Hash it out – My next great Twitter adventure

trev — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:03:02 +0000

When I started 3S stories on Nov 17,2008, my goal was to tweet a short-short-short story five days a week for a year. With the exception of a couple weeks holidays, I pulled it off. I learned a lot about editing, about impact, and more importantly, about the social value of Twitter.

I wanted to keep 3S_stories a pure fiction venue. But the social nature of Twitter wouldn’t allow it. I found myself getting LOL replies, and laudatory DMs, and retweets that increased my followers by ten or 15 people a week. I replied with thank yous, responded in kind by retweeting my faves. Before I knew it, I was part of a community; sharing jokes, having conversations, doling out support and advice and receiving the same in return. I don’t have the most followers but the ones I have, I like.

Which brings me to my Twitter meme/goal/conspiracy for 2010: The Hashtag.

The hashtag functions as a sort of collective bookmark on Twitter. It’s that addendum to a tweet marked with an ‘#’. They allow tweets on a theme or topic to be archived and easily searched. You can see examples under Trending Topics on the right hand side of your Twitter page.

Here’s some example I contributed to the Dec 31st #BadDoctorWhoSynopsis:

Dr Who is the guy Buckaroo Bonzai wants to be when he grows up. #BadDrWhoSynopsis

Dr Who is like ‘Are You Being Served?’ with less double entendre and more spaceships. #BadDrWhoSynopsis

Dr Who: Come Mister Timelord, tally me bananas/Dalek come, and me wanna go home. #BadDrWhoSynopsis

Dr Who is like my life, only with better acting, good scripts, cute co-stars and a bigger budget. #BadDrWhoSynopsis

Other examples from November:

3S_stories@JodiMacArthur Captain Ahab’s Seafood Palace? Christine’s Drive-In ? Fried and Freshly Juiced? The Crepes of Plath? #literaryrestaurants

JodiMacArthur@3S_stories: That’s ridiculous. How about. Lord Of The Fries?

Chris Farley was my Sensei, David Spade my sparring partner. #iamabadninja

Uniform accidentally bleached, I am limited to missions in the Arctic.#iamabadninja

Fleeing pursuer I forward roll over parked car, get hit by passing city bus.#iamabadninja

Get the idea?

Hash tags provide context. They leverage the social aspect of Twitter and invite participation, which is a direction I want to go with 3S_stories.

Will you join me in creating random acts of creativity? All that’s required is that you be brief, be relevant, and interesting. You can do that, can’t you?

It’s the little things that count

trev — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:30:02 +0000

My motivation for signing up for Twitter was entirely geeky. I just wanted to see how it worked and what all the fuss was about. The service is widely dismissed as much ado about nothing, and source of constant spam. There is some truth to that. However, with some selective following you can fine tune Twitter to deliver exactly what you want.

I was fortunate to discover a handful of 140 character story tellers. I can’t remember which one I followed first, or which one made me think “hey – I could do this,” So I did. You can check out the last 8 months of tweets @3S_stories

Here are some interesting authors to check out in the world of microfiction.

I’ve been learning some Spanish from horror writer @cruciforme. Next time I’m on holiday and the subject of corpses and/or zombies comes up, I will be totally prepared. Here are a couple faves (translated via Google):

Rains. Often. One of the drawbacks of living at the foot of a sad giant.

I told her that my heart was hers. She claimed it at that very moment, with a butcher knife, lewd eyes and eager hands.

@WineStory140 has a real niche market – all the microfiction posts are wine related. I really admire the focus of these tweets, and the fact that they are accessible to mainstream readers, not just oenophiles. A sampling:

“Damn birds,” he gripes as they trigger new explosions in his Chianti vineyard. Staring at the old WWII minefield, he just sighs.

The Aussy winemaker liked pairing his wine with grilling on the barbie. Or even better, doing shots from her navel.

Management just voted to replace the old water fountain with a spanking new pinot grigio fountain. Morale is already up.

@onebadcookie has a great concept that I wish I’d thought of first. You can figure it out from the picture, can’t you? Of course you can.

The weight of conflicting human thoughts and ethical stances will bear down on you; the philosophy bookshelf will collapse on you.

Your call is not important to anybody.

You body will be discovered in a heavily wooded lot.

trevormcpherson.info » twitter

Hash it out – My next great Twitter adventure

It’s the little things that count