm is the one ring to rule them all. Is this really news?

Game Killers - this was going to be bold until I realized it really just fit into the same category. Again, unsurprisingly, your favorite annoying genre of Facebook games is coming to you through Twitter. Great. Maybe now I can get Farmville from both sides. W00t!


So that's it for this week's headlines. What Twitter news have you heard? Let me know your fav's and I'll probably use them next week. Have a great day!

Twitter Headlines! MSFailWhale, Muppets, and Black Friday

Microsoft tried to hang with the cool kids again by promoting a #holidaywindows hashtsag and had those display in the window in Saks in NYC. Guess what? It backfired as it was jacked by Apple lovers. Or, as Microsoft puts it: Nuh-uh!


And every week: OMG sports drama and OMG celebrity drama!


And Twitter (and the world) is totally in love with the Muppets' Bohemian Rhapsody




And if you haven't heard already, Facebook and Twitter are being rolled out in full force for Black Friday. Here's an article to get you started.


Have a great Turkey Day and never forget to give thanks for all the wonder in your life!

Twitter Headlines Wednesday: Gaming, Lists, and CSRs

Okay folks, let's make this quick. I've got to get to my DVRs of Heroes (yeah, I'm still doing that), CSI: Miami, NCIS, and V.

Looks like the mass integration of every social media interface to every other social media interface is almost complete. I've got my Tweetdeck pushing to Twitter and Facebook, my Linkedin linked in to Tweeting, and my ping.fm as the one site to rule them all.

And along comes Microsoft and Sony. Facebook and Twitter for everyone! (Okay, so the PS3 still lacks Tweet capability but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.) My biggest question is: Who wants to pause a battle with a Big Sister (reference to forthcoming Bioshock 2 - yay!) to txt a tweet about how you're going to have to reload your last save file? Interesting integration, but not sure how well it'll be received.

Twitter's doing some things to refine the lists process. Biggest complaint I have on the lists bit is: You rolled this out when I had almost 1000 followers? Now I need to categorize them? Argh.

Here's something happy about how a company can use Twitter to make customer service that much better.

And on the side: some sports pros angered their coaches, everyone's goofy over "New Moon" (Read some Anne Rice!), and something about Lady Gaga. Or something.

Until Next week, hold on to your Tweets! (or let them go, and if they come back they love you; if they don't, it was never meant to be.)

Twitter News Roundup: TV Fame, Durgs, Linkedin, You're Fat!

Twitter to TV

Examiner reports that CBS has ordered a script for a domestic comedy based on the Twitter account Sh*t My Dad Says. I'm blocking out the curse words for propriety sake, but if you haven't visited the account and don't mind cursing, go there now. Start at the beginning. There are less than 75 tweets - and if a script based on 75 tweets tells you anything, it's hilarious. Enjoy gems like this:

Sometimes life leaves a hundred dollar bill on your dresser, and you don't realize until later that it's because it f***ed you.

Does anyone your age know how to comb their f***ing hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their head and started f***ing.

...and the rest will remain a wonderful surprise. Enjoy!

Point of this one? If you're clever enough, social media can vault you to popularity at a much higher level. That kid Fred on YouTube showed up on an episode of iCarly. Now a Twitter account with less than 75 tweets is deemed script-worthy. I'm waiting for the opening credits of a film to say "Based on a real Twitter Feed."


Durgs fur Eberybody!!

The drug industry is not complacent with magazines and ads on the teevee; they would like to have Adwords and Facebook and Twitter accounts too. And because they do not actually understand social media, they think that offers and information on pills will be of any value to any person's Twitter circle. Or we'd all join the Viagra Facebook fan page.

I believe they need a consultant. My contact information is on the right.


Twitter n Linkedin r Married!

Twitter's got some good things going with their integration with Linkedin. Turns out you can hit one and it populates the other's status. I hooked into Ping.fm this week and update 10+ statuses in one shot. So...meh.


Twitter-Equipped Bathroom Scale Tells the World How Much You Weigh

Kind of cool. But...why?


Yeah, I think that's about it for this week. Oh, and some celebs whined on Twitter and some coach got pissed about a player Tweeting disparaging remarks about his coaching, just like every week. But we're above that at this point.

Get into that first story. Hilarious.

Wednesday Twitter: Creepy, Driving Celebs on Pandora

Creepy Google Search turns out to be the same creepy Google search, just on social networks. Surprise, surprise!

Adam Lambert drama ensues with whining about his album cover. I didn't know the guy in Highlander was doing an album. Oh, that was Christopher Lambert? Nevermind.

Oh noes! It's Twitter. In traffic! Lots of whining on the Bay Bridge. Cheese vendors requested to add complimentary tastings to the whine.

Lost fans? William Atherton was trick-tweeted in the latest version of JJ's trickery. Dick? Anyone?

Finally, what we've all been waiting for, it's Pandora doing the Twitter (and FB) dance. Bring it.

Plenty of joy on Twitter this week. Love on it.

Wednesday Twitter: Meteor, Spies, Death!

Happy 5 Billionth!

Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday...wait. That's not right. Twitter hits 5 billion tweets - or 10,000 if you only include the intelligible and not-spam. Either way, congrats!


Orionid Meteor Shower

The shower peaks tonight! Best time is reportedly 1am wherever you are. "'That’s when the patch of Earth you are standing on is barreling headlong into space on Earth’s orbital track, and meteors get scooped up like bugs on a windshield,' said Robert Roy Britt on Space.com." And, of course, don't forget #meteorshower!


Spies Like Us

Well, they don't tweet but the CIA will read yours - and your blog! Surprised? You shouldn't be. From Carnivore and probably before to wiretaps, communications have been monitored in the US under the auspices of national security for ...well, as long as there have been communications, probably. And this stuff is public. I would venture to guess it's a waste of money to filter what has now become 5B tweets, but our government has always been good at that.


Oh Noes! Celebs! Not Again!

Someone was all "RIP Kanye West" and BLAMMO it was like everywhere on Twitter and then DaRealAmberRose was all "Its in extreme poor taste to have that as a trendy topic. It's totally disrespectful to make up a story like this where all human" so I guess Kanye ain't dead. Or its trendy human where or something.

Meghan McCain wasn't really a celeb until she decided to post a "spontaneous" twitpic of her cleavage ...and an Andy Warhol biography. Crazy? You bet! But not as hot as this week when Pink decided to let her 600K (!) followers suggest what she dress up for for Halloween. Yowza! I don't know what's nuttier: Pink's dilemma or that someone writing for MTV still thinks Octomom is "topical."


*sigh* Does everything eventually become E!?

Wednesday Twitter: Celebs, Celebs, Celebs

I found so much drab news about Twitter this week, I thought I'd poke a little fun at the vapid foolishness that is celebrity Twitter simply by posting the information; no other clarification is needed.

Elizabeth Taylor announced this week via Twitter that she's going in for a heart operation. Miley Cyrus quit and deleted her Twitter account, leaving 1.1 million followers partying in the USA without her. A waiter in LA got fired for Tweeting about celebs and whining about waiting tables. Waaahaa! Drew Carey will donate $100,000 to the Armstrong Foundation to claim @drew Twitter name if he gets 100K followers by Nov 9th. Okay, that's not so vapid. Follow @DrewFromTV.

And that's the condensed soup version of this week's Twitter headlines. I'm looking forward to something a little more compelling come next Wednesday.

Wednesday Twitter: Jaclyn Not-Dead, Sports Again, Myspace?, and AP Ignorance

Not surprisingly, these bits of love I gather that bring Twitter into the headlines are generally gathered on Wednesday to be as timely as possible. The problem with that is that Twitter and news headlines are juxtaposed so ubiquitously that this post rarely spans more than two days of time.

In the future I promise to check a couple times a week to guarantee you're getting the cream of the Twitter crop when it comes to news once a week.

And starting today, the link to the article will simply be the subheader which will always double as the copy for the headline of the article. No reason to get all complicated.

Jaclyn Smith announces she is not dead on Twitter

Wow, that's funny that she had to... um, who?

Just kidding. Kind of.

Jaclyn was the victim of [Celebrity below serious fandom] was in [foreign country] and died when [an accident befell them]. Recently happened to Jeff Goldblum.

She put down the rumor with one tweet: "Jaclyn is safe and home with her family. She is not in Honduras. It is a lie."

Lesson? People, please verify things. You're like a nation of my aunt forwarding emails that Bill Gates is going to give you money with your RT buttons. Yes. That bad.


Redskins & Twitter

Fans booed Redskins' Coach Zorn. Rookie linebacker Robert Henson sends tweet "saying that the booing fans were dimwits. Henson also wrote: 'Who are you to say you know what’s best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at McDonalds.'"

Boo hoo. The Sports-coach-player-Twitter meme was tired weeks ago: Player tweets something, rules are undefined, drama ensues. They need to make a policy and assign fines and be done with it. So unless we have crime or espionage in that loop, this'll be my last sports related Twitter reporting.


MySpace Expands Twitter Syncing To Six New Countries

MySpace is allowing you to synch your Twitter 2 ways with your MySpace account. While I do still appreciate MySpace for my indie music fix, this innovation is tantamount to announcing that the VCR can make toast. "What MySpace won't tell me is how many total users have synchronized their accounts so far." I'm sure it is a closely-guarded and heart-wrenching number.

MySpace still has its place and still does a couple things quite well, but is, well, like talking about Jaclyn Smith at the Oscars.


Actual people physically gather to talk Twitter

This inept platitude of a headline may be witty in circles that know next to nothing about Twitter, but a solid case in point for news organizations having someone who knows what the heck is going on in social media. The blurb is talking about the Twitter conference in LA.

One of the things I have been evangelizing about over the past several months has been social media - including Twitter - being the bounce-off point of real, human interaction. We are currently living in a society and job market where a presence online is not enough. Social media is not enough. If you want the job, if you want the contact, if you want the contract, you show up and put yourself out there, and Tweetups are nothing new. Commerce is decentralizing and you need to be the expert in your field and the face and the brand and the salesperson. All in one.

Twitter and meeting is no longer new; it is necessary.

And the AP headline about the Twitter summit (which in and of itself appears to be more hip than practical) was, plainly, ignorant.

Wednesday Twitter: Leavitt Leaves It, AIM 2-Ways, and Anthem BCBS?

Leavitt Leaves It

I'm surprised every week at the flurry of news having to do with how sports and Twitter are intermingling (and often fighting). This week has South Florida's Jim Leavitt quitting Twitter:

Leavitt has decided to quit in part because he found out a few of his players were tweeting on the way to and even in the locker room before Saturday's game against Wofford. Carlton Mitchell was updating his Twitter feed during the rain delay before kickoff.

"It just seems like something they probably shouldn't do," Leavitt told the Times. "I'm not going to use Twitter anymore. ... If I'm going to ask my players not to probably do it during that time, I'm just going to stop. My twittering days are over. .. .That's it for me, and hopefully it is at certain times for other players. We'll see."

Again, we're dealing with the advance warning, the threat that someone might let someone slip. And as I've said before, restrictions like that are in place because not every Twitter user is the brightest bulb in the bunch. Honestly, I'm mildly surprised that there hasn't been a college or professional sports team that's made the news because of a firing based on dumping extra-secret information at a very wrong time.

While it may be unfortunate for fans and a little extreme in my view, Leavitt is at least walking the walk well before he talks the talk to his team.


AIM on the 2-Way, and I Don't Mean Cincinnati Chili and Noodles

I can't say that this is huge news, but as someone who has been a Trillian addict for years now, I'm a little detached from what each IM client has been doing individually. Here's the skinny: in July, AIM upgraded their service to include Twitter and Facebook feeds. The rub? You could only read the feed, not update through the interface. Why anyone would release a service at half o'clock is beyond me. But they did go ahead and implement that pesky extra stuff everyone was asking for a week or two ago. And now you can update Twitter and Facebook through AIM.

As I may have already mentioned: just get Trillian.


BCBS FAIL

To avoid confusion, please allow me to begin by stating that the annotative context of the article lies here:

Currently, Anthem is piloting a program in which it uses Twitter to identify members who may have questions or concerns about their health benefits. Twitter allows Anthem to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, real time conversation, and respond to each tweet about Anthem. Members can follow Anthem on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AnthemHealth.

Okay, that's a notable item. Additionally, they have a Facebook fan page to implement discussions and a YouTube channel to ...channel their expertise and advice.

The Twitter and Facebook pieces make me somewhat nervous when talking about health care. I'm guessing that ABCBS has some generally knowledgeable folks in charge of owning their conversation online (though you may question that after the next paragraph), but there are a bevvy of folks on both Twitter and Facebook that do not understand either how to use the services or how visible their personal use can be. And then one angry woman does an @AnthemHealth Tweet about why they won't pick up the cost of [enter embarrassing personal surgery here] and wonders why her tweet is on a dozen schadenfreude websites and people have stopped following her.

Oh, don't change that channel! We've got one more level!

Because this if from Reuters we can assume it is a published news release - verbatim - from Anthem ("SOURCE Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Wisconsin"). And that's where the connotative nature of this article reveals itself.

Not just for teens anymore - social networking and media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are being used by adults to interact with their friends, families and to gain information.

I know. It's like listening to your mother karaoke "Baby Got Back." The most recent research on Twitter showed teens are much more a minority user than previously assumed. But even at that level of media ignorance, language assuming Twitter as EVAR a huge teen/tween phenomenon pushes past a n00b label to "You do not now - nor have you ever - understood what this is about. Please stop embarrassing yourself, leave, and self-educate."

Wait. More?

Anthem is also launching a brand channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/AnthemHealthConnects) to create a vital and viral community around health and wellness.

Oh, and your uncle dials up "I Will Survive." Just because you have a YouTube channel does not mean that you are doing anything viral. Yes, YouTube videos can go viral, but it is generally because it is something nasty, sick, painful, heroic, incredibly annoying, or unbelievable. I'm guessing Anthem's professional and informational outlook would prevent them from anything that had the potential of going viral.

My biggest hope about this article is that it was not written with the advice or input of the team that is heading up this social media expansion, and that the author just doesn't get it (not that that says much for their collaborative organization). If not, then Anthem might want to brace for a very serious Epic Fail.

Wednesday Twitter: Tennis Balk, Emergency Use, Surgery Window

Roddick Tweets Back

From the NYT:

It did not take long for Andy Roddick to respond to rules posted by the Tennis Integrity Unit regarding players’ use of Twitter during the United States Open. His vehicle? Twitter, of course.

“I think its lame the U.S. Open is trying to regulate our tweeting,” he wrote Friday night. “I understand the on-court issue but not sure they can tell us if we can’t do it on our own time … we’ll see.”

Another sports figure being Tweet-blocked by the governing body of the sport. It's only a matter of time before every sport has some written policy about Twitter and social media. He goes on to state that you'd "have to be a moron to send ‘inside info’ through a tweet." But that's the problem and reason in and of itself: rules and guidelines like that are in place to rope in the lowest common brainpan.

But I can also understand where Roddick is coming from. Especially in tennis, every player is a free agent and you're as valuable as two things: your record and your PR campaign. For anyone with an agent worth their salt, they recognize that Twitter is a part of the popularity package and limiting it could literally hit in the wallet.


Tweet in Case of Emergency

The Safe America Foundation:

a national safety group working with the U.S. government, announced yesterday that text messaging, social networking sites, and Twitter could help families stay in touch in the wake of a disaster. Although Twitter hasn't always been known for its stability, in emergency situations when phone lines and other traditional communication avenues are down, social networking sites like it and others could turn into reliable backup methods for reaching loved ones.

While I wouldn't necessarily rely on Twitter alone, it is an interesting idea to - extrapolated - keep in touch during a disaster by using various social media. GMail went down earlier this week. Where was the confirmation? Twitter.

Unfortunately, all of my forms of communication rely on 3 things: landline, cell signal, and electricity. Electricity going out (and it seems the most fragile) knocks out the router, therefore any access to the internet. Cell signal and data package would still allow for internet access and phone calls, but with no internet at home, most of those channels would be packed, leaving the most reliable communication to the tiny SMS packets that can pop through much more easily. If that goes down? I may be one of the only people in my family that has both a corded phone (no electric dependency) and an active land line, but I'd be calling people without corded phones or through the clogged cell network.

Good advice to expand resources, but how realistic is it, really?


A Window Into the Surgical Process

This was a heartfelt story of one of the hundreds/thousands of ways Twitter can be used, from the AP:

[Monna Cleary] underwent a hysterectomy and uterine prolapse surgery, had given her OK for hospital spokeswoman Sarah Corizzo to post a play-by-play of the operation on Twitter, a social-networking site that lets users send out snippets of information up to 140 characters long using cell phones or computers.

Corizzo sent more than 300 tweets over more than three hours from a computer just outside the operating room's sterile field. Nearly 700 people followed them. Eight tweeted questions to Corizzo about the procedure and a Cleary family member commented on how fascinating it was to follow the surgery.

When the haters sneer at you and say "Yeah, but what's it good for?" you can link them to this article.

Wednesday Twitter Headlines: Golden Ratio?, Ted Kennedy, No Teen Twitter for Privacy?

Twitter's Golden Ratio

The Washington Post has an article called Twitter's Golden Ratio in which they begin:

If you're new to Twitter, life is easy. A notification comes in that someone is following you, and you probably follow them back. After all, you're going to want some tweets in your stream. After a couple dozen of those, you may start using more discretion, looking over the person's profile and their most recent tweets. But that gets old quickly as well, and inevitably you turn to using the secret ratio that nearly everyone knows (whether they realize it or not) to determine who is worth following back: "Followers" versus "following".

It's cute and endearing from the point of someone who actually manages their follower list. They may have nailed one item or two, but if you've read my post on 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You Back on Twitter, it's a moot point.

There are at least 10 (and probably 20-30) reasons why any one person will not follow another on Twitter if they are deliberately trying to increase the value of what they see daily on their stream. And a golden ratio is not a be-all, end-all of any sort.

It is nice to see the mainstream media taking notice - and a shot at understanding - for those of us in it every day.


Ted Kennedy

Whatever your politics, we lost an amazing statesman early this morning. Check out this article to see some of the comments.

Sorry, but they're also novices and apparently no one thought to use a hashtag.

R.I.P. Ted Kennedy. You will be missed.


Teens Shunning Twitter

This article from PC World talks about how teens would rather text than tweet. That can make sense. Until you see this bit:

So why aren’t the kids down with Twitter? Perhaps because they don’t want the authority figures in their lives — parents, teachers, and other downers — knowing what they’re up to. Texting, by comparison, is an inherently private conversation between friends. It’s the wireless equivalent of passing notes.

First problem: no one's been "down" with much since '03.

Second problem: Accepting the "they don't want authority figures in their lives" argument completely side-steps any of these so-called "private" teens' complete embracing of Facebook.

Facebook updates and comments are an enormous, thorough view of what those teens are doing. No Twitter? So? They're pushing more of their lives via updates and comments and photos and tagging photos via Facebook with less effort and software or interfaces than they'd be able to with Twitter.

To say they're eschewing Twitter because they're into privacy is a fanciful, ignorant romp into social media. NYT may not know better, but I'd expect PC World to have a better finger on the pulse of what the hell's going on in social media.


You turn! What do you think about these stories? Does the Washington Post have a finger on the pulse of Twitter behavior? Is Tweeting TK's death okay? Does the NYT or PC World have any idea about what's going on in social media?

As always, comments appreciated.

Wednesday Twitter News: Western Wall, Stable Tweets, and NBA vs. Twitter and Law

It's time for the Twitter headlines of the week. Yay!

Western Wall
You can now Tweet your prayers to the Western Wall.

Economics student Alon Nil delivers Twitter prayer messages to the Western Wall, which was part of the Jewish Second Temple of Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. At this sacred spot, people from around the world stuff prayers written on pieces of paper into the cracks of the wall.

Check out the tutorial here.

Stable Twitter?
Don't we all wish for it?. Between the recent DDOS and the apparent scalability, it's a lingering issue. Thoughts?

Knicks' Nate Robinson
Story reads as such:

Nate Robinson hasn't been able to get signed in New York since becoming a free agent this off-season, but Tuesday he was able to get booked up in The Bronx, charged with driving with a suspended license. Cops say they pulled Robinson over for not having his seat belt on while driving down the Grand Concourse in Bedford Park, but the Knicks' two-time dunk contest champion tweeted, "Cops pulled me over cuz my windows were 2 dark (but my windows were down) lol how funny is that." Doesn't an NBA star get tinted windows specifically for 95 degree days driving down the Grand Concourse? In any case, cops discovered that Robinson's license had been suspended in June for the fifth time after a series of infractions around the area including traffic violations, speeding, driving without his seat belt on and for driving while talking on a cell phone.

And I can only hope most people - worldwide - have a better sense in them.

But then I'd be denied some of this weekly entertainment.