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 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.

Twitter: Down, Showers, Babies, and the 360

More Twitter News!

Down Again
Twitter was down again for about 30 minutes today. Bad Twitter. Bad.

Seriously, why Twitter? Why the DDOS? Iran? China? Nasty.


Golden [Meteor] Showers
Woohoo! Showers!

The Newbury Astronomical Society in the United Kingdom held a "Twitter Meteorwatch" party with thousands of stargazers from around the world Tweeting live pictures of the celebrated annual meteor shower.

Even geeks can appear normal once a year.

Tweeting Babies
Wife of Twitter CEO tweets birth.

I mean, well, yeah, what else would you do during the birthing of your child?

Seriously.

I'd probably have done the same thing. If I was a woman. And having a baby. And married to the guy that invented Twitter.

Being none of those things, I have no words.


XBox360 & Twitter?
XBox 360 is looking at including Twitter into the set based on some news on the new upgrade.

Just a rumor at this point, but how would you feel if Twitter showed up as an option in your Xbox360 experience? I don't know that it would integrate very well. I play games occasionally and know there's a keyboard component you can purchase for the controller, but - how exactly would that work?

What are your thoughts?

Tech: Electricity is Cool

Here's a great video on a group working with Tesla Coils. Cool and frightening.