Twitter Lists

Happy Holiday season everyone! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Happy Kwanzaa! I hope these days bring you some awesome and safe dives. It is time for my updated twitter lists. I am working refining them a bit. I wanted the list to be more meaningful so I am creating more lists. You can be on more than one list.

In addition to my normal twitter lists….

Scuba Divers (47) – http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubadivers – You must be a person (i.e. not a bot and you speak in first person) and you must actually scuba dive.

Scuba Businesses (78) – http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubabusinesses – If you make money or a living from something scuba related this is this list you could be on.

Scuba Organizations (26) – http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubaorgs – This is a list of groups, organizations and people whose intent is to make diving better through conservation, education or research. Profit is not their first motive… at least I hope not.

I have added two new twitter lists….

Scuba Favorites (0)- http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubafavorites – NEW LIST- This is a list of my favorite scuba tweeters. No one is on this list yet, but there will be some soon! You never know who is going to make this list but know one thing. They will be fun tweeters about scuba.

Scuba Instructors (1)- http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubainstructors – NEW LIST- As you can guess this is a list of Scuba Instructors or business that offer scuba diving instruction. I don’t verify they are instructors. If they talk about their experience with training others in scuba they can make this list. Make sure you know your instructors are qualified by a respectable agency before choosing.

Starting in 2010 I will features some tweeters from my Scuba Favorites list. Merry tweeting!!

I just finished experiencing the Challenge Your World event with Guy Kawasaki in Montreal entirely through Twitter.

What was this event?

Rendez-vous 09 – A featured event of Global Entrepreneurship Week and Challenge Your World

I wasn’t able to attend tonight’s event, but just by reading the live Tweeting (and vigouous ReTweeting), the Twitterverse was able gave me a real sense of the energy in a room filled with over 500 attendees.

All proceeds of the evening benefited CARE Canada and according to the latest Challenge Your World Tweet – $17,000 was raised.  That’s amazing!

Congrats to Martin Lessard (@martinlessard) and the Challenge Your World Team (#CYW & @challengeworld).  Your hard work has definitely paid off tonight!

Although I wasn’t there to witness and experience the magic of Guy Kawasaki myself, it was obvious that the Twitterverse was able to transfer his passion, positivity and his inspiring keynote 140 characters at a time.  Thanks to RT’s from @kimvallee, @jeromeparadis, @emergent007, @zelaurent, @bdescary, @evablue and many more.

Cheers to Guy Kawasaki, Challenge Your World and Twitter tonight!

Tired of hearing about social media? Still can’t figure out if it is tweet, twit or twat? Haven’t figured out your Facebook page from your profile or your group?

Well, a great new video from the Socialnomics guys that told us all that Social Media is not a fad has been released and it showcases some of the numbers and statistics behind successful launches and implementations of Social Media Campaigns.  Will this be the result for everyone? Who knows, but if you haven’t even claimed your Twitter url or sent a single tweet, how will you ever know? What’s the worst that could happen? As the video shows, here are a few ideas:

Increase in sales?

Decrease in call center costs?

Traffic to your website?

Boy, any one of those would be terrible in this economy.  The simplest benefit that I could see would be preventing someone from squatting on your name and your brand.

Don’t think that would happen? Check out these examples:  vw, Kellogg,  Walmart or even Ad Age’s Marketer of the Year, Hyundai. Big brand names that were beat to the tweet and now are left wondering if their brand reputations are left at risk.  Maybe, maybe not, but if I had worked to build my brand, been recognized as a Marketer of the Year, in a year when there was little good news out of the automotive industry, I would hate to see it fade due to some ill-fated tweets about oysters, cellphones, and Yankees.  Not a big deal? Interestingly enough, if the course of writing this blog post and following the recent article in Ad Age regarding squatters, Twitter has finally taken the action to suspend the account. But don’t think it is easy to get them to sit up and take notice. This only happened after they contacted the social media site’s headquarters and began to contemplate legal action.  This account most likely was suspended due to inappropriate content like their bio that previously read, “Have a Lustful Day,” more so than due to any interest on Twitter’s behalf to protect brand names.

So, if you decide to join the Twitterverse to engage and interact and see if you can get a good ROI or if it is just online reputation management, please do so and do so quickly as this Social Media Revolution is not going away.

But when you do, don’t think it will happen overnight or that there is any “easy” way to gauge and measure ROI on social media.  There isn’t some nifty Google Analytic (yet) that you can track all of the ties to Social Media. You have to bear in mind the indirect and direct traffic, the benefit of the buzz around your brand, a positive reputation, and sometimes, just being considered a trendy brand by engaging consumers through this new method.  The diversity, the sheer number of social media networks out there make this an ever changing environment.  That may not fit well into the single page report your CEO wants to see, but it is a reality.  Erik Qualman (author of Socialnomics) uses what I think is a great analogy “What is the ROI of your Phone?”  Any ideas on how to quantify that? We haven’t come up with anything yet either.

Bottom line, you can look around at your competitors and see if you are going to be first or if you will just be left behind. You can’t afford not to engage, and I haven’t met a company yet in this economy that can afford to wait.

Check out this great video, focused on Social Media ROI by Socialnomics, with all of their amazing stats. We summarized them below for you. If at the end of the video, you are ready to jump on the Social Media Bandwagon, feel free to check out  Kansas City’s Social Media Agency to begin analyzing the steps to launch your social media campaign.

Here are the stats and quotes used in the video:

Overland Park, KS (EMG) – November 17, 2009. When a series of events brought about the opportunity for Paul Evans to relocate Evans Media Group, a boutique advertising and social media agency to the Midwest from its original location just outside New York City, Evans and his partner wasted no time. “Over the years, business had brought me to Kansas City many times and I had always been intrigued by this center of culture and diversity in the heartland” said Evans from his Overland Park, KS office.

“My partner was originally from Missouri, although meeting and dealing with her, one would assume she hailed from Madison Avenue in New York, the heart of the agency business”, he quipped. “But between her urgings and my growing love of the KC metro, we took the plunge and moved our entire operation”.

The nature of the business at Evans Media Group had been in a state of change anyway said EMG Managing Partner and CTO, Sara Paxton. “The move from a more traditional media agency to one that focused more on the social aspects of marketing had been underway for some time at EMG. The sheer virtuality of our clients and our agency were becoming more apparent every day. While our closeness to New York City and our 300 year old farm house office was attractive to us personally, our physical location was diminishing in importance as our client base became more mobile and less brick and mortar”, she said.

The agency focuses primarily on smaller businesses, although both partners have worked for multi-national corporate entities, they are sworn to help grow small business and as a founding principle, believe that America runs on small business. President and CMO Evans explains, “We try to provide small business with all the tools and opportunity available to big business but at a fraction of what it would normally cost to access those contrivances. With social media at the forefront and traditional media experience providing the historical skill set, EMG clients can leverage the best of both worlds.

EMG clients range from manufacturing and web development, to mail order distributors and food and beverage purveyors, luxury day spas, high end magazine publishers and a division of Kraft Foods, but as Paxton underscores, “We are extremely fluid … changing and morphing into what our clients need us to be as the tides of social media shift and look different from week to week”. Evans adds, “As an example of how the landscape changes offer greater opportunity, we now offer something that is so new I don’t think anybody else is doing it yet … live managed social media updating from an event or happening.

Managed being the operative word here … this is not a group of text-fervent fans, but an actual, planned and managed effort directed at disseminating branded messaging in real time, targeting fans and followers that are not at the event”.

Recently an annual charity boxing event was updated with text, images and streaming video to Facebook and twitter, live by a team from Evans Media Group from ring-side. The resulting push generated a unprecedented flow of activity and brand awareness for the event and contributing sponsors. Like a radio station live-remote, gone web 2.0!

This kind of think-on-your-feet functionality, coupled with solid public relations and marketing practice is what sets Evans Media Group apart in the agency world. “Yes, said Evans, “We’re quite a bit different from most traditional, or even social media agencies … we are a little off the wall, willing to try anything new, based in traditional marketing, but with a full grasp on the new”.

As their website proclaims, Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency uses a combination of Research, Media Relations, Publicity, and Social Marketing Communications to promote clients to the widest possible segment of the public and business communities. They still believe that the most significant person in an agency/client relationship is the client. That may be an old fashioned set of principles in a new aged world, but according to Evans and Paxton, it’s what makes their clients happy to see them when they walk through their door.

Says Paxton, “We can be your local resource to kick start a stagnant social media marketing campaign across the top social networks, like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. But we still talk to businesses every day that have yet to venture over to the social media side … and that’s okay too. We specialize in launching social media efforts where no prior presence, experience or online reputation has been established”.

Evans concurs, “If a business is not sure what they are looking for, or how much they should invest in social media, or any advertising for that matter … just give Evans Media Group a call and we will perform a no charge on-site analysis of what it will take to get the Twitterverse abuzz about you, your business and your brand.

For more information or to contact Evans Media Group, go to their website at Evansmediagroup.com

Be Yourself; Everyone Else is Already Taken!

“Wherever you are, whatever your age, you are only a thought away from changing your life.” Dr. Wayne Dyer

Do You: Meditate and Reflect on Yourself

Recently, I decided to work on a series of get-to-know-you short interviews with some remarkable people I’ve met through several social networking sites; men and women who cherish the interactions they have with others and share their gift of communication by joining the social media conversation – each in his/her own unique way. My format is quite simple, I ask my interviewees the same/similar set of questions and get wonderful answers back that are varied and insightful.

This week, I bring you another remarkable person, Deana Wilmink Martina. Deana and I connected on Twitter back in the day when sending out marathon Follow Friday kudos were ubiquitous. We soon found out, through our online conversations, that we both traveled around early in our lives, settled down in countries that weren’t our place of birth, married and manage busy households, love uplifting quotes and brilliant photography. While I live and work in New York and she in The Netherlands, our friendship has grown in spite of our virtualverse/twitterverse beginnings and our distance.

Deana’s new blog, Blogging Baby Boomer, covers a range of topics on life, work and other matters. As a self declared baby boomer, she is always eager to learn, share ideas, enjoy sports and a good laugh. While Deana might not play Bocce, Tennis is her sport of choice, she has solid ideas on making money from and for the baby boomer crowd and interested readers of the piece by Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. will enjoy her blog too.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Confucious

View over Curacao

At Home: Deana and Pointer

Foundation Questions:
Tell us a bit on your background: Who are you? Where did you grow up and where do you live now?
I’m Deana Martina, 61 years old and married to Ronald Wilmink. We are parents to two sons; Patrick and Niels. The eldest (Patrick) is 21 years and Niels is 19, turning 20 next month. Both are students and they still live at home with us. I was born into a big family. My mother had 8 children. She was a twin and had two sets of twins.

I was born on Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean. I was 5 years old when my mother started to get sick and soon she took one of my sister’s and me to an orphanage, where I lived until I was 18. My mother never really got better and died when I was almost 11 years old. I must say that it wasn’t a pleasant time… I have always tried to block out that time in my life, so I could turn my life around without looking back.

When I was a teenager, I decided that I would not copy my mother’s life. I didn’t want my children to have the same experiences I had growing up. So I chose to live a completely different life from my mother’s life. I left my native Island when I was 22. I went back home soon after, then I returned to Europe again at 29 and never left. Today, the village of Wildervank in The Netherlands is home to me and my family.

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it…”
- Mahatma Gandhi

Groot Wildervank via RTV Noord

What do you do for a living?
At the moment, I am both an entrepreneur and a stay-at-home mom. I’m building a home based business and recently started writing a blog called Blogging Baby Boomer where I share my views on life, work, books and more. I was an employee for 37 years until I lost my job in 1999. For a short time during my 37 year career, I worked as a Credit Controller. The rest of my time in the Corporate World, I worked in the Accounting department of a mid-sized firm. I was responsible for payroll for 21 years.

After searching for new work for quite some time, I decided to follow my own path and start my own business. I’m building a Network Marketing Business from home and using the internet to expose and expand it. Making valuable network and wellness connections are important parts of the business. Before moving to this village, Wildervank, in the countryside, I lived in the City, Groningen, for 24 years and had a network that I don’t have anymore. Rebuilding/building my network will add to the excitement of being an entrepreneur.

Why did you choose the path you now follow?
Being out of a job and living on what my husband earns was not giving our family the room to do anything extra. All our savings were used up during the years after my job loss. I felt that I could do a lot more than just wait for my retirement. Once I realized, in my opinion, that employers will not hire older employees, I chose to become an entrepreneur. I now have some new goals in my life. The transformation from an employee to an entrepreneur is very exciting because I can aim higher and reap the full rewards.

When did you decide to make key changes in your life?
I started to make changes in my life at a fairly young age; leaving the Caribbean, moving to Europe and building a new life there. I’ve been married once before and Ronald is my second spouse. We met at a tennis tournament, where we both competed. We love the sport and continue to play mixed couples tennis at our Country Club.

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken!” Oscar Wilde

View over The Netherlands via Larry Kikstra

Share your world view: How do you live your life and manage your household?
Officially I’m a stay at home Mom, building a home based business. My husband has a job and brings in the family income. We live in a country where everyone is entitled to get a Scholarship to study at a University or College, as long as they qualify and get admitted. Regardless of your parent’s financial situation, every college bound student in The Netherlands receives a scholarship.

My favorite quotes are: “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken!” by Oscar Wilde and “There is no greater beauty than the real YOU” via Nappturality. Both impact the way I plan to market my new business. My view on the world is that we are in the information era and the Internet is the perfect way to educate and inform people about industries and products lots of people don’t know are available to them. The Wellness Industry is one major Industry that will grow in the coming years.

Paul Zane Pilzer had a definition of wellness in an article he wrote in 2004 in the magazine Success from Home. He wrote; “Here is how I define Wellness: Wellness is money you spend to make yourself feel healthier, even when you’re not “sick” by any standard medical terms.”

The Baby Boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, is the largest generation around today and Baby Boomers are living longer than in previous generations.
They want to see better, hear better, be stronger, have a strong immune system and fight the symptoms of aging. So they will spend money in the Wellness Industry. The Wellness Industry will continue to grow and through the Internet, people can be educated and informed about the products and services available to them.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.” B. Olatunji

Bloom by Mike McPinatton

Reflective Questions:
What motivates you to get out of bed?
This new life, building a people oriented business, studying people and building relationships with people offline and online is so exciting to me. Seeing my grown up sons enjoy life with their friends and learning a lot of new skills myself. Having my spouse support me in what I do; all of this motivates me to get out of bed.
One of my life goals is to help with projects on my native Island to raise awareness for the younger generation; especially girls. I want them to become whomever they want to become and to take responsibility for their own lives. I believe education is a way out of the difficult situations women experience while living in such a masculine community. They can change their own reality without having to flee the island, like I did.

What makes you happy/laugh?
I love comedies. Both of my sons have a good sense of humor and like to tell jokes, or funny stories. So does my spouse. We have a dog, Pointer, and he is always so happy to see us, even when we’ve left him for only 30 minutes or so. Looking back, as most people tend to do when they reach my age, I am happy with how I managed to live my life mostly on my terms.

What makes you sad/mad?
What makes me sad is when I think, read, hear and realize that so little has changed for many women and children on my native Island.
There isn’t much that makes me mad. I have to admit that because I don’t have bosses to report to like I used to when I worked and lived in the Big City, I am less angry. Now we live in a peaceful, small village in the countryside.

What would you do differently with your life if you had the power? With the world if you had the choice?
If I only knew then, what I know now, I would have done things differently. I would have started learning the skills to become an entrepreneur earlier in my life. I would have avoided conforming to the mass beliefs that holding a regular, 9 to 5 job was the ideal.

If I could, I would change the world around me, by changing things on my native Island. I would offer all young girls the opportunity to gain more knowledge through education and help them to become aware of the power we all have within us to become what we want to be. I will teach them to take responsibility for their own reality and be aware of the fact that male dominance can only continue if we permit it to continue.

“We don’t see things the way they are. We see things the way WE are.” Talmud

Look for the Light Within ~ Northern Lights via VladStudio

What guiding principle(s) do you follow to make your life meaningful?
First of all I have this mantra: Be yourself, everyone else is taken! I try to learn the Universal laws and the process of daily living; I learn what I need to function on my life path. Some other principles include, blocking out negative thoughts and deciding what I permit to enter my mind; becoming aware of the law of prosperity and “letting go” of things I don’t need for important things I need to reach my goal; and permitting only the information I need to help me get the skills I need to succeed. I believe I can become the person I need to be to have the success I’m looking for.

What word(s) of advice would you give to others today?
I would advice others, not to depend solely on a job, but to learn the skills to become an entrepreneur. Gone are the days when we imitated the actions of the majority and expected to have a job for life; that time is over. I would advice people to depend less on Government welfare as they change the rules anytime they want. Be responsible for your own income.

How would you like to be remembered?
This is a tough one. I haven’t thought about that yet… I don’t know. However, I would like my sons to remember me as a good mother and my spouse to remember me as a good spouse.

Happiness is…..?
Happiness is for me being surrounded by the people I love the most, knowing that they feel good. At a different time in my life I would have thought of something else. Now I enjoy chatting with my sister on the phone and laughing with her even though we live more than 300 km apart. Seeing my kids being happy makes me happy.

Deana Wilmink Martina lives in a beautiful little village outside Groningen and recently started writing a spirited Baby Boomer Blog. You may connect with her on Twitter at this link @DeanaMartina
What are your reactions to this subject? Enjoy the piece and share your feedback with us. Thank You!

PHOTO CREDITS:
Meditation Too ~ via Google Images
View over Curacao ~ via Google Images
At Home: Deana and Pointer ~ via DWM
Groot Wildervank ~ via RTV Noord
View over The Netherlands ~via Larry Kikstra
Blooming Canola Flowers ~ via Mike McPinatton
Northern Lights ~ via VladStudio

Until Next Time…
Ask. Believe. Receive. ©
Elizabeth Obih-Frank

I’m not a Luddite, but I simply didn’t understand Twitter. It’s not the first time I’ve been slow on the uptake. In fact if you were looking for a trend-setter you’d do well to look anywhere, no sorry everywhere else for a better person to follow. I’m rubbish at predicting the way the world will move. If it wasn’t for the certainty of the fact I knew time moved forward because it always has done, I would probably end up doubting even this staggeringly basic fundamental element of life.

I’m not adverse to change, I just need to understand it. Regarding Myspace – I couldn’t get to grips with it, Facebook – never saw the need and Twitter? I never saw the point. By the time I finally made a Facebook account I was one of the last of my social group and yet suddenly became a huge advocate of it. Same with Twitter. I’ve been a member for just 2 weeks, and wow, what a way to be brought up to date.

Twitter can be nothing more than innocent fun if that’s all you want it to be, it can also be malicious if you don’t know how to handle and use it, but one of the joys I have discovered this week was the way it can expose and demolish atrocious behavior. It’s a 21st Century tool of revolution if it needs to be, or a shameful way to spend a Friday afternoon watching funny you-tube videos.

In the time since I joined I have met some very funny, witty, kind people. I have also accumulated 28 followers, most of whom I have never spoken to. But that’s OK, that’s what Twitter is about – collecting followers like a junkie collects puncture marks. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate them. Every follower makes my pride swell a little. Sure some are probably just bots advertising jobs, health trips or Br1tney F.ck V1ds, but who cares? The rise in numbers makes my ego grow. It makes me feel like I must be a fairly normal, well adjusted and (reasonably) intelligent and likable person. The adverse effect, of course, being that when I look at another person’s profile and discover they have 1,267 followers I suddenly feel very small. Twitter can also be a very lonely place.

Even so, since joining I have discovered this – nothing spreads news faster than Twitter. It’s a basic fact. For those connected to the Twitter-verse news spreads quicker than the proverbial fire. It doesn’t need heat, it just needs to see the letter ‘H’ before it sparks up and roars off, screaming into the distance. Two examples have hit me already: The Trafigura/Guardian newspaper case, and the Jan Moir Daily Mail article following Stephen Gately’s death.

If I had not been following Graham Lineham, I would never have known that it existed. If Derren Brown and Stephen Fry had not commented I would have been unaware. Thank God I have some interest in these bright, intelligent, witty people otherwise I might never have gotten to this point.

I don’t follow the news regularly because other things get in the way, namely life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I’ve always considered myself a very passionate person about causes that matter. Throughout my life I’ve wanted to fight back against injustice and issues which strike me as morally wrong and/or dumb. I just don’t seem to be able to keep track of all wrong-doings that spew into the world. Twitter now keeps me informed. While detrimental to my stress levels and physical health, it’s fantastic to keep the mind alight and the passion burning.

Regarding Trafigura, I’d honestly never heard of them before. Then the story hit, I did some research and BOOM I had an opinion and a way to voice my anger. Twitterate people know we had a huge impact in the outcome of that scenario. We bombarded the site with links and updates regarding the injustice, and when it was fixed it was fantastic. A real victory. Now Jan Moir, not happy at writing one of the most shockingly inept articles to have been produced for some time, “apologises” with a statement while never acknowledging how wrong she was and seems surprised at the internet out-cry.

You can find the original heavily edited article here and the “apology” here.

I’m not going to write a critique of the piece. Far more intelligent people have done so already (Charlie Brooker’s fantastic article in the Guardian stands head and shoulders above the rest). But I am going to point to the following pictures. See if you can spot the difference between A) The original article and B) The edited article. Did you see it?

The shockingly altered headline does not actually cover up the sewage of the article. Note the description in the nav bar to the right too. To claim it was “sordid” and then attempt to make out everyone else was mis-reading the story is stupid enough to warrant an immediate arrest and possible expulsion to the nearest planet where life has barely managed to crawl out of the sea. I’m fairly sure Jan Moir would settle rather well in such a place with her bloated, pasty fish-face and single brain-cell.

Furthermore, claiming it was an “orchestration” shows how little grasp she has of the Internet, social networking or, indeed, the 21st Century. There was no orchestration, it was the voices of thousands of people who simply did not agree and took offense at what she wrote. Twitter and other social networking sites give people the power to voice their anger and expose this kind of backward thinking, pathetic excuse for a journalist instantly.

I found it amusing that she should question how many people fully read her article. Now come on, Jan, let’s be honest. It’s not exactly what you would clasify as high-brow literature is it? A few measley, one to two sentence paragraphs with enough pictures to space it out. It makes Spot The Dog’s Day At The Zoo look like Tolstoy in comparison. There really wasn’t much there to read, and even less to mis-interpret. So just admit it, we all read the scattering of sentances because honestly it wouldn’t have taken us any longer to finish then eating a digestive biscuit.

In an age where anyone can blog and say what they want, share stories and are granted the ability to respond instantly to whatever hits the web first, did she honestly think this narrow-minded piffle would go un-challenged? Did she learn nothing from what happened regarding the injustice of the Guardian being potentially blocked from Parliament just a few days before and how powerful the Internet had become? No, because she is, as I have said before, an utter idiot. A cretinous life-form who should be punished.

If I write here that I think all immigrants are filth and deserve to rot in their country of origin, I would expect people to make comments to such an outrageous statement. That is if anyone actually reads this, which I doubt very many people do. The troublesome side to the 21st Century is that nearly everyone can be a published writer and “philosopher” and they can spread whatever vile thoughts fill their mind. Even so, I’d be surprised if a neo-nazi writing a blog on why white is right didn’t imagine it would spark some outrage somewhere. It’s the way the internet works, so how did Jan Moir think she could get away with it? Because she is an idiot.

The Daily Mail’s self-righteous attitude caused Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand to be suspended after the media-storm they created. I don’t think what those two did was right, but for an offensive journalist to be so sanctimonious and smug after offending so many takes the proverbial slice of cake and then vomits it over the public who she apparently “writes” for. I am hoping this woman gets similar reprisals and judging by the astonishing response that the article provoked, I know I am not alone. It has been fascinating tracking the outcome of both this and Trafigura in context with the Twitterverse. I used to feel people couldn’t make a difference, my opinion now has completely changed and I urge others to do the same.

It’s staggering. It’s exciting. This is how the world is working. Justice served and bigotry exposed and potentially stamped out all within 5 days. It feels like now, more then ever, we have a voice.

All I can say is bring on the next week! Oh, and make sure you follow @serafinowicz, he’s a VERY funny guy.

Twitter is a medium which shows everyone naked, instinctive statements taught a lesson to a host of thought leaders on eating crow. Shashi Tharoor, Barkha Dutt, Vikram Chandra, Pritish Nandy, Rajdeep Sardesai were all stopped in their tracks and requested/asked/ pushed to clarify their statements and use of words. Some like Pritish Nandy were extremely quick in clarifying their views and stating their position where as others like Barkha Dutt,  Rajdeep Sardesai and Shashi Tharoor took a circuitous route to reach the same place. Shashi Tharoor was quickly reminded of his “Cattle Class” misadventure on Twitter and decided to go absolutely silent on this question after making one simple clarifying statement.

The clarification seekers came from all geographies and belonged to all communities, however Sikhs from India, US, UK, Australia and Canada outnumbered everyone else due to obvious reasons. Sikh, Sikhs, Riots, 84 and 1984 remained critical words in all tweets. Rough estimate of number of tweets pertaining to 1984 Anti Sikh Pogrom puts the number close to 100,000. One could see instinctive collaborations happening simultaneously in putting across point and countering thought leaders, in some cases to a great  pounding effect.

A random check of  profile and age group of those who were actively countering or correcting the “thought leaders” talks a lot about the even spread of community across diverse verticals and 1984 atrocities hurting all age groups. An 80-year-old tweeted about re-living the partition mayhem and a 21-year-old talked about his being brought up listening to first hand stories from elders who faced it all and survived to talk about it.

On Twitter the Sikh community emerged as a Virtual Nation and grieved as one.

With the new twitter list feature my twitter lists are much easier to put together.

For now I have broken them down into three groups

http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubabusinesses is for accounts I follow where the user has a significant interest in promoting their business. I have 20 that I am following.

http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubadivers is for accounts I follow where they are personal accounts of active scuba divers.  I have 20 divers that I am following.

http://twitter.com/darrinjillson/scubaorgs  is for accounts I follow where they are diving related organizations or activists related to diving/ocean issues. I am following 9 of these types of accounts.

Much shorter than what I did before.

Enjoy!

When I woke up today morning I had a strange thought, do I eat Twitter or do I drink Twitter. I asked myself where this came from. The answer is plain and simple, Twitter has become something which I must consume everyday, my day has to begin with it and my day must end with it. It has become an addiction, which I am proud of.  So, the question remains, do I drink Twitter or do I eat Twitter.  I think in my case, I drink twitter everyday,  reason is plain and simple drinking is done more often than eating.  You can’t begin your day with eating something but you can always start it with drinking something.  You can’t go to bed after eating something it will make u feel heavy, but a drink just before sleep is perfect.

Having given an answer to myself to this strange thought, I asked myself who else is drinking Twitter around? There are many, the 1st and foremost name that came to my mind was of Gul Panag.  It looks like Twitter has become her favorite drink, specially the way she is going about the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion week tells you that she can drink as much of Twitter as is offered to her or she can lay her hands on.  On an average she is doing about 60-70 tweets a day either from the desktop or handheld and her every Tweet whether it is generic to specific to  the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week or it is one-to-one tweet, you can see the adrenalin rush which she has in abundance reflecting in it.  Now, why am I observing it so closely, it is because a part of the action which she is doing involves one of the projects passionately incubated by me, Twitsanps.com.  Gul Panag has been using Twitsnaps since many months but the way she is driving the mileage out of the site is making me wonder on why we didn’t identify this dimension of TwitSnaps

Let me just allow random thoughts to flow and these thoughts are just throwing up zillion words, Social Media, Lifestyle, Fashion, Glamour, Connectivity, Networking, Integration, Bollywood, Miss India, Charisma, Fan Following and I can go on and on and on.  What Twitter has done is that it has brought forward a platform where you can create a potent mix of absolutely unrelated disconnected, disjointed entities floating around in the world.  No wonder the new name Twitterverse makes lot of sense to me.  There is a separate thought with which ITC would have gone and created Wills cigarettes, there would have been a surrogate advertising thought with which they would have created Wills Lifestyle as an apparel brand.  There would have been an altogether different thought with which Ministry of Textiles would have conceived India Fashion Week, now bring in a former Miss India who is now a Bollywood actress who has always had a dream of doing news coverage using Twitter to cover an event aided with a photosharing site which was conceived with a very different objective.

I am sure what Twitter is doing with me it is doing with Gul Panag and with many others.  It is just making us younger with every tweet we do.  The minute we Tweet, we allow unrestricted flow of thoughts to float around in the universe. We know if all these thoughts are connected together, it would truly reflect our persona which for people like me is the root cause of addiction. I have always felt that I have never been understood and I think many of us do that, but if you tweet and you tweet passionately and you tweet straight from your heart and your tweet carries the finest your gray cells have to offer, you know that you are home, you know that you can simply go and tell someone that if you want to understand me go and read my tweets.

Today when I was updating my Google profile in a section on write your brief biodata, I just wanted to write one word @simarp.  So do I go ahead and change my name, maybe I should. I love eating but I must drink and my drink is called Twitter.  Stay young, drink Twitter everyday.

Booker prize-winning author Ben Okri (@benokri) posted a poem via Twitter ; historical crime novelist RN Morris (@rnmorris) has been tweeting 140-character chunks from his novel A Gentle Axe since March;  and in August, historical novelist Philippa Gregory began a series of tweets in the voice of Elizabeth Woodville (@elizwoodville), heroine of her latest novel The White Queen.

To cut a long story short, authors have been testing the waters of Twitter for a while now! But recently the BBC  came up with a grand experiment. Roping in NYT bestseller Neil Gaiman to crowdsource a novel, it coducted an experiment which lasted 8 days with fans posting follow-ups  on Twitter, which is now being converted into an audiobook . You can read the transcript of this experiment here.

Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman's Twitter Page

This is very cool and more proof that Twitter is here for awhile.

Yesterday afternoon Google announced on their blog that they had reached an agreement with Twitter and would be including tweets in search results.

This not only gives Google an advantage in the search engine wars, but it also helps give tweets more credibility.

So no longer will your tweets and the information in them just be seen by the 7 million+ in the Twitterverse…now it will be seen by the entire world!

Click HERE to read the full blog post on Google.

When everyone was looking for moondust from the LCROSS mission to crash land into the moon, I noticed something else — a cultural dust storm inside the agency. Did you see it too?

We heavily publicized the “moon landing” prior to Friday’s event. In Washington DC, the Newseum hosted our “Let’s Kick Up Some Moon Dust” party. (Even my mother received an email from NASA inviting her to attend. Not sure exactly how THAT happened. No matter.)

I was off work on “LCROSS day,” so I logged onto NASA TV to watch the lunar impact. I mean, really. Who DOESn’t want to see moon dust? Watching the mission coverage, though, took me by surprise.

Stop! Before I go any further, I must in all fairness disclose that I work the “human space flight” side of the house at NASA. I say this only to put in context my perspective. I’m accustomed to years upon years (yes decades even) of Space Shuttle launch and Space Station on-orbit coverage — the hushed, almost flat voices of our Public Affairs folks doing commentary, the CapCom astronaut speaking to the crew, and crew responses. Calm. Even. Almost hypnotic. (No offense guys. I’m just trying to frame my point.)

Back to LCROSS coverage. I listened to chatter between the console folks — camera commands, I believe. Some of the voices struck me as jarring. Maybe it was early in the morning, but I found myself reacting to the sound of the voices. (InCREdibly petty. I know. I know. Who cares what they sound like, right? It’s the mission that’s important! Yes, I get it. Really I do. I’m merely describing my reaction.)

I watched the tiny NASA TV window on my laptop as the spacecraft rocketed closer and closer. I listened to the Go/No Go count and wondered about the spacecraft barreling toward the moon. Could we even turn it around if someone voted “no-go?” Hmmm. Not my mission.

I captured screenshots and posted them on Twitpic. I personally love this near-infrared shot below. I think it would make cool Moon art.

Impact! We hit the moon, didn’t we?

Yes, the announcer confirmed “contact”…as in crash landing. I was a bit confused. My little NASA TV screen only showed gray fuzziness. The announcer revealed a second impact. Hard to tell. I was still watching blurry images on my computer.

Further confirmation: NASA TV switched to images of arm slapping/hand shaking in the control room, then camera views somewhere outside where we could see happy people in lawn chairs. Then, back to the Control Room:

The Flight Director stood up, put his hands on his hips, and looked directly into the camera. Odd.

Twitter lit up with Moon Dust…or lack thereof…chatter. Some out in the vast twitterverse cheered the achievement. Some expressed anger at NASA for “bombing” a gentle giant. Some voiced confusion about what happened (mirroring my reaction). Some made fun of the coverage.

The social media world joined in for a global conversation about space. Differing opinions, some unflattering, but conversation none-the-less.

I’ve been thinking about my reaction to mission coverage and wondering what it says about me. I’ll be honest, compared to a Shuttle launch, LCROSS felt like the minor leagues. Does that mean I’m arrogant? I’ve really struggled over the weekend to understand WHY I felt underwhelmed by the “Kick Up Some Moon Dust” experience (other than the fact that we didn’t witness a massive cloud of dust — which may mean water).

Here’s what hit me last night: the culture clash between human vs. robotic, engineering vs. science.

I’ve noticed, through my many years at NASA, that our engineers want to tweak perfection, while our scientists want gather more data, to ask one more question, try one more approach. The LCROSS mission is a success because it’s one more approach to asking another question so that we better understand what questions to ask. Their scientific mission is just beginning with lunar impact. Our human space flight missions, in contrast, end upon touchdown or docking — when we safely arrive at our destinations.

We’ve been doing this Shuttle thing for quite some time. The culture of how we do what and what is acceptable is quite ingrained. Launch coverage and mission control cultural norms rule. I fell victim to my human space flight cultural heritage when I subconsciously compared “our” launch coverage with “their” launch coverage…and giggled. Yes, I admit. I giggled — which is not fair to the serious work behind the mission. I feel very rude. Scientific, robotic missions are ruled by different cultural norms.

Look no further than the contrast between the Houston Mission Control “flat-top” and the California “flip-flop” mentality. Both approaches get the job done — just differently.

Now that I’ve had a few days to process, I apologize to all you LCROSS folks. I let my cultural bias cloud (moon dust?) my perception of your mission coverage. Though, I do hope your Hi-5 guy gets a shot at the late-night comedy shows. He deserves a shout out!

Bravo LCROSS. Ignore NASA’s cultural dust storm. We expect your results to “water” it down.

Cross post on OpenNASA.

I lover twitter for its immediate nature. When I get too busy to do some diving I can stay in contact with those that get in the water much more than I do. It has also been handy for a little crowd sourcing. You know…. “Where is a good play do dive at XXXXX?”

This is a listing of Scuba Diving related twitter accounts I follow.  You will notice some accounts are marked “Potential bot”. I have nothing against software. I have made a good living with software. Software is great for automating tasks. Twitter to me is about human relationships. If I feel that you are just randomly generating content I will removed you from my follow list. If I just wanted feeds I would use RSS. Not twitter…..  I do give a little leniency to the business accounts. I expect you to want to use twitter to grow your business, but pure retweeting and forwarding will get you the “Potential bot” tag as well. I would love my favorite restaurants to tweet the daily specials automatically…. Oh! And tweeting links on how to make money on twitter…  that also gets you the “Potential bot” tag.

I am looking for real scuba divers to follow. You don’t have to be a professional and get in the water every week, but you should actively dive. Please mention me in a tweet and I will review your twitter account for me to follow…. @darrinjillson

On to the accounts…

@agirlcalledm

Account Type: personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/agirlcalledm

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments: She is a good tweeter. Even her non-scuba tweets are interesting. She does a nice job! She is a Florida area diver.

@Allmarine a.k.a Brian: CEO and Founder of All Marine Network

Account Type: Commercial

Follow:  http://twitter.com/allmarine

Tweet Activity:   > 5 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 25%

Description/Comments:  This is a twitter account for the founder and CEO of http://allmarine.com/. As of today it is still in early beta. We will see if this sees the light of day. Oh… and by the way. If you are CEO post your last name.  It will add some credibility.

@Aquaviews

Account Type: Commercial – Online retailer

Location: New York

Follow:  http://twitter.com/aquaviews

Tweet Activity:   > 5 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: This is the twitter account for the online scuba retailer LeisurePro. Aquaviews is an online scuba magazine they publish.  http://aquaviews.net

@Baddivers

Account Type: Commercial – products

Follow:  http://twitter.com/baddivers

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments: They have a web site that sells scuba culture products http://BadDivers.com  

@Bella_mare a.k.a. Charles Cousin

Account Type: Personal & Commercial – Equipment and Underwater Engineering projects

Location: San Diego, CA

Follow:  http://twitter.com/Bella_mare

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 90%

Description/Comments: Lots of RTs and is the twitter account for http://bellamare-us.com/

@bottomtimescuba

Account Type: Commercial – Dive Shop & Lessons

Location: Southington, CT

Follow:  http://twitter.com/bottomtimescuba

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.bottom-time-scuba.com/

@Christopher1929 a.k.a. Chris Rogers

Account Type: personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/christopher1929

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related:  25 – 50%

Description/Comments: Does some scuba tweets, but most are construction industry related http://www.constructionwithchris.blogspot.com/

@Clivecussler_ a.k.a. Clive Cussler

Account Type: Commercial – Author

Follow:  http://twitter.com/clivecussler_

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related:  5 – 10%

Description/Comments: He is the famous author with most of his books being water related. He also personally sponsors an organization that hunts for shipwrecks and other mysteries of the deep from the royalties of his books. http://www.numa.net/  I have read every book of his that has been published. Also if you like classic cars his has some amazing ones. http://www.cusslermuseum.com/  

@Columbusscuba

Account Type: Commercial – Dive shop and lessons

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Follow:  http://twitter.com/columbusscuba

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.columbusscuba.com/

@darrinjillson a.k.a. Darrin Jillson

Account Type: Personal

Location: Berrien Springs, MI

Follow: http://twitter.com/darrinjillson

Tweet Activity: < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: 25-50%

Description/Comments: This is me.  http://darrinjillson.wordpress.com/

@Divebunnie a.k.a. Clare Wilders

Account Type: Personal & Commercial – Dive Culture

Follow:  http://twitter.com/divebunnie

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 90%

Description/Comments: http://www.divebunnie.com/

@Divecancun a.k.a. Fred Brandt

Account Type: Commercial – Dive Shop, Charters & Lessons

Location: Cancun, Mexico

Follow:  http://twitter.com/divecancun

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 90%

Description/Comments: http://www.divecancun.com/

@Divephotoguide  

Account Type: Commercial – Information Portal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/divephotoguide

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.divephotoguide.com/

@Diverwire

Account Type: Commercial – Information Portal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/diverwire

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.diverwire.com/

@Divingfinder  a.k.a. divingfinder.com

Account Type: commercial

Location:Devon, UK

Follow:  http://twitter.com/divingfinder

Tweet Activity:  < 5 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related:  > 95%

Description/Comments:  A directory of scuba diving companies including interactive map. http://www.divingfinder.com/

@Divinglist

Account Type: Commercial – Not sure what they are selling

Follow:  http://twitter.com/divinglist

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.divinglist.com/  Not really sure what they are doing with this website.

@EdSchoaps a.k.a. Ed Schoaps

Account Type: personal

Location: Porland and Salem, Oregon

Follow:  http://twitter.com/edschoaps

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments:  He has given me some good equipment recommendations. http://theonlineexperiment.blogspot.com/ 

@Goosesscuba a.k.a. Gooses’s Scuba Shack

Account Type: Commercial – Dive Shop and Lessons

Location: Dyer, IN

Follow:  http://twitter.com/goosesscuba

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 90%

Description/Comments:

@Greggmcfarland

Account Type: personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/greggmcfarland

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related: < 10%

Description/Comments:

@Info_on_scuba

Account Type: Commercial – Information portal (video)

Location: England

Follow:  http://twitter.com/info_on_scuba

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 90%

Description/Comments: http://www.info-on-scuba-diving.com/

@Innerspaceyoga

Account Type: Personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/innerspaceyoga

Tweet Activity:   > 15 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments: She is a cave diver and has some good tweets.

@ITDiver a.k.a. Eric Helm

Account Type: personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/itdiver

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related:  < 10%

Description/Comments: http://www.helm.no/

@JMCousteau a.k.a. Jean-Michel Cousteau

Account Type: Personal

Location: Santa Barbara, CA

Follow:  http://twitter.com/jmcousteau

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 50%

Description/Comments: I doubt he actually tweets himself http://www.oceanfutures.org/

@Jraquaticcenter a.k.a. Kathy Lampert of JR Aquatic Center

Account Type: Commercial -  Dive shop and lessons

Location:Niles, MI

Follow:  http://twitter.com/jraquaticcenter

Tweet Activity:  5-10 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related:  > 95%

Website: http://www.jraquatic.com/

Description/Comments:  This is one of the local dive shops here. I have bought most of my gear here and got my diving certification through them. A really good store if you are in the area. No I don’t get a discount for the comments. Though that would be nice if I did.

@KaylinQ

Account Type: personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/kaylinq

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5%

Description/Comments: She has great tweets!! http://kaylinq.blogspot.com/  She is also the founder of the scubadiver Twibe  http://www.twibes.com/group/scubadiver

@kzelnio a.k.a. Kevin Zelnio

Account Type: Personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/kzelnio

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 50%

Description/Comments: http://deepseanews.com/

@Laurz a.k.a. Laura Rena

Account Type: personal

Follow: http://twitter.com/laurz

Tweet Activity:  5 – 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: 10-25%

Description/Comments:   She is a diver from the east coast. She is thinking about getting her advanced open water. Very good twitterer!!! She does a great job!

@LeisurePro

Account Type: Commercial – Online retailer

Location: New York, NY

Follow:  http://twitter.com/leisurepro

Tweet Activity:   > 5 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments: http://www.leisurepro.com/

@MarjyMeechan a.k.a. Marjory Meechan

Account Type: Personal

Location: Florida

Follow:  http://twitter.com/marjymeechan

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: 10 to 25%

Description/Comments: Another good tweeter! http://www.scuba-diving-blog.com/

@Mermetsprings

Account Type: Commercial – Dive Site

Location: Southern Illinois

Follow:  http://twitter.com/mermetsprings

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments:  http://www.mermetsprings.com/

@NorCalDiving a.k.a. Scott Ekkelboom

Account Type: personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/norcaldiving

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related: 25 – 50%

Description/Comments:

@Oldpirate a.k.a. Craig Rich

Account Type: Personal

Location: Holland, MI

Follow:  http://twitter.com/oldpirate

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 10 – 25%

Description/Comments: http://www.michiganshipwrecks.org/intro.htm  http://www.craigrich.net/ Also if you like cigars he is your man. I doubt I have ever seen anyone post more cigars pics.

@PADI

Account Type: Commercial – Scuba Industry

Location: Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

Follow:  http://twitter.com/padi  

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments:  http://www.padi.com/scuba/default.aspx

@ProDiveUSA a.k.a. ProDiveInternational

Account Type: Commercial – Dive Charters

Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Follow:  http://twitter.com/prodiveusa

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 90%

Description/Comments: Haven’t tweeted since the end of July. What happened??

@Scubabusiness a.k.a. Jake Jacob

Account Type: Commercial – Information Portal “Potential bot”

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scubabusiness  

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: < 10%

Description/Comments: irritating software is making the tweet stream of little value. http://scubaprofessionals.ning.com/  needs to ditch the bot

@Scubacenters

Account Type: Commercial – Dive Shop and lessons

Location: Lincoln Park, Michigan

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scubacenters

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.scubacenters.com/

@Scubadivergirls

Account Type: commercial

Location: San Diego, CA

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scubadivergirls

Tweet Activity:  > 10 a day  

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Website:  http://scubadivergirls.com & http://scubadivergirls.com/blog

Description/Comments: They do a great job building a social following.  They have very nice tweets. They can be commercial without being pushy. Very well done!!

@Scubadivingjim – a.k.a. Jim Bray

Account Type: personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scubadivingjim

Tweet Activity:  5-10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: He is a diving instructor with experience in the Caribbean. He runs the http://www.best-scuba-diving-tips.com website.

@SCUBAGLOBAL

Account Type:

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scubaglobal

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments: http://scubaglobal.blogspot.com/

@Scubamarketing

Account Type:  Commercial – Scuba Industry Marketing

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scubamarketing

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments: http://newscubamarketing.com/

@Scubaradio

Account Type: Commercial – Radio, Podcasts, charters and dive gear.

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scubaradio

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a month

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 5 – 10%

Description/Comments:

@Scuba_Fiend

Account Type: Commercial – Information Portal (video)

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scuba_fiend

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a week

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.theunderwaterchannel.tv

@Scuba_gear

Account Type: Commercial – Online sales

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scuba_gear

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: they do a lot on ebay http://www.scubamission.com/

@Scuba_suzy a.k.a. Suzy Walker

Account Type: Personal

Location: London, UK

Follow:  http://twitter.com/scuba_suzy

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 50%

Description/Comments: Great tweets and amazing photos!! http://www.reefbeasties.com/  http://suzywalker.wordpress.com/  http://www.redbubble.com/people/muzy

@Sharkbyteusa

Account Type: Commercial -  Web design

Follow:  http://twitter.com/sharkbyteusa

Tweet Activity:   < 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 50%

Description/Comments: http://shark-byte.us/  

@SUUNTOUSA

Account Type: Commercial – Gear manufacturer

Follow:  http://twitter.com/suuntousa

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: tweets related to their products  http://www.suunto.com

@TevisVerrett – a.k.a. Tevis Verrett

Account Type:  Commercial – Online Dive Shop

Location: North Hollywood, CA

Follow:  http://twitter.com/tevisverrett

Tweet Activity: >10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: He is the CEO of K2 Scuba Online. http://www.k2scuba.com. I have noticed he uses software to inject messages regularly into his twitter stream. A lot of these post are aimed and convincing people to visit his blog. They are usefull for new scuba divers and related to choosing gear. Of course he profits by this by marketing his site. They seem to be on a 3 or 4 day cycle which is a little often for me, but not enough to truly be annoying. Make up your own mind if he is being impartial with his blog. He does have a must see video that every new diver should watch. http://twit.ac/x_27.html

@Wetpixel

Account Type: Commercial – Information Portal (photography)

Follow:  http://twitter.com/wetpixel

Tweet Activity:   < 5 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 95%

Description/Comments: http://www.wetpixel.com/

@WineDiverGirl

Account Type: Personal

Follow:  http://twitter.com/winedivergirl

Tweet Activity:   > 10 a day

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 50%

Description/Comments: Another great tweeter!!! Tweets about Scuba Diving and Wine! What could be better? http://winedivergirl.wordpress.com/  http://thewinehub.blogspot.com/

Dive Clubs ?

Maybe the next list…. Not seeing much in twitter so here are a few websites for clubs.

MUD Club – Berrien Springs, MI http://bit.ly/WUC1E

This is local dive club that I belong to.

The Michigan Underwater Divers’ Club is a Scuba club that meets the 3rd Tuesday of every month at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI. Visitors and new members are welcome!

South Florida Divers, Inc. – Scuba Club in Hollywood, FL  http://www.scuba-diving-blog.com/

I have more scuba tweeters on my list. I will add them as they get some active tweets, so get tweeting…

BOTS !?!

The following are bots that I have stopped following. Decide for yourself, but I doubt they are real people and their posts had little value other than to drive traffic to their content sites.

Account Name: @angierobertson1 – a.k.a. Angela Robertson or Angelabot

Follow:  http://twitter.com/angierobertson1

Tweet Activity:  >2 5 a day - Potential bot

% of Tweets Scuba Related: > 25-50%

Description/Comments: She is an east coast scuba diver.

Account Name: @kevingeorge1 – a.k.a. Kevin George or Kevinbot

Follow: http://twitter.com/kevingeorge1   

Tweet Activity:  > 25 a day – Potential bot

% of Tweets Scuba Related: 10-25%

Description/Comments:   He is a diver from Texas.

The list was updated by a human pressing keys on a keyboard October 2nd, 2009. Damn it took longer than I thought too. Next time I was make the list shorter….

HEY!  Stop whatever you’re doing and head on over to Twitter now!  I need everybody to get on board and start doing some major tweeting!  Jen @ MyRobertPattinson.com needs our help today!!!!

From MyRobertPattinson.com:

Yall, I am so freaking stoked to join arms with everyone in the Twitterverse for a #NewStoliShirt Pound-A-Thon!  For those who aren’t familiar with pounding, basically what it means is a group of hotties, like yourself, begin or end every tweet with a certain subject.  In the case of the #NewStoliShirt Pound-A-Thon, that means beginning or ending every single tweet with #NewStoliShirt  for the entire day Thursday, September 24th.  The goal is to “send the message” to Rob so that he obliges us and wears the shirt and gets papped in it for all of us to smile at!  To achieve this goal, we hope to get #NewStoliShirt  into the Trending Topics on Twitter and/or receive a tweet from @PeterFacinelli or @AshleyMGreene acknowledging our goal and granting us their help in sending the message.

If you think “this girl is nuts” I would tend to agree with you!

So, why Thursday?  Well, Sam Bradley, Rob’s BFF, is playing Victoria, BC on 9/24 and Vancouver, BC on 9/25.  Rob is filming in Vancouver and there’s a 50/50 chance of him attending the concert.  We’d LOVE LOVE LOVE for him to wear the #NewStoliShirt to the concert. 

So, please join in!  Thursday, all day, every tweet.  In the name of all that is Stoli, let’s get this bad boy worn!

Participating #NewStoliShirt Pound-A-Thon fan sites:

• Random Acts of Rob
• Letters to Rob
• Thinking of Rob
• My TwiLife
• SimplyBellaandEdward.net

If you’d like your fan site to participate by simply spreading the word and pounding, please email me to have your link included!  MyRobertPattinson [at] gmail [dot] com

On a sad note, I must say the #NewStoliShirt adventure ends here.  This is my one and only true rally for the New Stoli Shirt.  If he doesn’t wear it by this weekend, I’m officially hanging up my hat as Stoli-Master.  So, let’s make this a weekend to remember!  Thanks!

One love, Jen

PS:  The @StoliShirtBot will be picking the best 5 Stoli Shirt mentions at random every half hour and retweeting them to the Twitterverse!

View Source.

Also, be sure to check out a funny blog post from JaG over @ RAoR!

And click here for a little reminder of how this whole #NewStoliShirt thing got started!

I wonder how a professional ‘journalist’ could make his ‘miscalculation’ like this:

‘An Orange County Register sports columnist is the talk of the blogosphere and the Twitterverse—and not in the good way. Mark Whicker used his Tuesday column to reminisce about the sports events of the past 18 years under the guise of catching Jaycee Dugard up on “what you’ve missed” while held captive by her alleged kidnapper and rapist. Today he issued a lukewarm mea culpa, writing that it was “not my intention” to outrage readers around the globe and “it’s obvious that I miscalculated.”

‘His miscalculations included ending the column: ”Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.” (Seriously.) ”I am quite surprised by the angry tone of the reaction,” Whicker wrote in response to a query from AOL sports blogger Michael David Smith. He could have Googled himself to soften the shock: Searching “worst sports column ever” yields thousands of results, a  huge proportion of which refer to him.’ 
—M. Morris SOURCES: Orange County Register, Orange County Register, AOL Sports

At least he’s not worse than Stephen Farrel of New York Times.

I’m still kind of new to the “Twitterverse,” but I think I’m starting to get the hang of things. The following are a few tools I’ve found very helpful as I’ve worked to build a decent following and a credible reputation. Perhaps they will help you, too?

1) FriendOrFollow.com. I’m not one of those users who follows a bunch of accounts only to delete the ones who don’t follow me back the next day; I hate Twitter spam. But I have found FriendOrFollow.com to be helpful insofar as I’ve attempted to weed out some “dead ends” and so forth.

2) TwitterSheep.com. I love the “tag cloud” visualization format. It’s a quick and easy way to see how I’m managing my tweets–and adjust if appropriate.

3) TwitDir.com. Helpful for category searches, such as “journalism” or “marketing.”

4) MrTweet.com. I log in to Mr. Tweet at least three times a week. “He” consistently produces good leads for me; many of these follow me back.

Some general tips on being a good “twitterer”:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/26/pirillo.twitter.tips/index.html

It always cracks me up when people say ask why I Twitter.  Besides the fact that it’s called “tweeting,” I enjoy Twitter because I’ve met so many incredible people that I wouldn’t have otherwise met, or gotten to know folks I already knew better.  For me, tweeting is a way of connecting with people who have similar interests.  You can find people who like cars, money, music, Jesus, or bands.  You name it.  I also get great data from the Twitterverse.  I can search on any key word and find out what’s in motion on a topic – any topic. 

If you’re looking to get started on Twitter, just get folks who have an account to follow you then follow some of the folks they follow.  In time, you’ll get a nice stream of tweets scrolling by.  If you’re real new, just ask anyone who has a good following to “re-tweet” that you’re new and looking for followers.  I do it all the time when someone announces a new-be.  You just never know who might connect. I personally like the organic connection method over advertised automated methods.  Just seems more real. If your following isn’t connecting with you because of something you say or do, then what’s the point?

Then chat. Be yourself.  People who like what you say or like the questions you ask will connect with you, they will forward your tweets to their following, and before you know it you’ve got so many tweets to read you can’t keep up.  Check in on a regular basis.  One thing I did was have Monty Python quote night on Sundays.  It was so much fun how many Monty Python followers came out of the closet!  People looked forward to contributing.

I have to admit I’m not a big fan of people who use Twitter to sell directly unless they do it in a way that really helps others in the Twitterverse.  You can do it, but I’d think hard about how you do it. I’m also not a big fan of those who choose to show, describe or display body parts that are generally covered.  This seems to be a big trend lately. I’ve become a little more discerning about who I follow and even had to block a few. 

Come join us.  It’s a great place to play, learn and “listen.”  I have to personally think @rockingjude who helped me get connected to the Twitterverse and answered many of my questions early on.  And, no I do not know her.  She just helped a stranger who to this day is thankful she saw my tweet scrolling by asking a silly quesiton and took the time to help.  She totally rocks and is still quite special to me. TYVM

When I first entered the Twitterverse, I was excited. Then, I heard about #FollowFriday. After that, the approaching weekend became a little stressful. Starting every Thursday night, and continuing on until sometime Saturday, I’d get nervous butterflies in the pit of my stomach. My mind would start racing as I mentally ran down the list of people I followed, weighing the pros and cons for each one. I would try to organize everyone, putting them in order of coolness from most to least. It was, and still is, pretty darn difficult to do that, because I follow people I’m genuinely interested in, so nobody on my list is really unworthy of getting a shoutout. The only Twitter accounts I’ll never recommend are the few bots I follow (for good reason; local news, weather, etc.). I tried several different ways of rating people: Tweet frequency, @reply to me frequency, how nice each person is, alphabetically. I finally realized that A. the only people paying attention to my recommendations were the people mentioned in them, and B. the only people who would get offended by not being mentioned are people I don’t really care to associate with anyway.

So I decided I needed to stop stressing myself out. I mean, it’s only online. I don’t tell people where I live, so it’s not like it would be that easy for people to come kick my ass. *knock knock* “Yeah, Pandora? You -bleeeeeep-! You didn’t put me in your Follow Friday Tweet!” *bam pow kaboom* (Must be old school Batman at my door!) If somebody showed up at my door, ranting about being a Follow Friday reject, that would mean that they’d actually put in the effort to find me. If that’s ever the case, I guess they’d kind of have earned the right. But don’t get any ideas, ’cause I’m still gonna fight back. I’m not stupid!

Anyway… Now I have a method to my Follow Friday madness. Maybe taking the following things into consideration will help you, too.

1. It’s only Twitter. The world will not come to an end if you don’t do Follow Friday “the right way.”

2. You can’t recommend everybody. Anybody who’s used Twitter more than once should realize this. Someone who’s just starting out may be able to fit everyone in just one Tweet, but most people would have to start sending their Tweets first thing Saturday morning to have them finished by Friday. And really, who wants to type that much?

3. For reasons of common courtesy, I recommend those who recommend me. It’s just a nice thing to do.

4. Decide who/what the majority of your followers are into, and recommend those who will most closely match those interests.

5. If you have a varied list like I do, which makes #4 difficult, pick one or two people from each basic category. For example, I follow people into tech news, humor, T-shirt designers, and the paranormal, just to name a few. So I’ll pick at least one person to represent each of those categories, and then I’ll throw in a couple “wild card” picks.

6. If you really feel like you can’t choose anybody, choose them all. I’ve done this a few times, either out of desperation or laziness. (Hey, it’s hard work running around like a chicken with your head cut off!) Send a Tweet that basically says, “Hey, everyone I follow kicks ass, so I can’t choose. Just go to my list of followers and follow them all!” That way, nobody gets left out, you don’t get stressed or feel guilty, and anybody who wants to use your opinion can just do the work themselves. Everybody wins!

Friday no longer twists my stomach into knots, and I now have more time to devote to more important things. Like writing silly stuff here. Happy Follow Friday, everyone! May the Tweets be with you =)