Posts Tagged "twitter"
The Cube Has Spoken!
About a month ago I signed up to Nissan’s Hypercube site with hopes of being selected as creative enough to be in their competition to win 1 of 50 Nissan Cubes. They chose 500 people across all of teh Canada and I, along with a few of my twitter friends, are lucky enough to be in the running for 1 of 50 Nissan Cubes.
After my Doritos’ contest fiasco, another contest was probably the last thing I wanted to tackle and, alas, here I am. The second part of the Nissan Cube contest requires contestants to “audition” themselves to all of Canada via a blank canvas. On the canvas we can add images, video, sound – and it’s basically carte blanche. The application Nissan is using is actually pretty nifty and simple. I’d like something like that for this site one day. Well, I guess I’m off to brainstorm in a corner with a can of Pineapples is light syrup. I’ll be posting my canvas as soon as it’s approved/uploaded.
The whole marketing behind this contest had been completely word of mouth. Nissan got on Twitter and began spreading the word via their username (follow them here: @TheHyperCube ), word spread like wildfire and lead to apparently 7000 profile submissions which later had to be knocked down to 500.
Read MoreTwitter Updates vs. Facebook Statuses
The facebook “guy” is based on a man in his 30s who used to follow my friends and I home from high school and try to spit on us.
Soup tweet by @Wendstrand
Toe cramp tweet by @LouTreize
Read MoreIn Which the Squirrel Climbed a Tree and Found a Friend
Lately my thoughts have felt rather reminiscent of tree houses. I didn’t have a terrific tree house as a kid, but I made friends with plenty of trees and spent a hearty portion of the 1980s up said foliage. It was not unusual in suburban Chicago to catch sight of an even scrawnier version of myself halfway up the neighborhood oak, Choose Your Own Adventure paperback held tight between my teeth and PF Flyers kicking free. That’s where I could escape and no one could reach me (even if they could see me through the leaves).
I am still frequently overwhelmed by the urge to shimmy up some branches as I make my way around the world. That’s not always an option, unfortunately. People don’t look too kindly on a grown woman scaling municipal trees. For example, Beverly Hills has amazing trees, and I exercised a non-human level of self control by not disappearing up one or two just off Rodeo. Well, this time, anyway.
Like I said, I didn’t have an awesome tree house, I just made do with whatever tree I happened by. But my best friend Katie had the best tree house ever. This wasn’t some rickety box her brothers threw together one weekend- this was a handcrafted, architectural masterpiece! The hardwood floors were sanded so smooth you could film an Olde English Pledge commercial there (I probably tried, come to think of it. That was about the same time the camcorder entered my life and I started writing Saturday morning comedies a la Saved by the Bell). The square footage alone could easily pull a couple G’s in Manhattan. It was spectacular.
So what’s got my head up in the trees today? It’s hard to say, but I think it has something to do with Twitter. It seems that the time I spend online lately leaves me feeling the same way I did after an afternoon hanging out in the tree house with my best friend, listening to music and laughing until it hurts.
See, the life of a writer can be lonely. We’re odd, moody creatures that simultaneously crave and loathe attention. We love to read people and struggle to understand them, but want to keep a measurable distance just out of reach of anyone trying to understand us. I don’t know, maybe it’s in the vain attempt of objectivity, but I think it’s mostly a defense mechanism (like I said, writers are odd ducks).
For me, writing is like climbing trees. It’s solitary observation a safe distance from the world below. Now what I’ve found is happening with Twitter of late, is that I’ve taken up with other writers of the tree climbing persuasion. We were all up on our branches, miles from each other, drawing the world as we want it to be. Then one day a Retweet catches your eye, and you see someone sitting in a tree somewhere just like you. Soon Tweets turn into conversations, and conversations to games. Next thing you know, you’ve built a tree house where you can hide with your friends, telling stories and laughing until it hurts.
Twitter has made a measurable impact on my life, but it’s not just because the stunning infrastructure invites play and conversation. It’s the people in the tree house with me. We can climb onto our respective TweetDecks and hide from the other 89% of the world, playing our games and making up new stories so that when it’s time to go home for dinner, we have things to chuckle about until we meet again.
Read More
When Sarah Crisman isn’t climbing trees or trying to break into your kid’s tree house you can find her over at SarahCrisman.com or tweeting away on Twitter. Follow her! Don’t let me slap you!
Twestival Twas Twawesome!
Last night was Twestival – where about 175 cities around the world partied it up to raise money for Charity: Water. According to this video, there’s people out there drinking crazy ass water (by crazy ass I’m not talking about jazzing it up with a few lemon slices, no, I’m talking the bad sort of crazy ass).
Now, dear reader, let me ask you this: when wouldn’t you party for a good cause? My answer would be if racists decide to throw a benefit party speaking out against those who are against racism. Cause, if you’re against racists, doesn’t that make you a racist to racists? (I know being a racist is not a race, for the sake of humor, please accept the previous sentence). Either way, the racist thing would be a cause, but not a good one. I also can’t believe I’m still on this racist tangent when I’m supposed to be talking about Twestival Mtl.
Twestival Mtl was probably the coolest Twestival in the whole world? Why? Cause (warning: conceited remark coming up) I was there!! No no no, in all seriousness, it was a really great party organized by equally great or greater people. I got to finally put more faces and voices to some of my Twitter friends which is always an awesome ordeal.
The Twestival took place at Montreal’s Suco Lounge. A very nice, posh bar located on St.Laurent, just south of Sherbrooke. There was a nice slew of people there when me and my buddy David (who, after last night’s party, decided to join Twitter, follow him here) arrived around 8:15. The music was happening, people were networking, and the beer was aplenty (thanks Molson!). There was a projection screen (set up by @_fx_) that displayed, in real-time, all the Tweets that mentioned the words Twestival, water, or Charity:Water.
The thing about going to a twitter party, this being my first, is that you enter a place where you sort’ve know everyone but don’t. It’s hard to tell who’s who and who you can decipher from profile pictures (yes! I looked at all of them!). Once you start networking and meeting people, it’s fun and rewarding to finally meet the people you follow on Twitter. I mean, some of these people have watched my video and they had no qualms with talking to me and weren’t worried about whether or not I’d suddenly begin talking to imaginary animals.
There was a photo booth area where people were encouraged to make use of a pair of googles, a bath brush, and rubber duckies in front of a shower curtian while Eva Blue took pictures. It sounds more erotic than it was. Eva Blue was one of the first peeps from Montreal that I added on Twitter so it was like meeting a rockstar. Coincidentally she also takes pictures of rockstars. Check out her Flickr profile!
Finally, there was an awesome raffle with different prizes. The big prize was a trip to Vancouver with a free stay the Opus hotel down there (won by @JeanAymeri). The most notable prize was the OvoPur water cooler (won by @AdeleMcAlear). A designer water cooler priced at about $700 USD that looks like the robot EVE from the movie Wall-E. That’s if EVE from the movie Wall-E dispensed filtered water from her/it’s crotchal area. It’s a beautifully designed water dispenser that actually made me think about how lucky we are to live in developped countries. There’s places all over the world where people drink sludgy brown unfilitered water while here we’re designing $700 water coolers to dispense ours.
All in all, it was an awesome night. Lots of fun people who I hope to party again with in the near future. If you were there and we didn’t run into eachother! SHOW SOME LOVE!!
Twitter is So Cool! Here’s Why!
WAIT! Don’t go! I know there’s a MYRIAD of blog posts about there on why Twitter is seemingly the Internet equivalent of the 2nd coming of Christ but, please, listen to my humble opinion on why I think Twitter is so cool.
According to my tweets, I joined Twitter about a year ago on January 28th. Apparently I was animating a bear.
Animating a bear.
See! There it is. My first tweet. Isn’t it cute? If you’re wondering about the bear, he’s fine.
Apparently, I didn’t get twitter at first (like so many people) because a whole year had almost elapsed until I posted my 2nd tweet.
uploading my videos to youtubes! yays!
Apparently I was uploading a video. I’m not even sure how many followers I had back then. All I have to say is that I’m glad I gave Twitter a 2nd shot because it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Now I know I’m making it look like this social network is the holy grail but, in a way, it’s exactly what you want it to be. Your perception of Twitter is exactly what you’ll derive from Twitter. See it as a waste of time and, voila!, Twitter is a waste of time. See it as a classroom and Twitter is a classroom. Whatever you believe Twitter is, you’re right. That’s what I think a lot of people fail to realize.
What have I experienced from Twitter that prompted me to write this blog post? Well, in a way, I used Twitter to rediscover myself. Through following people and engaging them in conversation, I found the best way to get the most out of twitter is to be authentic. Be your true genuine self. I asked myself, “what can I offer these Tweeps (twitter people) that is authentically me?” Through this I found my answer. I had always loved drawing but hadn’t picked up a pencil (or wacom tablet pen) in a long time. Especially not to draw something for myself. That’s when the TWITDrawing was born. I decided I would draw humourous pictures for my Twitter followers. Then, almost daily, I was drawing a new TWITDrawing for a different follower. The response was overwhelming but, most importantly, I was having fun. I had rediscovered my love for drawing and felt I could share them with the 6 million people who use Twitter. From that set of actions, I developped lasting relationships on Twitter. I met people with the same like mindedness as me. People who like the same movies, tv shows, music. People who laugh at the same stuff I do and people who are inspired by the same stuff I’m inspired by. With all these awesome people I’ve been meeting on Twitter I got more and more inspired to actually put into action some ideas I had on the backburner for the longest time. I was motivated. I wanted to create and make art and share it with everyone. This is what I got out of Twitter.
I saw Twitter as a place to share my art and I did just that. However, this wasn’t incessant self-promotion or anything like that. I always remained authentic first. Besides, I draw FOR my Twitter friends, not AT them. Through this experience, I’ve met a load of awesome people. Some people even more awesome than me (weird, I know!).
Now I’m consistently drawing and making videos with the possibility of even collaborating on some projects with some of my Twitter friends. I don’t see this possibility available anywhere. Twitter has connected me to the resources and people that can help me accomplish stuff I’ve always wanted to accomplish. So, if you’re on Twitter (but not finding it useful) or thinking about joining Twitter, remember to be authentic. Don’t try to take from Twitter but add to Twitter, the rest will work itself out.
Finally, where else can you get someone to write your nickname in the sand on a sunny beach in California?
Thanks Sarah!
Anything that brings me closer to California is a winner in my books!
Thank you Sarah for that awesome photograph! Follow Sarah on Twitter.
And if you’d like to win a TWITdrawing or engage in some sort of conversation with me, simply follow me on Twitter!
Also, check out the famous TWITdrawings.
Read MoreFollow Me
