Twitter is the most Panopticonic method of self-regulating your own incarceration:  You’re basically talking to yourself out loud without any real context because you’re typing; but when a friend challenged me — nay, DARED ME — to try Twitter:  “How can you hate it if you never tried it?”  The gauntlet was thrown, the face was slapped, the dare:  Accepted!  You can see my Twitter homepage below:  http://twitter.com/BolesBlogs


I read our infamous Gordon Davidescu’s Twitter stream last night — he posts his stream to his blog so I wasn’t technically “Twittering” — and I was impressed by a plug for the Boles Blogs Network that he sent out to the world:

I thought that was a pretty neat way of getting the word out about new
ideas while also remaining interesting without being self-interested. 

Be wary of refreshing your Twitter feed too often in an hour or you’ll get a nasty yellow error alert from Twitter telling you off:

Twitter also provides neat Flash stuff you can embed on your websites to feed your Twitter updates:

You can also customize the look and feel of your Twitter stream:

Twitter will even help you look tasteless with an ugly red and orange design called something like “retrovirus:”

Your friends can choose to follow you.  I only recognize Gordon in the shot below.  The other two fellows were auto-added to my account for some reason. 

Twitterrific is a fine Twitter program for the Mac that you have to pay for to use, and I did:

You can also Twitter from your iPhone — and I have — using another Twitterrific for-pay product if you want the advertising free Premium version:  “Yes, please!”

On my iPhone I can get more information about my friends by tapping on their icon.  I have no idea why Gordon is gallivanting around as a woman today on Twitter, but I’m sure we’ll be reading about that in a future article:

Touching the “User Info” button brings up even more detail:

I can even get “User Info” on my own dang self:

Do you Twitter?

Will you Twitter?

I can see how Twitter might be a good communication device if you can remain significant in your want to update the world with your thoughts. 

The temptation, it seems, is to put forth every bleat and bellyache — but that is always the danger of living a human life online.

23 Comments

  1. My icon is Luna Lovegood chiefly because I found the icon right around the same time that I started using twitter and I thought it was well designed. 🙂

  5. Good to know that David, though I am still not convinced about Twitter…are you enjoying the challenge?
    The new tagline here sounds great!

  6. The challenge is going fine so far, Katha. I’m tempted to Twitter my sudden headache — but I’ll fight the urge to micro-blog the throb!
    I changed the tagline a couple of weeks ago. Glad you noticed! I think you’re the first!

  7. I just can’t imagine you twittering about your cough and cold David…after all persons…ooof.
    I was very irregular for the entire Dec, sometimes I could only logged in onec/ twice a week – that’s the reason I missed it – I guess. It’s very crisp!

  8. Glad you’re enjoying the twitter experience, David. I didn’t much when I tried it. And also remember thinking about Gordon’s profile pic when I last logged in. I thought it was him younger in a wig?!

  10. The question I’m asking today on Twitter, Dananjay, is if it is possible to be both interesting and significant. It’s a tough task to try to answer and employ.

  11. David —
    I’m sure it’s possible to be interesting and significant on twitter. Have you come across any twitter streams that are?

  12. Not yet, Dananjay. I just joined a few hours ago, so I’m rather new. I am hopeful I will find similar minds — but I know it is up to me to worry about my stream and not anyone else’s.
    I just Twittered this:

    The disgraceful “Barack the Magic Negro” video has been removed from YouTube! Sometimes good things do happen during wishing!

    I’m working on that topic as my next Carceral Nation article I’m finishing up right now — so I’m scooping/previewing/promoting my own self!

  13. Luna Lovegood is a Harry Potter character. In my LJ and other personal blogs I use icons of characters from fictional realms that I like – note how many Days of our Lives icons I have 🙂

  14. I didn’t know about that video, David! Apparently the song was first heard on the Rush Limbaugh show. Must have been pretty bad! It’s probably still there in some other site. I’m off to look!

  18. I have humbly changed it. Behold the power of three weeks of no shaving! Not too old a photo.

  22. Nicola!
    That was definitely a scary thing! I guess they fixed it pretty fast but the system never should’ve been that vulnerable to a dictionary attack. “Happiness” as a secure Admin password? Oooof!

  23. Pingback: The Incestuous Replication Meme | Memeingful

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