Post posted by Sacha on May 13th, 2009 at 15:37
How many followers do you have? If you know the answer, you are either a religious figure or you have a twitter account. I count myself in the latter group, with very little followers. That’s fine with me, because although I would love many people to read about what brilliant things I’m tweeting, I have no idea how to keep track of everything everybody else is saying! Just let me say my piece and let me think my piece reaches all over the world, and let me be happy with the relish even though it doesn’t approach reality. The same with this blog, actually.
This weekend I had my first Real Life Follower. I must admit that being followed in Real Life has its advantages. There’s no way a person can pose as another person so I could see what ASL my follower had. This follower’s age was quite old, its sex was male, and the location was quite obvious, I take. The follower followed me into every store I went. He even stood by my side while I was shopping for tampons, which was quite nice of him. He must know how women hate to shop for those things alone (you know I’m being cynical here, right).
I know, this new age is all about information. Everybody can know just about anything about everybody at any moment in time and we have the power to let everybody know that info. But I’m not all that used to being broadcasted all day long, let alone having somebody follow my every move. It scared me, because I could not turn off the program nor could I make myself Invisible (a great feature on ICQ. Whatever happened to ICQ, I wonder). In short, I wanted to Escape. ESC ESC ESC.
After having visited – and being followed in – 5 stores, I finally logged on to the supermarket. Of course, my follower found his way into the program as well. Nimble as I am, I quickly threw down my shopping cart and logged out fast. Because of his older software, he was stuck inside, stuck behind the security gates he had just passed. And I was out. I had managed to block my first Real Life Follower.
Did you notice the transition? I suddenly went all computery. Okay, let me reverse that with this awesome video of Real Life Twitter.
And while we’re on the subject of Info on the internet… why can’t I find any information about that foggy mirror eye halo oddity? I want to know why I see two scary discs in the places of my eyes when I look in my mirror when it’s fogged up. Or am I the only one who sees those things…? It looks very creepy and ghosty. So I guess that, after being Followed in Real Life, I am now being Haunted through my Foggy Mirror. Man, this world is getting crazier by the day.
Post posted by Sacha on March 29th, 2009 at 15:43
Hi tweople!
Twitter is such a fun tool. It’s definitely very hard for someone like me, because you have to cram anything you want to say in just 140 characters. Boy, that’s HARD. But it’s so very cool when I can use exactly 140 chars! I love that. Of course, that is without cheating on the characters. So, no using extra letters in a word just to get to 140. The messages where I use exactly 140 chars are extra special to me :)
Besides twitter challenging me to think in short message flashes, it also challenges me in understanding how it works with followers. I still haven’t figured that out completely. I do understand that I can follow people, so I can read their messages. And people can follow me, so these people (the following) read what I write. However, I can’t write a message to somebody that doesn’t follow me back. Unless I’m replying to a message they sent first and only if I use the _reply_ button in my twitter client. Are you following me (yeah, pun intended!) ?!?
I wonder how people (I call ‘m tweople) that follow a lot of other tweople can keep track of all their messages. I can get kinda crazy when the messages start piling up in my twitter client when I haven’t checked it in an hour. I really want to read all of it, because I want to know what everybody is saying! Don’t wanna miss that one big message, you know. And my list only contains 27 tweople at the moment. At some moments, it’s very easy to keep track because when I get out of bed here in Holland, most of my list has just gone to bed (US). But when they wake up, they all start twittering and twattering. Especially the authors. They lllllove to write, it’s in their blood. I love that, but some days it’s just a big message overflow to me.
So, how do tweople keep track of everybody? I have absolutely no idea how those #hashtags work and I don’t know if I want to know. I think it’s a big secret, because I haven’t found a cool short list of twitter tips (twips?) online. Just like the reply-to option, that is being kept secret too! I had to find out by accident that it really IS possible to write a message to a non-follower. Okay, I’ll explain how I found that out, because that’s another thing about twitter.
There are tweople with bots that search for specific words being used by anyone on twitter. Or tweople search for the words themselves, possibly. It’s just a lot of work IMO. Anyway. For example, somebody or some botty is looking for the word ‘carrot’ because this person just loves anything about carrots. And I twitt “Today I heard that joke again about the carrot cake. How old is that joke?” Then the bott picks up the carrot and puts me on the following list. Because if I talk about carrots, I must be a very interesting person and who would want to miss a word I say? I wouldn’t! Well, it’s a way to get your following list filled, I guess.
I mostly follow authors of the podionovels I’m listening. But that’s a whole new story, I’ll talk about that another time. Right now, I have to get used to the daylight savings time change we had last night. We just lost 60 minutes last night. 60 minutes gone. Poof. I weep.
In case you want to know how I – girl of many many words – can write messages in 140 chars or less, add me on twitter. I’m zzacha. If you talk about carrots, I may follow you back ;P
ZasBlog 
Podionaut 
