Balloon Boy, Twitter, and the Online News Eclipse

i am a big fan and user of twitter. for a creative person it’s great mental chewing gum and generally keeps your pulse active. and, increasingly it’s serving as a news service, albeit an unfiltered and not always reliable one.

So when the Balloon Boy story hit twitter i was on it. Of course I was completely 100% suckered and totally believed that there was a six year old boy floating above Colorado. I had no reason to believe otherwise. I have an eight year old son myself and could readily imagine how such a thing might happen.

The Ballloon Boy story was the perfect example of an ONLINE NEWS ECLIPSE. I just coined that term btw, so all royalties this way please. An online news eclipse is what happens when a story like Balloon Boy (great human interest, bizarre, happening “live”) instantly monpolizes the attention of everyone , blotting out (or eclipsing!) all the traditional news outlets. It was an instant viral hit literally within minutes of first being reported. How we feel about the story can overwhelm what’s actually happening. Or not happening in this case. I was freaking out at the thought of a little six year old in almost certain mortal terror. As was any parent.

Turns out the whole thing was a fake. There was no balloon boy. Just another wannabe who wanted to get his face on TV at any cost. Well he got his wish. Thought not in the way he wanted. 15 years ago this would have been a blip on the news at ten. Now it can dominate our attention for hours. LIVE!

I get the feeling we are going to see a lot more of this. It’s inevitable. We’re all so connected and inter-connected on such a granular level that we no longer have time to think. We just react.

The whole episode reminded me of a quote about the future of media i saw years ago that had a huge influence on me professionally. It went something like…IN THE FUTURE PEOPLE WILL NO LONGER THINK AND READ. THEY WILL MERELY WATCH AND FEEL.

Kind of feels like we’re at that point. And I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Or, most probably, a good thing and a bad thing.

The extent to which using twitter has influenced my purchasing behavior so far

I bought the dvd pictured below because i follow this guy. he’s an Irish comedy writer and twitter pioneer. his name is graham linehan. he is very funny and the tv show is a winner. it’s in season 3 in the UK but thus far only season 1 is available in this region of the world.

and can i just say how moronic it is that there are different “regions” for dvds? to prevent piracy i guess. well let me just say that the only thing it has ever prevented me from doing is legally purchasing dvds and instead forces to watch things online for free that i would happily have paid for.

wefollow.com. Now twitter makes sense!

Clearly different people use twitter in different ways. As it should be. I can only speak from my own experience of it. As with all social media there is an element of micro-celebrity built into it. E.g. “You only have 187 friends/followers, I have 1,087!” etc. And it also makes sense that those who work the medium hardest have the most “success”. We are human. We will always want to rub others’ noses in it. That’s how God made us.

My experience of Twitter went something like this.

1. I don’t want to be on twitter. it’s a load of old narcissistic wank.
2. It may well be a load of old narcissistic wank. but how can you know for sure if you don’t try it?
3. Im on it. It’s not exciting, but hey Stephen Fry is on it! And the creator of Father Ted! And Steve Buscemi! Actually interesting people!

So i’ve used twitter as a source of entertainment. And, as a pathetic celebrity whore, it’s really exciting to follow people i admire and get into their heads a bit. this could not have happened without twitter. So i’m netting out on the side of twitter is a good thing. because celebrities are better than us. that’s why. and nobody cares about how you like your morning bagel. unless you’re larry david.

new media tends to follow the path of least resistance. The internet 1994: a possibly world-changing tool that will facilitate cross-cultural dialogue on an unprecedented scale, OR, will it become a porn and gambling facilitator. and we all know how that went. twitter may have hit gold with celebs connecting to fans. a constant electronic flow of love from adoring fans – yeah that’ll work.

imagine if sean penn, who probably should never twitter, twittered for a month on behalf of a charity. and you had to pay ten bucks to follow him. i would do that!

So last week i had an idea for twitter. and today i found out it has been done. it’s this:
http://wefollow.com/

It connects “twitterees” (us tedious plebs) with “twitterers” (actually interesting celeb folk).

A brilliant idea.

The soon-to-be King of Twitter: Mr. Steve Buscemi

As  i blogged before, i largely use twitter to get access to minds that are more creative and ideally funnier than i am.  and it’s a great source of free entertainment.   I was a stephen fry follower when you were still thinking about getting AOL.   But i now have an instant new favorite:  Steve Buscemi.. I would like to state for the record that i started following him earlier today when he had a mere 500 odd followers. Yeah, that early. Chris Roe Esq. put me on to him. And i’m sure he’ll be a huge hit on twitter.

And i love the fact that he follows nobody on twitter. zero. as it should be. he should never change that. Steve Buscemi doesn’t need you, you need Steve Buscemi.

Trees Lounge was a masterpiece btw. See it today!

Stephen Fry now has 100,000 zombie twitter slaves eager to do his bidding

Veteran English TV, screen, radio and stage actor and comedian Stephen Fry has more than 100,000 twitter followers, including myself.

I got onto twitter more out of curiosity more than anything else. I actually don’t have that many real-world friends on twitter (or in the real world come to think of it) so i started following witty celebrities. Their lives are just so much more interesting!

What i didn’t know about Mr. Fry is that in addition to being one of the finest comic talents of his generation he is also an uber-geek. Hence his precocious and prodigious twittage. In fact his tech and gadget opinions hold quite some sway in his native UK.

So now i’m hooked on his frequent twitter updates. something i never dreamt would happen. It’s like some kind of bite sized text and pic-based celebrity reality show in which i play a tiny role. And i have to say i find it utterly fascinating.

So here’s to you Stephen Fry! Happy 100,000th.

Suck on that Hugh Laurie!

Twitter not a huge money maker shock!

Just learned, via twitter ironically (Hugh McLeod specifically),  that twitter isn’t making money.  Neither is Digg or Facebook.  And i think I know why.  Well I’m going to hazard a not too-deeply-researched guess why.  I’m an advertising creative, research is, like, a pain dude.

As long as the Internet (the “i” is capitalized you know) has been around and thriving, the cry of the overfunded startup has been ‘Oh, relax, the money will eventually come from advertising!”.  Really?   And what form will this advertising take?   Google ads or something.   Banner ads!  Yeah.  That’s it.

If only these would-be vendors of advertising had bothered to ask adfolks like us what we thought about the advertising opportunities they proposed to sell to – presumably – adfolks like us.  Because if they did, they might realize that what they’re selling just isn’t that exciting.   Sotto voce text whispers do not an exciting experience make.  And advertising, to be successful, has to get people excited in some manner.  It has to be motivating. It has to be exciting.

I’m not qualified to get into the mathematics of online advertising.  But I really think that the online advertising game has been won.  And Google won it.  If i want to reach (note i say “reach” not “excite”) people i’m giving Google a call.

There will doubtless be great uses of Facebook (whopper sacrifice) and Twitter eventually i’m sure.  But to hear the chatter about these alleged hot advertising properties reminds me of this scenario.

You walk into the foyer of the a grand French hotel.  It looks beautiful.  you’re paying a fortune to stay there.  the manager greets you effusively.  “Welcome to the Hotel Royale!”   He then informs you that you will be sleeping on the window ledge on the fifth floor.   You are understandably underwhelmed. He is perplexed. Is this not the most beautiful hotel in all of France???