Posts in "Twitter"

There's a great new Twitter service called Tweet Clouds, that will make a word cloud out of your Twitter timeline.  Here's mine: It's neat to see which words jump out. Some are obvious (iTweet, iPhone) but I am surprised at the weight of a couple words ("new" is one of the biggest words, I don't know what that's all about).  It also shows the people that I converse with the most and that's kind of cool to see. I also like that "love" and "lt3" are right next to each other - "lt3" being how Tweet Clouds reads "less-than-three" <3 hearts. This is an inventive and useful way of analyzing the content of your Twitter posts.  Kudos to John Krutsch for the scripting and Jared Stein for the design. You can see my full-size Tweet Cloud here. You can follow my Twitter updates here, my Twitter handle is @colbypalmer.

Tags: twitter, tweetcloud, colbypalmer

Internal mechanisms began making adjustments. Muscle relaxants, serotonin. What to calm her mind? Focus...her son, where had they taken him?

This was my 140-character contribution to Twittory #1, "The Darkness Inside".  This is a Twitter-based Exquisite Corpse story written in 140 sentences of 140 characters or less (this is the amount of space allotted to a tweet). Fun idea! The story so far has elements of mystery, action, science fiction, humor and romance.  Also blood, swearing, kissing, treachery, and time travel.  And Lou Reed. Twittories are a production of The Podcast Network, and the game was begun by Cameron Reilly of the "G'Day World" podcast. My sentence is number 54, which I entered sometime around December 22. Right now the game is up to number 86...so check back in March or April to read the final product!

Tags: twitter, twittories, twittory, writing, exquisitecorpse

Firefighters, models in flaming pasties and blowtorch antlers, hot contortionists, and geisha stiltwalkers all gathered for a fire-themed fashion show at The Crucible in Oakland. Xeni was there, and brings back this report.

My friend Megan Murray was interviewed (as Peekaboo VonStilt) by Xeni Jardin for BoingBoing TV! Her stilt walking troupe, the VonStilt Family, have been entertaining the masses for a while now and they deserve some attention. Go BoingBoing! This "Hot Couture" fire and fashion show at The Crucible in Oakland looks like it was amazing. I was not able to go and it looks like I really missed out! Click here to watch the original on boingboing. There are also some great pictures here on Flickr. Leave comments on this blog, or let's talk on Twitter or Facebook.

Twitter just introduced a new method of "tracking" keywords - enter "track keyword" in SMS or IM and you will receive notifications whenever someone uses that keyword in a tweet. Right now it's only available via IM or SMS notifications, but they say it will eventually come to the API etc. I've been using it for a couple days and I think it's a very cool addition. I've also been very interested in Chris Messina's suggestions for using #hashmark tag channels similar to what you can find in Jaiku (and IRC I think). The "tracking" feature provides a similar service but they are slightly different and I can see a great reason for both to exist. Here is my take on the difference between the two:

Twitter Tracking:

• involuntary
• results are broader and less contextual
• great for customer service, marketing, vanity
• automatically removes anonymity (can't opt out of tracking searches)
• no "on-board" archiving
• present tense only (cannot track past tweets)

#Hashtags:

• voluntary
• items are intentionally tagged so results are higher quality
• great for networking, community, research
• anonymity is removed by knowing participation
• creates public archive
• can search Twitterstream into the past

While Twitter's new tracking feature is very cool...

My use of Twitter has changed over time, as has my enjoyment of it. I had idly been making some notes about it, inspired by a thoughtful post from A Bite Of Sanity, and then today a Twitter question from Chris Brogan made me decide to post it. Examples here are real tweets from my timeline: 1. Newbie - figuring out if it's OK to jump in and follow people I don't know. Will they yell at me? 2. Stalker - You mean I can hear what John Gruber and Eric Meyer are saying? And I don't have to come up with something intelligent to say back? Sweet! In this stage I didn't make many tweets, just followed a ton of people and watched the tweets roll by. 3. Shy Kid At The Party - making awkward observational statements, hoping someone will start a conversation. It didn't work, as I wasn't really offering much of real value. Example: "Going to see Spiderman 3" 4. Self-Promoter - talking endlessly about the projects I'm working on, attempt at self-marketing I guess ... But this doesn't invite 2-way communication, and it didn't improve my Twitter experience at all. Example: "Back to...