The New Dork: Entrepreneur State of Mind
This is a Pantless Knights tribute to our favorite entrepreneurs (who are all "new dorks"). It's a spoof of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind," from the guys behind Grasshopper.com. We made it because there's a new type of dork that is cooler than ever. Look at tech entrepreneurs, hipsters, Computer Science Barbie - they're all super popular new dorks!
Controversial Church’s Next Picketing Project: Twitter HQ
Reverend Fred Phelps’s Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket Twitter’s San Francisco offices tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. PST. The Kansas-based church is picketing because it believes that “the people who run Twitter … don’t use their position & voice to warn a generation of rebels of the consequences of their rebellion.”
The church knows how to get attention. It has been hit with a tsunami of criticism for picketing military funerals and waving signs that say things like “God Hates Fags” while claiming that America deserves its military losses because of its sins. Westboro even runs a website at www.godhatesfags.com. Members will also be protesting several Jewish organizations — including the Anti-Defamation League — in the hours leading up to its visit to Twitter.
The church members will be tweeting about the Twitter HQ picketing rally as it happens. Don’t be too quick to point out the irony on that. The Westboro schedule says: “Now that should get interesting, WBC member(s) Tweeting as they picket outside Twitter, Inc. Won’t a black hole or something open in the space/time vortex?”
Context in Tweets
An interesting problem with Twitter is that followers often don't know what context a tweet may be in or what it may be referring to.
For example, I may tweet that my face is numb, but maybe a follower missed the tweet where I said I was at the dentist.
Obviously, for followers to be able to see what context your tweet is in would require some sort of constant "Where are you tweeting from?" field. Sure, that would be a simple fix, but now you're adding more features and clutter to Twitter's user interface and that's a big no-no.
What's the solution? Check Twitter every 2 seconds and read every single tweet. Good luck.
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jonvictorino
Quick Twitter Theory
I think one of the reasons why Twitter is so popular (aside from the obvious reasons) is because it’s somewhat difficult to use. Twitter unlike most popular web services requires a slight learning curve. I have noticed that new users’ first tweet is often something like, “I don’t understand Twitter” and that’s not because they don’t understand the point of it, but they don’t understand how to use it.
Think about it, having to manually enter “RT @username:” to share what someone has said isn’t obvious until you put a little thought into it or finally ask a more experienced user what it means. Say you want to tweet something you would like people to be able to easily find based on it’s subject, you might tweet something like this, “Are people still using tables for layouts? #webdesign” now when people search “#webdesign” they will only find tweets related to web design (as long as it’s tagged with the webdesign hash tag). That’s not obvious when signing up for Twitter… it’s something you learn over time.
How would this help make Twitter popular? Kids pick up on the Twitter lingo quick and think older people won’t be able to learn it and when older people actually do learn it they feel a sense of accomplishment for being able to learn this web stuff and continue to do it. This makes Twitter users of all ages loyal to the service.
Told you it was a quick theory. Any thoughts? Comment and let me know.
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/jonvictoino