Pixel Bits

3 Reasons I Hate Tweetups

17Nov09

Oh yes I AM blogging ’bout this.

After several Tweetups, I’ve noticed the same things happening over and over and I am no longer keeping my piehole shut. So to all who go to Tweetups, PLEASE FLIPPIN’ READ.

1. Organizers: please, I beg you, pick a place where the music is not super duper loud – especially during conferences.

Am I the only one who repeatedly have these conversations?

Person: “Hi I’m adlskjfd.”

Me: “What?”

Person: “I AM ALKSJLSDF”

Me: “WHAT??”

Person: “MY NAME IS A:LSKDJSAL, WHAT’S YOURS?”

Me: “I AM SORRY, CAN’T HEAR. TWEET ME!!!!”

Person: “WHAT???”

Me: (gestures to phone and shows Tweetie, as if to Tweet me)

Person: “OK!”

Me: “SO SORRY. BYE!”

Not sure about you, but the reason I go to swanky bars and pay for overpriced drinks is to meet and connect with those I’ve been interacting with online in, you know, person. I am tired of losing my voice just to learn someone’s name. Especially after a conference where the yelling happens three or four days in a row.

2. People: please, please, please, step your agenda games up!

Look, you may or may not have an agenda and you may or may not show up to Tweetups with your agendas. Whatever, that’s fine. I respect your hustles. But please quit being so damn lame.

If you’re there to network, show up with a few more questions other than: “So what do you do? Who are you on Twitter? How many followers do you have?” OR “I am BLAH. I did BLAH. I am SO womp, womp, womp. I know ‘name drop’ and ‘another name drop’ and ‘yet another name drop’. Do YOU know these people? Aren’t I so great?”

…do you realize how STUPID you sound?

Try to be more interesting, ask a few questions that shows you are interested in the person you are talking to, and learn who or what they are about. Small talk 101.

I swear, the next person who gets all PR on me, I’ll punch in the throat. Ok, fine. That’s a lie. Since I’m not violent, I’ll just respond in Japanese.

3. Last but not least: EVERYONE. Get separate tabs or PAY YOUR PORTION OF THE MOTHER EFin BILL.

The math isn’t tough, folks. You drink, you pay. You order, you pay. You eat off someone’s plate – at LEAST offer to chip in some tip – it’s common. flippin’. sense.

If you can’t or don’t want to pay, don’t order! Or better yet, STAY HOME.

I cannot believe how many people skip out on the bill. I don’t get it, I really don’t. Where are your manners and common courtesy? Seriously.

I am truly embarrassed for us (the Twitterverse / Internet) that I have to blog about this -especially the third point.

Are we really this socially inept?

Filed under: Rants, Social Networking, Twitter | 28 Comments
Tags: common sense, Internet, manners, social skills, tweetups, Twitter

How My iPhone and Twitter Apps 1UPd My Twidiction

08Nov09

Damn you iPhone.
Damn you Tweetie2.
Damn you SimplyTweet.
And most of all, DAMN YOU TWITTER.

…ok fine. So my Twitter addiction is not because of the above, but hey, I need something to blame, and I am sticking to the above as excuses.

When I first started Twitter, I had close to zero friends and didn’t really…well…get it. And by “getting it”, I mean Twitter. Most of the interesting people only interacted with each other and completely ignored me.

What. The. F**K.

It was sucky to be disregarded and I felt really lame…well…more like I was talking to a wall. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. *crickets*…ok, so I’d say more interesting things than HI or @Oprah I JUST ATE A GRILLED CHEESE FOR LUNCH TALK TO ME. But I digress. Where was I? Oh, ya. Twitter addiction.

So fast forward a year or so when I finally attended a blog conference. Oh man, that changed my entire Twitter experience. I finally met almost everyone I interacted with online for over a year in *gasp* PERSON. Through my existing friends, I met a ton of new and interesting people and now my Twitter stream is out of control FUN.

Combine the connections with the convenience of Twitter on the go and BAM. My average of 3 Tweets a day escalated to approximately 30-50 Tweets a flippin’ day…Holy smokes, still looking at the stats on followcost.com and mortified. I am one chatty mother f**ker — why are ya’ll still following me? Wow.

Tweetie2 and its amazingness encouraged my addiction; I mean how can you NOT love the pull down to refresh feature? SimplyTweets’ push notifications alert me to new @replies and Twitter’s web UI keeps improving with new features and functions. I also have 10 Twitter apps aside from Tweetie2 and SimplyTweets.

Um, wow.

Add everything together and now, I am:

responding to all and any who talk to me on Twitter …within a minute.
introduced to at least one person a day, so my Twitterverse keeps expanding.
my face is ALWAYS in my phone – walking, waiting, at a restaurant, bar, anywhere and everywhere. I don’t even turn it off for dates.

My dependence on Twitter is so bad, I exceed Twitter’s third party app 100 API call hourly limit…every EFin hour. My phone constantly runs out of batteries in less than four hours. I even walk around with a frickin’ wall plug and shamelessly ask establishments if I can recharge my phone. Using their electricity.

Uhhh double wow. I have a life, I really do. I…swear?

SIGH. Fine, I have a problem and when I write out details of my Twidiction (Twitter+addiction) it is definitely unhealthy, socially inept, and rude, since I cannot seem to tear myself away, even when I step outside. Damn you, Twitter, for being so interesting.

Well, I need to do something about this problem. So starting from today, I am challenging myself to limiting my Tweets to 10 a day (at the most).

But more importantly, my friend Shannon is correct when she says: “Tweets are like farts in the wind.” As in, Tweets come, go, then disappear into thin air. There’s no way to archive (except favoriting which is a huge clustermess, but that’s a separate entry). Why even bother with the frustration? I have a blog as well as various places to flap my piehole, so why not utilize them?

Let’s see how long this will last.

Are you addicted to Twitter? If so, when did you realize your addiction, and are you planning to do something about it? Share your story and if you wish, we will support each other wean off our addiction!

Filed under: Personal, Social Networking, Twitter, iPhone, mobile | 2 Comments
Tags: Personal, Social Media, Twitter

Happy Birthday, Cookie Monster! “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me.”

02Nov09

Sesame Street rules.

Filed under: awesome | 1 Comment

Windows 7 Whopper with 7 patties. Filed Under: Only in Japan #dasmypeopleyo

23Oct09

via burgerkingjapan.co.jp

It’s even $7.77 (approximately)…the most disgusting part? People will really attempt to eat it. Cuz that’s how my people roll! Go Japan!

Ugh.

Filed under: japan | 1 Comment

Why Should We Even Care About Journalistic Ethics in Social Media?

20Oct09

Jenn Fowler pointed me to a piece on Social Media Ethics for Journalists by Gina Chen which starts out with a statement from Online Journalism Review:

“Journalistic ethics are pretty much the same online as in print or broadcast: Don’t plagiarize; tell readers how you got your information; don’t accept gifts or money for coverage; tell the truth; be honest.”

Well, if everyone operated under those codes, ethics in the digital medium wouldn’t be an issue. While the experts and leaders in the community are figuring out a standard, normal people like you and me who participate in daily social media activities must ask and answer certain questions to ourselves.

Do I trust who is sharing the information?
What makes me want to reshare?
When should I check my sources?
Where do I share this informtion?
Why do I share this information?

Why should this even matter to me?

Think about it… how often do you ReTweet and share articles you come across on Twitter and or Facebook? I don’t know about you, but I see RTs all the time and my Facebook is inundated by shares. How many people do your shares reach?

Last year, I said data is democratizing…and it is. More so than ever. News sources are becoming more and more digitized. Information is so simple to publish, and data spreads like wildfire. Journalists from your favorite bloggers to trusted major publications race against each other to break exclusive stories and scramble daily to appear on leader boards of headline aggregating sites. When speed is required, there will be mistakes — we are all human, even journalists.

As much as I want to trust the sources I once did, those days are long gone. Past achievements of journalists should be respected, but their credential(s) and / or pedigree(s) must not equate to automatic credibility.

Which leaves decisions up to us.

Us meaning you, me, everyone who participates in content sharing communities such as Facebook, Twitter, et al., to think before drawing conclusions or re-sharing the “hot topic”. After all, it is up to us, the readers, who reshare or RT that can make or break stories.

So my question is: What is your credibility criteria? How do you determine which sites or Twitter accounts do you follow? Trust the most?

*portions of piece taken from my original post here — just thought I’d bring it up again because I feel like I’ve been preaching about this forever.

Filed under: Social Networking | 1 Comment

Proof What Happens in Vegas Does NOT Stay in Vegas. #truestory

12Oct09

Skitched image via Yelp

I said this in 2006, and will say it again: What happens in Vegas does NOT stay in Vegas. Even worse, in 2009, everything will be megaphoned all over our respective social networks… and permanently indexed by Google.

Keep repeating this to yourselves, #bwe09 attendees!

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

10 Things You Need to Stop Tweeting About via @ShannonPaul #hashtagabusenotthere

08Oct09

via theoatmeal.com

If you wonder why Twitter “sucks” for you, one of these 10 could be it. Just sayin’ :)

Separately, butchering hashtags aren’t there. (yet) Phew. :)

Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Three Free PowerPoint Twitter Tools

07Oct09

via sapweb20.com

Pardon the double post – I Tweeted it out earlier but should’ve posted via Posterous.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Three iPhone Push Apps Every iPhone Addict Must Own

04Oct09

Don’t know about you, but the iPhone app store is about 80% useless redundant. There are so many frickin’ apps, I don’t know what’s good, what’s bad, which apps have push notifications that actually…well…work…?

However (!!!!)

I may have found the triad of apps with push notifications. Since I’m feeling generous today, I will share with y’all.

1. For the email junkies: PushGmail
Now before you barrage the “TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW“s; wait. And read. For people who have:

multiple Gmail accounts
one Exchange email already set-up on phone

PushGmail is the perfect solution. Still don’t follow? Ok, so I have my work Exchange email set-up, but I also Gmail all day errrrday. With PushGmail, my work emails get pushed onto my phone, and now my Gmail gets pushed too -read: best of both worlds. Have my cake and eat it too. I love this app more than fat kid love cake. At any which way, PushGmail RULES and is only 99cents. WELL worth the dollar (and some change)

2. For the sports addicts: Sportacular
In complete agreement with Kevin (jkontherun) who said: “Sports junkies that have an iPhone or iPod Touch owe it to themselves to take a look at Sportacular.” Holy smokes, this app is amazing. Scores are pushed (multi level settings, create alerts for only games and or teams you keep with) and it’s not just scores. Articles, breaking news, standings, etc., are available too but the best part? It’s free. Free. Screw ESPN. Sportacular is notch.

3. For the breaking news types: Twitter

Ok fine. So this one isn’t an app. But I’ve tried the AP and CNN apps but frankly, for instant breaking news, Twitter’s mobile alerting beats all. First, enable mobile alerts from Twitter to phone. Find your favorite news source and click the lil cell phone logo right by the “Follow” button and breaking news will be texted to you. Like this (points below)

So these are my three must have apps for push – what’re yours?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments

How To Add Twitter To Google Wave #GoogleWave #Twitter

02Oct09

via daggle.com

It’s a robot (in GoogleWave terms) but to me, a robot is like, you know…a machine like thingie with two arms, two legs, hands, and feet. With super duper awesome colors and shiny bodies… eyes with lasers, and stuff.

ANYway, hope this helps.

via @rizzn

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

MMS Should Be an Opt-In Because of Situations Like These. #digitalegoflexing

01Oct09

Guys flexing their digital muscles and ruining it for themselves.

he isn’t douchey in person and
he looks better in person than in that photo.

What would possess a person to suddenly spurt douchebaggery?? Drugs? Alcohol?? Sugar overload??? A new haircut???? What in the SAM hill was he thinking? Baffling.

The saddest part? I was diggin’ him too. Oh well.

I really want to turn off MMS for my phone… or maybe I just need therapy. ;)

Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments