Unlikely Words » twitter

LOL

aaron cohen — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:52:21 +0000

Square is hiring all the best Silicon Valley talent, not Twitter, Zynga, or Facebook. This is good because I hope they put the companies that manage credit card transactions out of business. I actually did laugh out loud at the reaction.

Our recruiter does not give Square perfect grades for its recruiting, however. She insists the company is making a big mistake hiring so many Ruby on Rails developers, who tend to be 'hipsters with neckbeards.' We asked a source close to Square for his reaction to this concern, and he said, 'LOL.'

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A collection of Red Sox related Tweets I liked on the occasion of their season being over

aaron cohen — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:08:59 +0000

The Red Sox have had a pretty up and down season. I'm still not sure what to say about it, but there's humor in pain. Especially other people are making fun of my pain. Anyway, I thought these Tweets were good.

@fivethirtyeight

@jazayerli

@joekinsella

@mickshaffer

@petersagal

Via Stellar

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Just saw a woman

aaron cohen — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:11:02 +0000

What does Adam Lisagor call these Twitter stream coincidences? That they can happen is fascinating to me.

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Jack Dorsey profile

aaron cohen — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 02:43:15 +0000

In this Vanity Fair profile of Twitter/Square founder Jack Dorsey, he's described as extremely focused ("Dorsey is unusually good at staying focused"), but then it also describes the year he spent learning botanical illustration, the year he spent becoming certified in massage therapy, his interest in fashion design, and his long time interest in transportation logistics. It seems kind of contradictory to me, but really what's being described is the ability to focus intensely on what's interesting at the moment. Not a bad thing, just different than extreme focus.

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Chuck Klosterman’s travel trouble

aaron cohen — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:56:46 +0000

Like much of the east coast, Chuck Klosterman's travel plans appear to have been impacted by yesterday's weather. He documented his path through the several stages of traveler grief on Twitter, and then he stopped. Either his flight left, he ran out of batteries, or something more nefarious happened. In any case, enjoy.

-If I am allowed on this flight, I will become a better person. I will change. I will do whatever it takes. 6 hours ago
-Nothing is off the table. 6 hours ago
-I feel like I have entered a new level of desire. Things are clear now. I will give up everything for one thing. 4 hours ago
-If you (a.) need a kidney and (b.) control runway traffic at JFK, I'm ready to negotiate. #NotAHighQualityKidneyToBeHonest 3 hours ago
-How many people in this airport would kill a stranger with a hammer in exchange for air travel? #EveryoneExceptMaybeMyWife 3 hours ago
-A woman in the terminal is trying to stretch her legs by goose-stepping. The guy next to me is talking about Douglas Adams like he's alive. 3 hours ago
-"My mother is optimistic about this flight," says the goose-stepper. "That's better than nothing." #ActuallyIt'sTheSame 3 hours ago
-Maybe I should start wearing a sweater around my shoulders. I've probably been living wrong. This is my fault. 2 hours ago
-None of these people with sweaters around their shoulders seem upset. It's like they understand the big picture, you know? They get it. 2 hours ago
-FYI: They don't sell SARS masks in Huson News. 2 hours ago
-Whatever happened to SARS? That used to be so hot. 2 hours ago
-"My brother went to Simon's Rock," says the redhead sitting across from me. "He said, 'Never go there. It's a fishbowl.' That was his take." 2 hours ago
-Oh my God. The guy at the gate just got a phone call. Oh my God. What does this mean? What does this mean? Why isn't he reacting? 2 hours ago
-WHY IS HE NOT REACTING? This dude is the Robert Parrish of Delta employees. React! React! YOU ARE ALIVE, MAN. 1 hour ago

This seems like as good a place as any to continue the Chuck Klosterman blog project Chuck Klosterman Chuck Klosterman Blog Project.
-Klosterman recently started selling his essays for $0.99 a pop. People keep predicting this is the future of essay writing/magazine articles, but I think it's going to take a second to catch on. If there's a good delivery system, though, all bets are off.

-Back in September, he had 5 ideas to make the NFL better. I agree with all of them.

Lastly, How Modern Life Is Like a Zombie Onslaught, which makes some good points about the Twilight series.

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Twitter as Information Network

aaron cohen — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 17:39:53 +0000

Mike Champion with a really smart look at the problem of Twitter as "information network". Basically, it's difficult to find Twitter accounts that Tweet only about subjects that interest you, which then creates a lot of noise. I think this might be one reason celebrities and brands are so popular; people are more inclined to find the non-basketball related musings of their favorite basketball player interesting because it's their favorite basketball player! Mike uses the example of being less interested in the non-Ruby related musings of Ruby hackers... Until Twitter makes it more possible to follow interests, rather than accounts, it'll face this challenge.

Twitter is increasingly being described as an "information network" rather than a social network or "fun-like-ice-cream" novelty. That seems accurate, but the challenge is that Twitter is currently designed like a social network. Even with its innovative asymmetrical following relationships what you follow on Twitter are accounts [1] not "interests". As a result, it is difficult to consume information effectively and to tweet for disparate audiences.

PS Congrats on the baby, Mike and Sam.

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It’s hard to get people to do stuff on the internet

aaron cohen — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:35:05 +0000

On this year's World AIDS Day, several celebrities "died" or gave up Twitter in an effort to raise $1 million dollars (at which point they could begin Tweeting again) as The Daily What points out, they didn't do so hot raising only $104K (up to $184K now).

The most notable thing to emerge from this experiment is how, in the span of 24 hours, with millions upon millions of followers among them, these celebs were only able to collect about as much money as one of them makes in a minute.

Hey famous people, here’s an idea: Instead of using your limelight to shuck cash off common Internet folk, maybe you pull out your gilded checkbooks and donate the million dollars out of those fortunes happenstance so graciously awarded you.

This is a good example of what Anil Dash wrote about in January, the number of Twitter followers doesn't really matter if they're not engaged. It's incredibly difficult to get people to do things on the internet, and it's not surprising Kim Kardashian's 5.4 million followers didn't bring her Twitter account back to life. Elijah Wood gets a pass because he only has 8K followers.

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A New Use for Twitter

aaron cohen — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:09:34 +0000

I'm not sure this is what Biz and Ev had in mind. Last week Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff live-blogged the execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner's with 3 Tweets. Seems like Shurtleff is responding to criticism by digging in further. His latest Tweet? "Astonishing that no retweet whiner express outrage that Gardner shot 2 men in the face, & a cop; nor one word of empathy for their families."

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Twitter Bios Longer Than 160 Characters

aaron cohen — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:10:01 +0000

Have you seen Twitter accounts with bios longer than 160 characters? I got followed by a Twitter account for Vapiano Boston and was surprised to see that they had a bio much longer than the typical limit of 160 characters. I saw this a couple weeks ago and didn't think about it past noticing it. This time I wanted to figure out what they were doing. It doesn't seem like anyone else has noticed though, because while I found a blog post on the topic yesterday (which for some reason I can't find today), I couldn't find anyone else talking about it. The post I found suggested these longer bios might be for premium accounts, but does a chain restaurant seem like the type of account Twitter would beta this with?

Anyone know anything about this?

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Shark Attack Recorded on Twitter

aaron cohen — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 18:26:07 +0000

Not even Twitter is safe from word of great white shark attack. This has been in my drafts folder for a couple months...

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Google and Twitter Idea

aaron cohen — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 19:23:28 +0000

Michael Wolff has a Future of the Internet piece that's infinitely better than Newsweek's 1995 article about the internet not having a future.

One question I had is, in the article, Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter says Twitter would generate "a billion search queries a day in the coming yeah." So how much do you think Google would pay for a little button next to every Tweet that says, "Google This". And you could highlight the terms you want to search on Google.

Wolff also talked about Barry Diller's new media company model which could have brands owning entire shows instead of buying 30 second ads. I've been waiting for that forever. Of course, I think it will only work for a year or so, while the brand can get press for the new type of advertising, but it's worth a shot.

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“If You Turn Your Head I Win”

aaron cohen — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:31:03 +0000

I LOL'd. This post is as good a place as any to note that the media response to Chat Roulette echos the response to Twitter around this time last year. Basically, they had been so burned by ignoring Myspace, and took too long to understand Facebook, they weren't going to get fooled by Twitter and so they jumped in both feet first. Chat Roulette went from internet sensation to all over the media in record time. I imagine that the next platform to take off will get covered in the traditional media BEFORE it becomes popular online, thus creating an interesting paradox.

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Quick Thoughts on Google Buzz

aaron cohen — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:13:12 +0000

As of this writing, I still don't have Google Buzz on my computer - these thoughts were gleaned from find it enabled on my iPhone. First reaction: Holy crap, I love it.

This app wouldn't have worked 3 years ago, but Facebook and Twitter have been doing heavy lifting, training "Social Media Experts" and technophobes alike how to (over)share. Broadly generalizing here, but a lot of people probably find their Facebook accounts bloated with too many people they don't care enough about. By limiting Google Buzz to the users you communicate most with, Google has made the hard cuts for you.

I wonder if people will share differently than they do on FB or Twitter. What do you think?

Microsoft probably invested millions of dollars and several months to come up with a word they could turn into a verb like 'To Google', but Buzz feels natural right off the bat. For what it's worth, I like 'to Buzz' infinitely more than I like 'to Tweet'.

Since I only saw it on my iPhone, this may change, but it's potential as a mobile app is amazing.

Privacy issues aside, the Buzz Map and the "Nearby" feature of the mobile app are incredibly voyeuristic and addictive. With links to a users Google Profile, it also makes the web a lot more local and personal.

What will Facebook's undoubtedly ham-handed response be? Another move that outrages privacy experts, looks bad, and is hard to use?

When Google exposes my data, somehow I expect it, maybe I'm an apologist. When Facebook does it, people get MAD MAD MAD.

I think Twitter remains relatively useful, but this hurts Facebook a lot.

Also, whither Foursquare?

What do you think?

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Peyton Manning’s Interception Quote

aaron cohen — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:00:52 +0000

Via Kenny, Jorge Arangure's amazing Twitter update:

Hey I'm sure when Peyton Manning was growing up he always wanted to throw the TD pass that gave the Saints a Super Bowl win. Now he has.

Which lead to the return of the Manning Face. Not seen in these parts for several years.

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How Much is a Tweet Worth?

aaron cohen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:14:03 +0000

The article's not online anymore, but Fimoculous captured the quotation that Google and Microsoft are paying a $0.03 CPM for Tweets. That's more than I would have paid... ###Possibly related posts:A Month’s Worth of Links About Newspapers Is It Worth Your Time? Google Reader, Like, Follow, Share ### Possibly related posts:

Hashtag Hilarity

emdash — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:50:15 +0000

Rhode Island's Knowledge Retention Summit made an interesting decision when they chose a Twitter hashtag.

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Turning Landfills into Parks

The Social Media Guru

aaron cohen — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:10:10 +0000

Via Fimoculous, this is the best thing I've seen in a month. Love.

It will be a big video this week.

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“Twitter is a media/marketing vehicle disguised as a social network.”

aaron cohen — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:02:43 +0000

Or full quote from this Mediaite.com interview with Bill Simmons: "Facebook is a social network; Twitter is a media/marketing vehicle disguised as a social network." It's interesting to see how hard Bill Simmons has fallen for Twitter because a couple months ago he was bashing it. In general, I think his take on media/journalism is too simplified, but this quote about Twitter is right on.

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Google Reader, Like, Follow, Share

aaron cohen — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:54:19 +0000

4 different people mentioned to me today that I ended up in their Google Reader at some point and they wanted to know why. I had noticed that certain articles I was scanning were "liked" by people I didn't know, which I thought was weird. Obviously, Google made a change. To me it looks like a strike against both Facebook AND Twitter. Not only are you able to connect with and read the articles shared by people you do know (Facebook), but you'll be able to do the same with people you don't know, as well (Twitter). Seems like a good idea to me.

Oh, and you're damn right I'm gonna "share" this, Captain Obvious, you better "like" it.

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Twitter Discontinues Autofollow

aaron cohen — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:07:52 +0000

Just saw this forwarded from a friend. I agree with what Biz is saying. Following 50K, 25K or even 1K followers makes it difficult or impossible to follow your stream in any meaningful way and if everyone has 50K followers, no one listens to anyone at all. If that happens, Twitter becomes a hollow network of people yelling into a room, in which everyone else is also yelling. Imagine standing on the pitcher's mound of a sold-out baseball stadium. Then imagine trying to have a meaningful conversation with anyone sitting in the stadium's seats. That's the direction Twitter is heading in, though this might be a step towards trying to head that off.

Hi There,

I'm contacting you because you have a Twitter account for which
we enabled something called "autofollow." This is not a public
feature, it's something we did for a limited set of accounts
such that they automatically follow any account that follows
them.

We're going to discontinue autofollow because this behavior
sends the wrong message. Namely, it is unlikely that anyone can
actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes
this activity disingenuous.

However, we understand that there may be exceptions such as
applications built using our API or the ability to exchange
direct messages. There are also some who think it's simply
polite to follow back other accounts.

While we're going to stop supporting autofollow, we'd like to
find a way to support the other goals folks are really trying
to accomplish. Please feel free to reply to this email and let
us know how we can do this better together.

Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder
Twitter, Inc.

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