Twitter Time & Twitter More

Commenting on an application that is twitter related is not something that I thought could fill a substantial amount of this page. I feel that Twitter itself is barely useful, and use of twitter should be limited, so as to maximize your time. This actually leads me to the twitter app that I decided to review.

Twuffer allowed me to not have to sit at a computer terminal or be distracted by texting by allowing me to tweet in advance and merely telling twuffer when I wanted the tweets posted. This helped a great deal when I was away, and I did not have access to technology. I was able to keep up with the post required so that I would have a better anthropological view of the twitter phenomenon. How well received the posts were are another matter.

What I find interesting and useful about such a device as twuffer is how it could be used for marketing purposes. Using twuffer, you could constantly remind followers of new articles or merchandise that you have out, and this would keep you near the top of their page when they sign in. It could be overdone if you over tweeted about the same thing, but you could display a variety of aspects of your product line by posting about one every hour. This may help get more bites.

A potential downfall to the whole twuffer thing is that with web 2.0 more apps are tied in with each other, and this may reveal a diminished security. If unscrupulous people or organizations were able to hack into people’s twuffer accounts, they could send spam using the compromised accounts.

 

Since one of my fellow contributors already did a review on Twuffer (she did hers in a much more negative light), let me take this time to also highlight some other Twitter applications. Twittercontd is one that I used, and this allowed me to post more than just 140 characters, but all it did was break that post up into smaller 140 characters or less posts. This isn’t exactly what I wanted. I might as well have stayed on the Twitter main page and just pressed enter every 130 or so characters; however, Twittercontd is the best way to shorten a link in my opinion; it eliminates the middle man (such as

The Real Rev Run

I chose to do a post analyzing Rev Run’s persona on Twitter; his username is RevRunWisdom. You may remember Rev Run from RunDMC, or you may be more familiar with the more current reality TV show he is in. Either way, the Rev Run on this webpage should tweet in a similar manner as he talks in real life; this is because this is a verified account.

Twitter is currently beta testing this verified account status, but as it becomes more mainstream, you will be able to know you are following the actual people you think you are following.

Rev Run tweets inspirational and uplifting messages which are in line with the public personality that he has displayed. Just in case you didn’t know, the Rev in Rev Run stands for Reverend, and yes, he is an ordained minister.

Rev Run has a following of almost 365,000 and is follower to none. Now, this could mean that Rev Run has another account where he follows those he wishes to follow, or he just may not follow anyone on Twitter. Either way, you can tell that Rev Run does not necessarily want to mix his personal life with his public life (despite a reality TV show). Rev Run has a strong following due to the fact that he is a star, and I’m sure followers of his tweets like his uplifting messages.

Many of Rev Run’s followers have titles names, or bios that link them to the rap or hip hop genre. This is not all of his followers, but there are quite a few, and that would be in line with what Rev Run had done in previous years. There is also a link in Rev Run’s bio that goes to hi own webpage where you can learn more about him, or keep current with what he is up to now.

Hopefully, twitter will expand this verification, so that people can follow stars and other friends who they know are the real deal.

The Music of Writing

Most of my writing is accomplished with the aid of music.  Music is a tool that, I feel, all writers should learn to weave into their routine.  A single song can set up mood, capture emotion, and reveal an entire story in a matter of minutes.  I have set up play lists for a number of my novels; the artists included varying drastically depending on where I feel like going at that particular moment in the story.  The Tempest War, for example, is a sci fi epic that takes place on a post apocalyptic, dying Earth.  (See On Writing for details.) While writing said book I derive most of my inspiration from deep, heavy tunes.  Coheed & Cambria, Muse, Pink Floyd, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  I can write the greatest scene in the world if I have O Fortuna playing in the background.

Music is the ultimate muse.  I have encountered no other force that can change one’s mood so drastically in such a short period of time.  I have seen more visions as I absorb ballads and harmonies.  Characters, worlds, and creatures alike have all been born of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and Mozart.  I owe a great deal of my creativity to some of the best musicians in the entire world.  As a writer, I see things in songs that others simply bypass.  For some, music is all about what they hear.  For me, it’s all about interpretation.  When I’ve finished listening to a particularly inspirational song, my mind is tortured with ideas.  Where to begin?  What to do?  Who to create?

So I listen, I learn, and I write.

Loud Writing

Music can be loud, as we all know, and so can paintings, sculpture, and other forms that are generally considered art.  Can writing be loud as well?  I think so, as long as it is within a fictional context.

Without fiction, writing can not be loud.  To me, a serious piece is one that can be created by anyone.  With enough information, time, and energy, a paper, essay, or nonfiction work can be produced.  Of course, creative nonfiction is another thing entirety, but I digress.  Fiction writing takes part of the imagination of the author and embeds it into a story.

Imagination creates great writing, not planning.

On the other hand, great things have been produced that don’t require much imagination.  But what is the ratio?  How many great non imaginative things can you really think of?

The Dull Blade

I remember many times as a young child when I was complimented on different works I had written. I also remember deciding that I would be a writer, but avoiding writing as a real profession due to other people’s input. This lead me to a very weak talent in the art of composing written text. I am now attempting to reacquire lost skills and to build on those reacquired skills.

The reason that I remember this the most is that I had to co-create this blog that you are now reading for a classroom assignment, and many people may understand that the topic and layout of this blog was rushed. This may lead to an acceptance of this blog not being quite up to par, but we (the authors of this blog) may have created a better blog if we had the time to truly formulate different ideas and experiment with those ideas to see where they lead.

Soon, this module of this class will be over, and it may not be much longer after that that this blog is deleted. The sad part of this whole ordeal is that we could’ve have done much more with the blog if we had more time. We named this blog after the famous Jabberwocky poem that many of you are probably familiar with. Unfortunately, we did not live up to the name of the poem; although, we never really set our expectations that high.

One of the ideas that I had wished to begin was a “round robin” story (I’m sure there are other terms for this). Each of us would write part of a story which would be continued by the next person to post. Unfortunately, we were unable to fully set this plan into motion. Maybe, we just didn’t have the time to set aside for writing such pieces of fiction (factual and opinion actually seems easier), or maybe, we just didn’t have any ideas. I’ll admit the story that I began was atrocious, but it was my hope that the next author would revise or redo the whole story. I just put out an idea that I hoped would possibly stimulate some work within our field.

I think that collaborative stories are an actual interesting topic to explore more in depth with the medium of the internet, but this exploration will have to be outside the class that this blog was created for.

Still don’t know what web 2.0 is

There seems to be some contention of how to define what web 2.0 is as well as the fact that some would prefer the term web 2.0 not be used at all. In the article “What is Web 2.0″ by Tim O’Reilly, the idea of web 2.0 is explained through the use of many examples, and then these examples are used to formulate a list of characteristics of a web 2.0 company or application. I had to read many of the article that were hyperlinked within this text, and I still don’t feel I have a good grasp on the concept. I have a vague understanding or awareness, but that is about all.

Twuffer

As I was perusing the number of Twitter apps to review, I found myself , once again, the skeptic. (Honestly I feel I will never be a fair critic of Twitter, having used it for two or three weeks now I have gained absolutely nothing and my opinion has remained bitter and stagnant.) I thought I had my review with Twitpay, an application linked to Paypal in order to actually tweet money @someone, but upon stumbling over Twuffer I realized I had my review.

Twuffer is a Twitter application that allows the user to write tweets in advanced and then literally schedule them to be released at a future date or time. For example, my birthday is October 21st. Should I desire, I could use Twuffer to send out an automatic tweet at, say, 12:00am on October 21s saying, “It’s my birthday!” My intitial response to this app is that of utter surprise. Seriously? Does someone actually use Twuffer? It takes no more than a minute to type out a messag of 140 characters or less. There are 1,400 minutes in a day. Of that time I find it very difficult to believe that a person does not have a single moment to spare to voice a single Tweet.

I would also like to know what kind of person is so obsessed with Twitter that they feel the need to line up their 140 characters days, weeks, possibly months in advance. The only time I can ever see this application as being even remotely necessary would be to keep track of business meetings, appointments, and other such reminders. Twuffer itself lists “appearing to never sleep” as one of its creative uses.

Perhaps I’m just coming off as a cranky old Twitter hater, but I find that Twuffer makes said website even more impersonal than it was previously.

Waiting for my life to change

As I was leaving the library today, I noticed that there was a display for banned books. I was surprised that it had been a year since the last banned books week. There were a few books on the display that I wanted to read, but I felt saddened because I don’t have the time to read them.

I am geek; I am a born again bookworm who wouldn’t mind living in a library. Knowledge and new perspectives excite me, and I feel I could spend the majority of my life in a library reading books like squirrel spending most of its life in trees eating acorns.

I wouldn’t say I’m well read; I have the feeling such a statement isn’t grammatically correct. I haven’t read a monstrous volume of books, but I do read when I can. I would like to read more, and I look forward to a time when I can read less for school and more independently for my pleasure and personal learning agendas.

I like doing experiments also, and while I’m no physics guru, there is plenty of experiments (both empirical and natural) that I would enjoy. Right now, I am in a social experiment for a professor where the students must write three microblogs a day. I have no purpose to write these blogs, so I don’t see the use of it, and the experiment does little for me. If I had some type of product to advertise or a purpose to tweet (use of twitter or micro logging), I might find this experiment productive for me. As it stands, I feel that the sooner the project is over, the better I’ll feel. I could possibly make use of Twitter in some way in the future, but for now it has no use for me.

In this same manner, I am forced to read materials in class with little time to truly absorb the knowledge or to read critically. Instead, I speed read over material that at times I don’t even want to read or wish I had more time to enjoy and critically analyze it.

I suppose I’m not very pleased with the education system, but that might be because I’m overly critical at times. Maybe, I’m against systems or organizations. Perhaps, I feel I am a free spirit, and do not like the restrictions that have been placed upon me. Either way, I find myself waiting. I’m waiting to finish school and have a formal degree so that I can spend time actually fostering a craft which I hope will be able to help get me employment with the help of the degree.

What does a degree state? It does indicate a level of socialization toward how the nation would like you to think. Colleges are influenced heavily by political entities and often are funded at least partially by Uncle Sam. I suppose it is best to just accept life for what it is: a series of hoops through which to jump. The least you can do is have fun jumping through them because it also might be the most you can do.

How to create

There’s something about creating that makes me satisfied.  This doesn’t necessarily mean writing, either.  Creating can be as simple as building with blocks, legos, or K’nex, and as complex as programming a game or writing a novel.  I think that no matter what type of creating it is, it can really serve to brighten ones day and make it a bit more interesting/deep.

Creation

I love to create.  I love to shape lives, to mold, to fabricate, to manufacture, to engineer, to control.  Creation is, perhaps, my favorite aspect of being a writer.  I am an inventor of worlds, and I find deep solace weaving a fictional tapestry of stories.  I create without limits, shaping any sort of being—human, animal, machine.  The possibilities stretch as far as my imagination allows.  Oftentimes, I write my stories around my characters.  A thought is projected onto my paper.  Male or female?  A male, he is young.  Sixteen perhaps, not yet a man.  Brown hair, blue eyes, completely average.  Thrust into a post apocalyptic world of war.  A dead planet.  Creatures, deadly things, hell bent on tearing apart my completely average sixteen year old brunette.

Why?

This is where the story begins.  My character is but a skeleton, and through the writing process he will be fleshed out, his personality concrete.  He will develop feelings; learn to live through both passionate love and intense hatred.  He will experience moments of great happiness and suffer through those of loss and pain.  I put him through extreme trials and tribulations, perhaps even death.  He is pursued and wanted by forces out of his hands, but beneath my fingertips.  Through the duration of my story this boy becomes a son to me.  I create every aspect of his life, his friends and family.  I take them away.  I put him through war, loss, famine, guilt, sadness.  I put him through life, love, plenty, innocence, and happiness.  His life is mine to control.  And by the end of my story he will either curse me or praise me, this boy of sixteen, for I am a god to my characters and I live to create.