But is Twitter Useful?
May 8, 2008
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One of the people that Gorgeous and I connected with in Chicago this past weekend was Christine Kane. It probably didn’t hurt that the three of us were all seated in close proximity to a very wild and obnoxious three year old on the same flight into Chicago. That got diverted to Columbus for more fuel after holding too long for bad weather.
But that’s a story for another time.
I also had the pleasure of sitting at the same table as Christine at the conference. As speakers like Chris Brogan, Liz Strauss, and Terry Starbucker were talking about the people in the room who were using Twitter to communicate with one another (and with folks half a world away) during the conference, Christine would ask the rest of us questions on the side.
They ranged from the basic to the technical, for example…
- What’s the point? to interact with others
- Why would you bother? because I like people
- Can everyone see what I tweet @ someone? Oh, yeah
- How does the direct message thing work? “d your_friends_twittername” and they’ll get a private message
Going for a Soak
March 20, 2008
Gorgeous and I are taking a much needed break this weekend. Tomorrow is our 10th anniversary!
So we decided to make it special. We’re heading to Colorado to spend some time in the mountains. That will be a big change for us living here in Savannah. They call the area around here the Low Country because it is mostly tidal marshlands.
No mountains within almost a day’s drive of here.
Compare that to where we’re going:
We’ll have mountains all around us. Not much flat there at all, really.
Web Cams & Twitter
Gorgeous picked the place we’re going because they have huge hot spring fed swimming pool that stays 90 degrees year round. We plan to spend lots of time there so you just might catch us on their web cam this weekend.
I plan to keep up with my Bed Head photos and finish out the series from on the road.
However the best way to track us will be to follow me on Twitter. I’ll be posting updates throughout the weekend from my cell phone.
When we get back next week I’ll be thoroughly soaked, refreshed, and ready to hit the ground running. There is so much to do and I’m looking forward to what all the weeks ahead have for us.
We’ll catch you on the back side.
Enjoy!
Top 9 Reasons I’m Not Following You on Twitter
March 11, 2008
I’ve been using Twitter for just over a year now. My first Twitter day started on March 9th 2007. I quickly found that Twitter is addictive but I have stuck with it just the same.
Over the past year I’ve tweeted a little over 4100 times and accumulated 500+ followers. These aren’t overly impressive numbers especially when compared with someone like Robert Scoble, for example.
But how do you decide which Twitter accounts you choose to follow?
Chris Garrett asked his readers this question. The poll results are telling. Be interesting and people will follow you.
Chris is encouraging his readers to follow him on Twitter right now with a series of give aways that are only available to his Twitter follower list. But I noticed that even though he’s actively recruiting more Twitter followers he only reciprocates on a percentage of those following him. (He’s also got this snazzy “follow me on Twitter” badge on the side bar of his blog.) Read more
Networking to Promote Your Blog
July 17, 2007
One of the facets of blogging that doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves is the networking aspect. Networking is a huge part of promoting your blog.
Successful bloggers read other blogs they are interested in, especially those in their same niche, and actively comment adding value to those blogs.
Many are also active on various other social media type web sites that are relationship oriented and make new connections there as a result. Two of my personal favorites are Facebook and Twitter.
Often conversations that started in a comment box, or on one of the other sites spill over into emails with different folks.
Or maybe it might even lead to a phone conversation like it did the other night when Chris Brogan Twittered his cell phone number and asked who wanted to give him a shout. I called his number and chatted with Chris for a few minutes.
And now I have a friend and professional contact in the Boston area that I doubt I’d have met without blogging.
Promoting your blog takes time, sure. But that time will equate to new contacts that your business could never make via traditional marketing approaches.
Is it worth it? I sure think so.
Business Blogging Success Story - Selling a Dog of a Movie to Hollywood
June 23, 2007
Gorgeous and I both like Sci-Fi. Our Tivo is set to record the Sci-Fi channel’s Friday night line up of Doctor Who, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica when they are in season.
Have been for years.
So when I got the usual monthly (or so) email from Twitter that had a blurb saying Dave Hewlett twitters, I went to check it out right away.
Who is Dave Hewlett?
He’s the actor who plays the geeky scientist Dr. Rodney McKay on Stargate Atlantis. If you are at all into sci-fi you’ll know the character type.
It’s sort of an “I know I’m a genius and this particular problem is way bigger than any mortal could reasonably expect to figure out if they had years to work on it but I know we’ve only got a few hours before we all die if I don’t get it worked out so I’ll do my best but don’t expect much and it’s been nice knowing you” kind of thing.
And he always gets it done. In his doom-and-gloom, negative, man this is really bad style.
He’s one of those characters I can relate to. 
Read more
Momentary Flashes of Twitter Brilliance
March 23, 2007
Twitter is all the rage these days. Several big blogging names are fully on board tweeting away. And a few others have not embraced the idea. The die hard Twitter converts would probably add a “yet” at the end of that last sentence. We’ll see.
Fortunately for me their IM connectivity is still not working, at least with GoogleTalk, which has been good for me from a productivity standpoint because I’m not all up in the madness non-stop throughout the day.
Most of what goes on there is only of passing interest to me. And I see an interesting principle that seems to be in play over there. I’m open to other names, but for now let’s call it
-
The Cree Principle of Twitterization
Your Twitter posting frequency will be directly proportional to the length of your friends list.
It seems those folks on my friends list who have hundreds of friends (and huge followings) tend to be the heaviest Twitters. And that makes it easy for me. I can just check in a couple times a day, skim through, glean the interesting stuff and disregard the rest.
A Moment of Brilliance
Frittering Time Away all a-Titter with the Twitter Jitters
March 17, 2007
Warning: If even think you might have a hint of an addictive personality you’re going to want to skip this post. Just come on back tomorrow when we are talking about something safer for you. I don’t want to be the one who leads you astray.
I’m serious. If that’s you don’t read this.
Unless you’ve been shipwrecked on some remote island lately you’ve probably heard all the buzz going around about the hottest new thing since YouTube came down the pike.
Positioned precisely at the intersection of where narcissism meets voyeurism, Twitter has become the latest web rage. Their self proclaimed mission is to be A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?
The idea is that folks type in a little blurb of 140 characters or less telling the world what they are doing at the moment. Oh. And it is expected that other people will read those blurbs.
If you are anything like me, when you hear that for the first time you thought, “Well that’s just stupid. I’ve got too much to do already without managing chronic world wide updates about on the subject.” Read more
