Twitter

Why True Twit doesn’t work – for me

September 1, 2011 By admin 1 Comment

My Direct Messages mailbox in my Twitter account is full of messages saying: so-and-so uses TrueTwit validation service, to validate click here … with a link leading to an online form where I have to type the same characters I see in a weird Captcha image like this:

After having filled in a few hundred of these validation forms, I started feeling like a monkey doing scientific tests too see if there is any intelligence.

And then I saw this in a Twitter bio ‘I don’t True Twit!‘ (David G. Griffits) WOW, it never occured to me that you can actually NOT do True Twit. My brain started thinking for it’s self and decided not to fill any more validation forms of people who have the honor I follow them.

Usually my reasons why follow my actions, so here’s a few why’s on my True Twit refusal.

True Twit is offending
Being followed by a real person on Twitter is an honor. Followers are your guests. Just like guests at home, at a theater show, at a restaurant, on Twitter, your followers are your guests. How would it be to have to fill in a form to prove you are human when you attend a show or want to dine out? It would be offensive to the bone.
True Twit does not validate a thing
Suppose I want to sell something or support a website that sells something. I could create a few hundred Twitter accounts and auto-follow thousands of Twitter accounts to anticipate a x percentage of follow-backs. I would look to find a student from a low pay rate country to fill in a few hundreds of True Twit forms. Easy. It still doesn’t make my few hundreds of Twitter accounts human, now would they? So True Twit doesn’t make followers human.
True Twit blocks the start of any spontaneous human connection
As soon somebody sends out an automated Direct Message (auto DM) telling me to prove myself to be human, it creates a barrier between him and me. Suppose I filled in the form, passed the test of being human, what start will we have? Usually another auto DM is send to say ‘thank you for following’. But I was allready following, even before filling in the form. After all these test I don’t feel the urge to connect much. I miss out the spontane meeting we could have had.
True Twit ignores your gut feeling
Gut feelings can be trained. If you listen to it often enough you will be able to depend on it more and more. Why use a form to see if you can trust people? Use your gut feeling. And if you don’t trust it, test the follower by asking him a question in a mention and see how he responds. Look at somebodies timeline to see how they interact and with whom. Read their bio’s, interact. Be human yourself. This is a much friendlier way to validate your followers. And if you ask the right questions and make the right remarks, you could just have made Twitter-friends for live!
True Twit risks letting you loose precious followers
It doesn’t matter if you fill out a True Twit form or not, followed ones follow me back anyway, most of the time. But suppose you are using True Twit and you set fixed in your mind that no matter what, a follower who doesn’t fill in your form, will not be followed back, and that follower was Barack Obama, or Beyoncé or any other celebrity. You risk the precious honor of being followed by somebody that matters. Wow… what a loss.

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Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: True Twit, Twitter, validation

Social Media? Don’t give up! Interview with @mqtodd

August 20, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Interview with Micheal Q. Todd

Michael Q. Todd

In your Facebook profile it says you are living the dream, what does living the dream mean to you?

For me living the dream is not having a boss, not having clients and that I can control what I do every day and control time. There is no limit on the hours of the day. You can create hundreds of hours a day. My philosophy about Internet is know – like – follow – promote me. When people are promoting me more every day, I create hundreds of hours a day. When I write a blog post and a lot of twitter friends share it, they promote me. I don’t need to promote my blog, I got 1000 of people doing that for me. Every day is big fun for me.

You wrote The more I learn the more I realise that we are all connected, can you tell me about that?

We are not far away from being all connected. The more you trust and believe this is the case the more it will happen. Things are happening really fast. We build relationships with people, channeling people. If I think about somebody they pop up on my twitter account, this keeps happening to me more and more. We are very close to being connected totally. This is what the Mayan prophecy was 2600 years ago, that in 1999 we would start connecting. This was the year when LinkedIn and Friendster started. The Mayans said this was going to take 12 years. A wave of consciousness is starting in 2012. We are in the final stages of everybody connecting and then the wisdom is going to spread really fast.

You seem to have a lot of life experience. Did you ever consider the fact that this could make you an old soul, somebody with a lot of responsibility…?

I have seen my past lifes. I have been hypnotised a few times. In one of those sessions I was in an ancient country, 200-400 years ago where I was speaking to a crowd of people protesting against a government. Then guys in uniform came with big swords and killed me. I feel like I am dong now what I did before. When I was 12 years old I have been speaking to an audience about the environment. When social media came along, I saw the huge potential to have a voice here. Maybe I am an old soul, yes. I feel I enjoy being in the center of it.

You are helping people on Twitter and Facebook. If there would be a # 1 tip for a Twitter user wanting to be successful, what would that be?

In 3 words: don’t give up. 96% Of twitter users give up within 1 month. People give up all the time. It is not so easy to get started when you are not a celebrity, but you have to keep going. You have to trust Twitter and trust your friends that are successful with it. A lot of people use only 2 or 3 kinds of tweets. They don’t get the right balance, not using different kind of tweets. That is my main advice; to study different kind of tweets. I wrote a blog story about 6 different kinds of tweets. Twitter is about knowing why you are on there, and you have to be there for a long time. I am there to teach about twitter and social media and to promote and connect good people. If I put out good material about social media, people start to like me and read about the environment at the same time. If I would speak about the environment all the time people would stop following me.

And Facebook?

Facebook is not a whole lot different. Facebook has threads of conversation. Also here it applies: remenber who you are and why you are there. I am about Social Media, Environment and Japan. You have to have a place where you are from. Say thank you a lot on Facebook and Twitter and be fun! Give information on what you know about and ask questions. When you make a comment in a blog, you should say thank you, give information, have fun and ask good questions. That is the big tip about being successful on Facebook. And get a lot of friends.

And last: quoting you: “What if we are the ones we have been waiting for?”

What if we were. We can all wait for somebody to come. Maybe Jesus is coming or somebody else to save us. But what if it is us. We are here for a reason. There have never been times like this. There must be a reason. A lot of things are happening and we are here. Maybe it is time for me to do something quite special. I am just asking people: look at yourself, what could you do? What is your potential. What if you are that prophet that stops everybody form fighting? People have unlimited potential if they decide who they want to be. There are new things everyday on the internet. Now Skype and Facebook are hooking up and there is talk about Foursquare joining Facebook. Every day there are new apps to share information. If people can just try 1 thing every day, then they will keep up with everything. And when they try 2 things a day they move ahead of everybody else. Do things for the first time, make a Youtube video for the first time. Try something new every day. Only good things will happen out of that.

Follow Michael on Twitter: @mqtodd
Visit www.michaelqtodd.com

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Filed Under: Facebook, Interviews, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: facebook, foursquare, Japan, social media, Twitter

Make your Twitter feed sweet

April 24, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Thinking of Twitter, picturing all those people doing very small things on a very small surface, Twitter reminded me of a heap of ants. Imagine all people posting tweets are basically building a giant heap of… what? Global conscience? If a major event happens, all ants start twittering about the same thing. The heap moves in one direction. If big events become past events, ants continue doing what they were doing all day. Walking their path, carrying their little straws and look very very busy.

Some ants walk fast. Other ants follow. In Twitter some people measure the way of ants by ‘ Klout’ score. To me Klout is the same as ‘ Ant’ score. The more succesfull you leaded other ants into your direction, the more points you score.

Imagining one evening, all these ants doing their thing, I wondered how it would be like to pour some syrup into an ants-nest. The syrup would be somebodies Twitter feed, and the ants that like that syrup, would follow that flow. Easy.

I could not stop this fantasy so the next day, I did pour in some syrup in an ants nest. Carefully ofcourse, to not upset Greenpeace, Peta or any other Ant(i)Ant-sadists I poured the syrup on an empty part of a piece of hollowed wood on top of the ant-heap.

And see: in a few minutes the ants followed the golden stream of syrup.

Syrup on an ants heap

Klout score is syrup score.

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Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter

Twitter

March 19, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

It is amazing how much people I meet on Twitter in such a short time. I am thinking about writing short interviews of random followers, would be great. Whoever reads this from following me on Twitter, shout out and I will write about you! We can use Skype and e-mail to set up the story. It will take 30 minutes max. Take in consideration the time zone: I am in Amsterdam/Paris time. I can interview from 5 – 6 am and at 8 – 9 pm.

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Filed Under: Twitter

What’s with that twitter egg

March 12, 2011 By admin 3 Comments

It’s all about eggs. With easter coming up as the next big seasonal festive, lets talk about the true origin of the (twitter) egg.

Since I am a fan of Twitter (since january 2011), the default image of Twitter fascinates me. It is simple and comes in many colors. Here is a blue one:

Twitter egg blue

Now there’s an egg. When somebody follows me on Twitter, still using this default egg-image, I don’t feel like following back. A Twitter account or person, still in it’s shelf can’t be any good. As a creative the first thing I would do is change the avatar. Wouldn’t you?

But where does this egg thing come from? Twitter is all about following and being followed. The only egg I want to follow is the image of Shiv Baba – the soul ‘God’:

Shiv Baba egg

It is not a coincidence that the word for One in Hindi is ‘egg’. There is only One to be followed.The highest supreme soul.

Throughout the cycle of time, referred to as Kalpa, we remember and worship the One, THE EGG, as a stone symbol. Also known als a Shiva Linga or Shiva Lingum.