The Twitties
I realise this following post about Twitter should only be 140 characters long, but you know me better than that by now surely?
In case you are unaware of Twitter, it's a micro blogging service that allows you to wax lyrical and extemporise on any subject you like all in the confines of the magic 140 characters.
It's a challenge and a half to sum up life, love, the universe and your nightmare boss in such a pithy fashion. But it's something that is being recognised by a consulting firm in Philadelphia which has decided to honour the best Twitterers and Tweets with an award competition called The Twitties.
Charlie Chambers of iFractal told me that "We saw so many neat things here in the office and how creative people had been with it that we just thought this would be a fun thing to do."
To that end Charlie and his cohorts have a created a dozen categories from Flirty Tweets to Best Breaking News and from Best Avatar to Funniest Tweets. He admitted beer might have helped in the creative process in coming up with the different groups.
In regards to Twitter's technical problems over the last few months with the service more or less conking out, the issue is covered in the Best Putdown category which includes this entry from killregrets who tweeted "twitter: 60% of the time it works every time."
Ouch!
So what are the glorious prizes on offer? A luxury cruise? Furs? Jewelry? Loadsa money? No that would all be so crass wouldn't it? Charlie told me he hopes the Twitties will simply make people famous. At least within the Twitter community.
He admitted they did think about offering prize money of $140 but when they started to add it all up, they nixed that idea as simply too expensive.
Over at Twitter HQ, co-founder Biz Stone told me he was "flattered by the idea of the awards" and has himself in the past thought "it would be great to make a fuss about a particular tweet." He even offered to throw some T-shirts in for prizes.
Voting is open until the 12th of September and the winners will be announced online on the 1st of October.
My favourite so far is from tj in the Straightman Tweet category. Tj tweeted "I told him about a problem. He said he'd "throw some bodies at it." He's a mortician. The problem was a sinkhole. I'm trying not to worry."
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~00~RS~)
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Twitter is a great tool but does have it's issues! Over the last month or so it has been much more stable. Some great tools are available to search within Twitter such as www.summize.com, I have written about twitter a number of times here http://www.socialmediamonitoring.co.uk/tag/twitter/
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Twitter has acquired summize and is now twitter search.
Twitter is far more flawed than a few months ago now that mobile updates are dead and there is a steady increase of spam. I'm not exactly sure what can be done to combat it.
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The Church of Scotland's National Youth Assembly used Twitter over the weekend's event and yesterday NYA2008 was top of the trending list of the whole of Twitter!
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twitter: 60% of the time it works every time.
Is a direct quote from Anchorman.
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Twitter is a very good tool for breaking news... take for example the fan attacking Noel Gallagher news story. I first heard of it through a twitter at http://twitter.com/musicvice, this more than a few hours before I could find a story on it on the BBC.
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Rick Sanchez at CNN is using Twitter during his news cast. What a great way to get viewer feedback and ask pointed questions of your viewers in real time. Is the BBC doing this yet?
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