Could Twitter be peaking? It seemed that just a month or so ago our little 140 character club was growing rapidly. It was all the rage on the night time talk show circuit and was even peppering sitcom banter. Maybe it is just my perception that the Twitter buzz is cooling or it is just settling in to a steady rhythm. By simply looking at the available numbers it seems impossible that Twitter could even be scratching the surface. Oh, but then there is Kid Rock.

Robert James Ritchey (AKA Kid Rock), said just this week in an interview with Rolling Stone that Twitter is gay. The mere mention of Twitter sent ‘Kid’ into a rant that seems to indicate the question has come up before.

“If one more person asks me if I have a Twitter, I’m going to tell them, ‘Twitter this sh**, mother ****er. I don’t have anything to say and what I do have to say is not that relevant. Anything that is relevant, I’m going to bottle it up and then squeeze it onto a record somewhere,” Kid Rock said in an interview with Rolling Stone.

When Kid Rock uses the words ‘bottle’ and ’squeeze’ I’m compelled to scrub my hands with hot water and anti-bacterial soap. But I’m very pleased to see that Bob Ritchey took some time away from his busy schedule of receiving lap dances and skank-chasing to acknowledge to the media that he has nothing relevant to say. It is shocking, however, that the lyrical genius that brought us such life-altering prose as “Bawitdaba da bang a dang diggy diggy diggy said the boogy said up jump the boogy” and “Bitch talk your s*** just never let me get that ass cuz… I’ll f*** u blind bitch,” does not believe that he has anything relevant to add to the great electronic human consciousness. Oh yeah, you won’t tweet but your tour does.

It is a sad but true reality that the vapid and moronic have the right to express themselves in a public forum just as much as anyone else. After all, Kid Rock has been doing it for years. But are ‘Mr. Rock’s’ sentiments symptomatic of a larger cooling of the Twitter fever?

It is well known that Twitter is very popular with Kid’s celebrity brethren. Just this morning P. Diddy tweeted “Its Friday people let’s get it!!!! Let’s go!!!!!” Two days ago Shaquille O’Neal said “Peter Max , I’m just sending you a shout out I’m honored to be working with you.”

Hey guys, Kid Rock said you’re gay. Let’s go kick his ass or at least wash his hair.

Actual Twitter user statistics are hard to come by. In June @DanZarella compiled the most recent State of the Twittersphere report. Using the data collected from the 4.5 million Twitter Grader users, Hub Spot found high numbers of people that do not use Twitter to its fullest potential.

The HubSpot report found that 79.79 percent of users do not provide a home page URL, 75.86 percent do not have a bio on their profile, 55.5 percent are not following anyone, 54.88 percent have never tweeted and 52.71 percent have no followers. The previous report found the opposite to be true. For example in the prior report HubSpot found that 80 percent of users had a bio on their profile. These numbers and their dramatic shift are not surprising.

In technology, adoption and usage comes in cycles. The early adopters are the people that try everything first and are eager to find new technologies. Over time more and more people join in and the adoption curve begins to look like a hockey stick. In January, Adam Ostrow reported in Mashable that Twitter grew 752 percent in 2008. Just three months later Ostrow reported that Twitters growth had reached 1,382 percent.

Companies and individuals are figuring out new and better ways to integrate Twitter into their daily lives. As the numbers of new users increases so do the numbers of those that are still figuring out how to best use its various features. The executives at Twitter probably still don’t know how to completely leverage, promote and use it to its fullest potential. This happens with every tool. Microsoft Excel has been around for many years. It is hard to imagine that there is a single seasoned computer user that has never heard of Excel. But how many people know how to use every feature? Just like every other tool, Twitter users will become more adept with time and experience.

It is highly doubtful that Twitter is peaking. The user base grows dramatically every month. The growth curve may level off but it is unlikely that it will stall. Nothing can sustain growth of over 1000 percent forever. Twitter is going to be a part of our daily lives for a very long time.

And then there is Kid Rock. This whole story reminds me of an illiterate adult being taught to read. They get frustrated and even lash out at the teacher or the book. Kid, no one is saying you are illiterate. After all you wrote “Cruisin’ thru town in my jacked up truck eyes open cuz I’m scopin’ for a big butt slut.” This is nothing short of sheer brilliance straight from the lips of angels. But come on now pimp, don’t hate the playa, hate the game. You don’t have to hate on Twitter, just ask for a little help. It shouldn’t be too hard. Your tour is tweeting for you mister hypocrite, just ask someone on the bus.

Everyone else you know is tweeting every day. Wow, you sure do know a lot of “gay” people.

Perhaps most of us will never be privaleged enough to know Apple’s real strategy to keep the Palm Pre at bay. But Apple has seemingly forced Palm into preparing frequent updates to the Pre’s operating system just to keep the devices syncing with iTunes. The result is Palm failing to deliver what users really want; applications. Meanwhile, in the past month or so, the number of new iPhone applications has kept pace with the birth rate in China. iPhone application download statistics are beginning to look like a McDonald’s sign; Billions and Billions served. In the same period of time Palm has given three webOS updates and only one new application. Oh yeah, they just added emoticons…whoopee. Hey Palm, thanks for the smiley face OS but what I really want is new apps.

Dissonance, or buyer’s remorse, is that feeling that sets in shortly after making a significant purchase.

Pre sales had been brisk following the much hyped launch but have cooled dramatically according to some estimates. The reason that iPhone users are so fond of their phones is that every time they download a new application they get to fall in love with their phone all over again. Perhaps Apple figured out that a steady stream of new applications keeps the love alive and help users overlook that AT&T iPhone plans are among the most expensive in the industry.

Over the weekend my phone indicated there was an update to webOS version 1.1.0 which I dutifully installed. This is the first update in which I could see real noticeable differences. Finally all my mobile prayers had been answered. Now when I insert colon + capital P into a text message, my intended recipient knows that I was sticking my tongue out at them. I no longer have to waste words telling someone that I am unhappy; colon + left parenthesis can do the dirty work for me. Oh Palm, you really understand me.

You understand me so well that you know how much I love to play Connect Four, the only game available for my phone. Now whenever I’m waiting for a meeting or otherwise ‘in disposed’ I can be reminded that I still suck at Connect Four just as much as I did when I was eight. You also understand me so well that you know how much I love to pay for my Audible subscription but still can’t listen to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell through my Pre. Thanks though for NFL Mobile Live, the only new application since I got my Pre. I really do want to build my fantasy football team to satisfy my Bejeweled-jones. You really do understand me.

The webOS update does add some valuable functionality to essential functions such as email and syncing contacts with Facebook and Google. But seriously Palm, instead of wasting time and resources to give me cute smileys how about fostering the developer community instead.

Apple has had a long history of managing a vibrant developer community for all of their products. This practice has perhaps been most effective for the iPhone. However Palm seems to have missed this lesson. Recently, perhaps to stimulate webOS development, Palm changed the developer application process and has made the Mojo webOS Development Kit available to anyone with an email address.

webOS hackers appear to be more active than the rest of the developer community. The process of ‘side-loading’ homebrew applications to a Pre takes advantage of a loophole in the structure of the operating system. Applications such as Pimp My Pre and Tip Calculator demonstrate that developers are finding ways to extend their Pre and make it more useful much like the iPhone development community. But these homebrew applications are unauthorized third-party efforts that can tend to be buggy and Palm can close the side-load loophole in any webOS update. The lesson here for Palm is that “you have built it, help them code.”

The one very bright spot in the new webOS update is that Pre Media Sync works once again with iTunes. I was amazed and overjoyed when I first plugged my Pre into my PC and it launched iTunes. I thought it was a mistake at first and I even tweeted about it. Apple, in a very childish and shortsighted move, released an iTunes version 8.2.1 to block synching with non-Apple media players, i.e. Palm Pre. Ha Ha Apple, I just ignored the update because I knew it would end my ability to sync with iTunes.

Palm fired back and re-enabled iTunes Media Sync in the latest webOS update. My plea to Apple is to live and let live. I have three, yes three iPods in addition to my Palm Pre. I use my Pre for music while in the gym in case I get a work call I need to take. I use a Nano with the Nike + Sport Kit while jogging, an 80Gb iPod Classic during the balance of my waking hours and a Shuffle when none of the above are the right device. I actually buy music from the iTunes store! By allowing me to continue synching my Pre with iTunes you are not failing to motivate me toward an iPhone but rather helping a loyal customer continue a pleasurable experience with your products. C’mon Apple, I’m a Memphian. We gave Steve his new liver, ignoring my Pre’s ability to sync with iTunes pales by comparison.

Palm, I’m really pleased so far with the Pre. You have done a great job with the phone but a lousy job at making me love it every day. I’m sad (colon + left parenthesis) that I can’t have applications that would make me happy (colon + right parenthesis). It would be cool as big sunglasses (8 + right parenthesis) and I would have a big smile on my face (colon + capital D) if you could step up the efforts to stimulate the developer community (colon + capital P). In fact, I would be a perfect little angel (lower case o + colon + hyphen + right parenthesis) if you’d hook a brother up. And by the way, you really do understand me because you know how much I hate emoticons.

Kiss, kiss (colon + asterisk, colon + asterisk).

Facebook tried to change its terms of service last February. The online community quickly lashed back with protests and concerns over what was perceived as an attempt by Facebook to take ownership of the users’ archived content. At that time Facebook was still trying not to break its collective arm while patting itself on the back for getting Obama elected to office. Perhaps in an effort to save face or wanting to prolong the afterglow, Facebook quickly reversed course and restored the previous TOS. 

This raises a series of important questions about the things we casually post online and their importance. Do users need to license “newsfeeds” and “status updates” or their “moods” and “headlines”? Does any random thought or musing merit a copyright? Is all user generated content copyrightable? The answers, in short, are yes, yes, and ummm… yes. 

The First Amendment gives us the right to speak freely. You have the right to state your opinion, even if you’re a moron. I don’t have to like what you say but I do have to defend your right to say it. Taking this one step further is the right to claim ownership or authorship of what you say. If Bob Bonehead updates his Facebook status with “Is wondering how my belly button gets so linty,” he should be able to protect this “addition” to the collective knowledge pool. 

Willy Shakespeare is probably spinning in his grave right about now. The Bard of Avon wrote thirty-eight plays and one hundred fifty-four sonnets and is pretty well known. LOL Cats wrote “I can has cheezburger” and is pretty well known as well. Perhaps this is true progress and advancement of the human condition, fame in 140 characters or less. But you can rest assured that if Bob realized he could make a buck from his random thought while contemplating his navel he’d be protecting his “original works” faster than you could say “hashtag.” 

It is likely that had the Facebook TOS been challenged legally it would not have held up in court. When content is created in fixed form it is copyrighted by the author. Even content created or uttered on the fly by users of social media falls under the realm of intellectual property. However, in what Wired magazine described as the “cut and paste culture” where “ownership” is something to be distributed and shared in a collaborative manner, there was no way for an individual user to designate to the public how they wanted the content on their Facebook profiles to be used. 

A lasting work of creativity does not need to be a three act play to have value and staying power. Social media, blogs, and YouTube have made everyone a potential publisher. Shakespeare might be considered long-winded by Twitter standards but he is also who first said “brevity is the soul of wit.” You may never have heard of Clara Peller. But you can probably picture her instantly if I told you she is the lady that said “where’s the beef” in Wendy’s commercials. Clara would have had one hundred twenty-six characters to spare on Twitter. 

News broadcasts and radio programs have a copyright. Anything that is said during the broadcast, whether spontaneous or scripted, is protected. But how do we create the same protection for ourselves? Enter the solution: A Creative Commons license for social networking content. 

The nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons, has created such a blanket protection for Facebook. Creative Commons refers to it as the “Official Unofficial Creative Commons Facebook Application” acknowledging that it is first attempt to help users license profile content. The tongue in cheek title might be indicative of the difficulty of the average Facebook user to find this app on the site. Searching Facebook yields no results for the App. Instead it is currently only linked from the Creative Commons Facebook page and the organization website. Finding the link is probably the hardest part of licensing your profile.

The application is an easy way for social networking enthusiasts to select how they want their intellectual property to be used. It’s basically a Creative Commons license generator formatted for a Facebook profile.  It generates a badge just like the original CC license site. It offers six attribution options, and allows the user to place the badge on their Facebook page. The user has the option of licensing photos, profile text, status updates, and videos. Content can be licensed for commercial or non-commercial use. The author can select various options for how the content can be used by others. The entire process takes less than two minutes- perhaps longer if you are unfamiliar with the Creative Commons licensing options.

While the time has definitely come for creative commons licensing to move into the social networking realm, there are a few issues that are inherent in Facebook that makes it difficult for secondary users to know what CC licensing a profile has. The first issue is the various privacy and security settings available to users. If your full profile cannot be viewed by others many will never see your badge. Technically, a creative commons badge should apply to your comments made on other profiles or in groups; however the formatting of the site means it is probable that most will never see your CC designation.

In addition to being unable to see the licensing attributions, a second limitation of the app is the current options for licensing. As it stands, it’s all or nothing. A great improvement of this app would be to allow specific licensing on individual items. A better option would be if the license could be applied to specific photo albums or individual entries. That way, users could designate licenses as they upload content. While it would not ensure that everyone could see the licensing badge, it would allow users to place relevant badges with particular content. According to the Creative Commons Facebook Application page, this is one of the things they would like to change in the final version.

This application will help raise awareness of the creative commons philosophy amongst casual users of social networking. The more robust final version of this app in the near future will be worth considering. It will be interesting to see how much of the collaborative nature of Creative Commons licensing is incorporated in forthcoming revisions of the Terms of Service. While Facebook espouses the rhetoric that its users will be greatly involved in the revision process, one cannot help but wonder if the corporate or the community model of copyright will dominate the new policy.

Follow Mojo_Girl on Twitter.

By now the issue and firestorm surrounding the Twitter @ replies change is firmly chiseled into every twits collective consciousness. The hashtag #fixreplies was elevated by users to the pantheon of greatness for social media power.

The issue was never about the change, it was how it was handled. What made matters worse was the sugar coating used as the explanation. Not only was this bad sales job rejected by everyone but worse, we were insulted.

The appropriate action was just to level with us. This was the point made in the previous post on VitreousHumor, Let My Tweeple Go, and its subsequent updates. Today on the official Twitter blog, Biz Stone has done just that. 

As was stated in the previous post on VitreousHumor, the explanation given for eliminating the so called “fragmented conversations” was just not credible. It just did not make sense that Twitter knew better than the twits how people like to use the service. The reality had to be a technical limitation that was being sold to us as friendly assistance. The following excerpt from Biz Stone’s blog post finally admits just that.

Product Design Flaws
Since last year we’ve been hearing from users and having discussions about removing this setting—feedback indicated that it was useful but also created confusion. People would change the setting and then not understand why their timeline had fragments of conversations. From the tweet author perspective, there was an unclear expectation as to who would actually see messages which often lead to trepidation when it came to using replies. Finally, even folks who understood the setting would complain that they couldn’t follow accounts with a high volume of replies because the replies overwhelmed their timeline. It was becoming apparent that we had an opportunity for improvement.

Technical Problems
Even though only 3% of all Twitter accounts ever changed this setting away from the default, it was causing a strain and impacting other parts of the system. Every time someone wrote a reply Twitter had to check and see what each of their followers’ reply setting was and then manifest that tweet accordingly in their timeline—this was the most expensive work the database was doing and it was causing other features to degrade which lead to SMS delays, inconsistencies in following, fluctuations in direct message counts, and more. Ideally, we would redesign and rebuild this feature but there was no time, hence the sudden deploy.

The full text of the post can be found here.

To Biz, Evan and everyone else there at Twitter, all we can say is thank you for listening. Please take this lesson to heart and make it how you communicate with us in the future. It will only make you legendary, you’ll see.

To every company in the world, we hope you are paying attention.

I learned a long time ago that when you make something “idiot-proof” the world just engineers a better idiot. I am fully aware that for every rocket scientist or AIDS researcher there are probably at least two morons car roof surfing their way into intensive care. But the web and Twitter are two of the easiest tools for the average human to figure out. So why does Twitter insist on trying to find new ways to protect us from ourselves? 

I was all set to write the newest post about Twitter trending topics and how irrelevant they could become. Just yesterday David Turner created the tag #theBNParetwats. What started as a simple statement about politics in the UK became the number one trending topic. This amount of power, the ability for one person to make a statement and for that statement to become a tweet heard around the world is nothing short of awesome. Why Twitter, why would you want to stifle the power of human interconnection? 

Robert Metcalfe is well known in technology circles. He was a researcher at Xerox PARC when he co-developed Ethernet in 1973. He was also the founder of 3Com. He formulated what is known as Metcalfe’s Law. Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of the connected users of the system. This dynamic is what has not only fueled the growth and popularity of Twitter but it is also what makes Twitter so powerful. 

There have been a raft of seemingly minor changes that have been made to Twitter recently. They are minor if you are not really paying attention. These changes have been explained to the lowly twits as an enhancement implemented on our behalf, improvements for our benefit. I’ll channel Colonel Sherman Potter and heartily say “horse hockey.”

Recent changes including the following to followers ratio, eliminating auto-following and yesterday’s elimination of the @replies setting will kill the network and hurt Twitter in the long run. 

The old way allowed a user to see replies to or from friends you do follow that were sent to or from someone you don’t follow. I follow people that say things that interest me for one reason or another. I assume they do the same. These so called “fragmented conversations” allowed me to find new people that had something to say that resonated with me for some reason. 

On May 12 Twitter announced what they called a “Small Settings Update” where the fragmented conversations would no longer be visible. The Twitter blog  pitched this as the elimination of an undesirable and confusing option. But this option was undesirable to whom exactly? Not to the twits of the world because this very issue touched off a firestorm of protest and #fixreplies turned #theBNParetwats into a mere blip on the public timeline. 

Evan Williams responded the same night and the truth, however understated, was on the Twitter blog  the next day.

“The engineering team reminded me that there were serious technical reasons why it had to go or be entirely rebuilt”

 Thank you for the truth, albeit a tad late. But Evan, you wrote about this last year on your blog so even this minor admission seems a bit hollow. 

This is a pattern of public relations ham-handedness, not an isolated instance. In November, Twitter announced limits on following to followers ratio and the number that can be followed in one day. The whitewash for this change was an effort to minimize spam. The announcement also said the following:

“If you follow too many people, there is no way you can keep up with everyone’s updates in your home page.”

The friendly folks at Twitter also were doing us a favor because they felt that keeping the numbers under control gave us an opportunity to really focus on quality, not quantity. Balderdash! Tools such as TweetDeck, not the home page,  help us manage all the information just fine. But the most annoying part of this message is this sense that Crystal at Twitter is going to be the arbiter of how I want to use the tool. Crystal, I think we can handle it on our own.

If I don’t like one radio or TV station I can change the channel. If I think someone is a spammer I can choose not to follow them back, or block them as a last resort. Don’t automatically follow those that follow you. Oh yeah, that’s another capability that they are quietly killing off.

I may want to run around the house naked, with a rubber glove stretched over my head yelling “look at me, I’m a squid, I’m a squid.”* That is my prerogative, however lobotomized I might look. If I want to follow everyone that is following Ashton Kutcher, even though I could never keep up with all the tweets I should have that option. Oh, but it makes life difficult for Twitter. 

Ask yourself the following question; when was the last time you saw the FailWhale? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You probably have not seen it since, oh, about the time that Twitter started slipping in these “little” changes. Could it be that Twitter’s resources could not keep up with the very capabilities that made Twitter…Twitter? But what we got was a song and dance about spam and the ability to keep up with all the information. Insulting.

Back in 1999 AOL tried to keep users of competing instant messenger platforms from communicating with AOL users via IM. What a colossal failure that was. When you silo users and their communication you create the reverse of Metcalfe’s Law and lower the value of your network. Twitter, do you want to be AOL? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Twitter, we love you for the most part. The reason that I tweet is because of the sheer interconnectedness of people and the free flow of thoughts and real time information. The possibilities are endless, unless you end them.

Here is a bit of free public relations advice. Don’t give us a whitewash. We might be Twits but we are not stupid. Tell us like it is. Tell us the real reason and we will respect you for the honesty. This will only bring us closer, not move us farther apart. But when you take something away that gives us value make it temporary. Also, tell us when it will be coming back. Listen to your customers and show, don’t tell, them that you are listening.

After the last twenty-four hours it is you guys with the rubber gloves on your heads screaming “I’m a squid.” Take the bullet, get past this, apologize and don’t do this sort of thing again. We can then collectively move on in a stronger relationship. Otherwise you might soon see #theBONEHEADSatTWITTERaretwats trending painfully high.

Update: Since the posting of this entry Twitter has released a plan to address the replies issue. Perhaps it does “bring back some serendipity and discovery” as stated in the announcement. We will have to wait to see if it is truly all that.  The most important issue here underscores and reminds me what it is that I like so much about Twitter. Here is a tool with tens of millions of active worldwide users. A change was implemented and the users responded immediately. Twitter was able to see the response and take action based on feedback all in one day’s time. Even if the fix turns out to be merely a band-aid this is powerful stuff. Every company that wants to listen to customers should take this lesson to heart and immediately incorporate this practice into their business.

Updated Update: Everything the same is the same again. ReadWrite Web does a great job visually explaining how “fragmented conversations” worked before, during and after the change @ replies in this post. The net net from my standpoint is that Evan and Biz and the rest of the Twitzenjammer Kids are listening. The problem is the resulting action still does not appear to give back what everyone seems to want. There may be legitimate business or technological reasons for this. Twitter, you could end this whole ongoing lament if you would just give it to us straight if you can’t give us what we obviously want. Colonel, why did you order the Code Red? We can handle the truth.

*“Look at me, I’m a squid, I’m a squid!” A quote from Bamaland, a cartoon by Walt Guthrie that appeared in The Crimson White, the student newspaper at the University of Alabama when I was in school. Thanks Walt, I have used this quote many times over the last 20+ years.

I think I am a responsible Twit. I try to only tweet relevant information. I do not waste people’s time with nonsense. I don’t spam and if what I have to say is only relevant to one person I send it in a direct message. I also have the option selected to receive an email whenever I have a new follower. I like to send a “thanks for following me” message to new followers and the email helps ensure no one falls through the cracks.

I was a bit surprised the other day when I learned that I had a new follower of unimaginable renown. I was humbled that someone close to the hearts of two-billion people is now following little ole me.

G-d is everywhere but Jesus is following me. What is it that I may have tweeted that was so profound to have merited such an auspicious follower? But when I checked out JC’s profile I was shocked. I had more followers than Jesus…by a long shot. How could this be? Sure, I can be pretty charming at times. In rare moments of brilliance I can even be charismatic. But I have never cured the sick, helped the blind to see or walked on water. I have certainly never risen from the dead but thankfully I have never needed to try. I did once learn a neat trick where I could pour milk into a newspaper cone and make it disappear. But the milk and newspaper trick is pretty lame compared to turning water into wine. So how could it be that my following was larger and why would Jesus be following me?

Now in all fairness I should point out that Jesus has edged past me in followers in the time since he began following my tweets. But his numbers seem far too low. According to ask.com there are 2.1 billion Christians worldwide and after all, it’s Jesus for tweetssake. It seems to me that Jesus would easily have far more than the roughly seven hundred followers he has today on Twitter.

There must be countless Christian Soldiers that he could call upon to retweet his word. But I have never seen him recommended on FollowFriday. What about the Gideons? I have never stayed in a hotel room that was not previously visited by a bible-leaving Gideon. There must be a zillion of those guys to have achieved such thorough penetration. Jesus would be at the top of the charts if the Gideons just took one day off from their bible distribution duties and helped the boss improve his numbers.

But what if this is some sort of a sign? I became nervous that this was some pre-apocalyptic harbinger of destruction. Maybe this is the Web 2.0 version of a guy in Times Square wearing a sandwich board that reads “The End is Near, Repent!”

OMG (sorry Jesus), Ashton Kutcher has over seven hundred ten thousand followers! Kelso is at the top of the heap and Jesus is barely a footnote. How could it be that the Prince of Punk’d has one thousand times more followers than the Prince of Peace? Surely this is at least a riding crop for one of the Four Horsemen.

But it gets worse. American Idol impresario and men’s hair products connoisseur Ryan Seacrest has more than four hundred thousand followers. Miley Cyrus, who I have long suspected to be the antichrist, has topped one hundred thirty-five thousand followers.

Jesus was probably a weak rebounder and not much of a threat in the paint. But Shaq is dominating the virtual boards with well over a half-million followers. Wonder drummer Travis Barker appears to be at the back of this pack but still has more than fifty-four thousand followers. But then again, Jesus was never known to have had a smoking-hot wife (sorry again Jesus).

From the wide-angle view, the chart does not seem to be trending well for our web-enabled society. It never seems to be particularly pleasant when “The Man Upstairs” is displeased. All of those plagues in Exodus seem to be pretty nasty business. Pillars of salt also come to mind and I shouldn’t forget that brimstone makes me gassy. Perhaps a bit of biblical research was in order to make some sense of all this and see if any of this is foretold in scripture.

King Hezekiah was sent word through Isaiah that if he set his house in order G-d would add 15 years to his life. But while he was sick, before this deliverance came, what sayeth Hezekiah in Isaiah 38:14?

“Like a swallow, [like] a crane, so I twitter; I moan like a dove; my eyes look wistfully to the heights; O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security.”

Twitter, right there in the Bible! But what about some of the other popular Web 2.0 manifestations? Apparently many of our online activities were not only foretold but it would appear that the scripture is something of a users manual.

Jeremiah 20:11 reveals StumbleUpon as something of a competitive advantage and suggests that improper utilization brings spells failure.

“But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten.”

And the Prophet tells us again in Jeremiah 46:16;

“They will stumble repeatedly; they will fall over each other. They will say, ‘Get up, let us go back to our own people and our native lands, away from the sword of the oppressor’.” 

The future appears to be a bit darker for those who Digg. Amos might have mellowed out a bit once Andy came around but in his Bible contribution days, he sees in Amos 9:2 that Digg as an elevator with only a down button.

“Though they dig[g] into hell, from there my hand shall take them; Though they climb up to heaven, From there I will bring them down.”

There are a few positive mentions of today’s web that are bright spots in the Bible. RSS is not only lauded but encouraged in Proverbs; “The lips of the righteous feed many, But fools die for lack of wisdom” (Proverbs 10:21). Perhaps it is no surprise that sharing applications have biblical approbation; “And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices G-d is pleased,” (Hebrews 13:16).

It is unfortunate, however, that the record industry has taken it upon itself the re-write the word and re-define wrongdoing. The message in Luke 6:49 for The Pirate Bay and its contemporaries is to take heart because the torrent will win in the end.

“But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

How do you like me now RIAA?

But I found the Bible to be filled with sound advice on being a responsible twit. In Exodus 4:13 we are reminded that sending information is more important than the sender; “But he said, ‘Please, Lord, now send [the message] by whomever You will’,” But in Nehemiah 6:8 we are cautioned against tweeting false information; “Then I sent [a message] to him saying, ‘Such things as you are saying have not been done, but you are inventing them in your own mind’,” And most importantly we should exercise caution when vetting followers and those who retweet us; “He cuts off [his own] feet [and] drinks violence who sends a message by the hand of a fool,” Proverbs 26:6.

All of this Bible study was very satisfying to my soul and clearing for my cache but I remained troubled, verily. Then I came across Psalm 23, verse 6; “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.”

Wait, surely, goodness and mercy?

I looked back over Jesus’ followers I found many colorful and interesting profiles including The5thApe, BBQMaven, JackAssLetters and tweetOlicious. But I did not find Surely, Goodness or Mercy. And hold on a second, didn’t Jesus have a posse of a dozen guys? Unless JackAssLetters is Matthew and unless Luke favors tweetOlicious as his screen name perhaps I had been deceived. Oh Jesus, fool me once.

“As a result we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming,” Ephesians 4:14.

I was a bit disappointed but relieved as I came around to the realization that perhaps Jesus was not in fact among my followers. I did start to feel better about the future of mankind and our imminent destruction. This was all an appropriate parable for any member of an online community, social media user or online marketer.

Twitter is an emerging medium. Over time it will refine and find its equilibrium. Back in the mid to late 1990s anyone with a few bucks and the URL for InterNIC could register any domain they wanted. Although I’m still kicking myself for not snapping up a few when I had the chance, companies were able to sue the courts to get their property or trademarked names returned. Twitter is still a place where anyone can be whoever they want to be. There are numerous Twitter fakers online today in addition to Jesus. Well known people with fake profiles include Borat, Bill Clinton, William Shatner, Bernie Madoff, David Hasselhoff and even Abe Vigoda who has been dead for 26 years. But companies and celebrities are dealing with these in much the same way they handled cybersquatters 15 years ago.

Protection of the identities of anonymous bloggers has been upheld in several state supreme courts. Additional laws and regulation are coming for the use of all social media. New Jersey and West Virginia are considering a crack-down on tough or threatening talk used online. New Jersey is also considering requiring sites such as Facebook and MySpace to police their sites for offensive posts or be at risk of consumer fraud lawsuits. Tweets on Twitter and posts on Craigslist have led to defamation suits. These are the inevitable growing pains any nascent community with explosive growth.

Twitter, however, is truly an amazing tool for communication and real-time search. But marketing experience is still necessary to successfully qualify an audience, understand consumer behavior, track targeted behavior and segment a market. I know that Jesus is not a marketing guy because he failed to use the tools at his disposal to find his target demographic. Had he used some of the emerging tools and applied some traditional marketing expertise he may have learned that I’m Jewish.

Maturation will come and the ability for people to share information will only increase with this maturity. Twitter will continue to grow and will soon find a path to revenue. When Twitter is answering to customers as well as users things will change. But these changes will usher in ways to become more effective in audience reach, targeting and communication because it will be profitable. I look forward to representatives of any religion or viewpoint wanting to hear what I have to say as I want to hear from them. Without these experiments we lose the social part of social media and the free marketplace of ideas.

And Jesus, if you still need some help refining your online campaign have your girl give me a call.

And together we say, “Amen.”

The most powerful advertising images are those that comunicate perfectly without requiring any ad copy. I receive so much funny stuff from my friends on a daily basis. But this was not only funny but the pictures speak for themselves. I will shut up now. The full list can also be found here http://tinyurl.com/d5lfea . Enjoy!

Holy Crap! Chemistry Test???

Physics, I thought this was Cartooning 101.

I'm with ya...everyone hates word problems.

A budding conspiracy theorist

Sometimes there is no partial credit for showing your work

Ask a simple question...

I would have guessed Covalent, his less famous brother.

A promising career as an elevator operator. Please, not aviation.

Right answer, wrong question.

No comment necessary

Okay, so I am really trying to be dilligent about this whole blogging thing. I figured I should since I have so many pithy, insightful and downright hilarious things to say. Afterall, it would make the world a better place. It is the least I can do.

I can remember when I was a kid and I thought it would be the coolest thing if I called the DJ at the radio station and made a request. Whoa, he might even say my name on the air or if I was really lucky put me on live.

If you are over let’s say about 35 and can actually remember listening to the radio as your source of music you might know what I’m talking about. So, you try to call and of course the number is busy because there are one thousand other 11 year olds trying to call at the same time. Or maybe it is busy because the DJ has the line tied up because he is calling  in a request himself to the DJ at the station he likes. But you are 11 and you are dying to use up a few precious seconds of your 15 minutes of fame and you keep calling. Eventually the phone might ring. The anticipation mounts and then the magic moment “Yeah hello, Rock 103.”

You had the perfect song picked out. The one song that captured both your gererations mood and your own pre-pubescent angst. The one song that everyone else would hear and think “what a cool kid, awesome song.” But as soon as the DJ picks up you immediately are transformed into a lobotomized moron. You can’t think about anything, let alone that one life-transforming song. The only music you can think about is some over-commercialized, one hit wonder piece of total suck.  I guess today an equivalent opportunity wasting choice would be anything by Miley Cyrus. But, then again no one listens to the radio anymore unless there is a tornado or perhaps if they left their iPod at home.

So, what does all of this have to do with blogging? I think I still have something important to add to the free marketplace of ideas. But why is it that when I actually sit down to write it is like the DJ just picked up the phone?

I was just talking to a good friend (longer story for another time) and was asked about this blog that I said I started. I realized that I had been derelict in my duty to the global consciousness and had not been blogging. I should be ashamed! I sat down to write and…nothing, brain wave flat-line. This bit of pablum is the result.

So, here is another entry. Everyone can feel better now. The cool thing is you dont even have to call the radio station anymore. Now you can just send text messages that the DJ can ignore.