Last night I had a dream about this new tool that Twitter launched. I hadn’t had a chance to check it out and been hearing a lot of hype. In my dream I got to use it and it was like an angels singing, cure of cancer type of moment. Today, I actually got to use it and to be honest it was kind of a let down from my dream, but it had a lot to live up to.
On May 4th 2010, Twitter announced a new tool that would allow you to embed tweets in your blog posts and websites. The reason for this is because it has been mentioned that “tweets are the new quotes“. And in the past, people were just taking screen shots of the tweets. But now they can do much more. The actual tweet itself and all of it’s clickable links can be incorporated on your site.
One thing to note is that it’s not officially a Twitter “feature”. It’s just a hack that someone who works for/with Twitter created and shared. It is a rough prototype of a simple script, but it allows you to have click-able links and it takes on some of the styling of your site to provide design continuity on your site.
How it works is you just visit Blackbird Pie (I have no idea what that even means). Once there, enter in the tweet url and that’s it. The tweet URL can be found when clicking on the timestamp of the tweet. You will be brought to a page that contains only that tweet and it will have a url that looks something like this http://twitter.com/jes_cady/status/13428883539. Copy and paste that URL into Blackbird Pie. It will automatically generate some code for you then you can embed it into your post or web site.
This is what it looks like embedded into my post and taking on the style of my blog.
If you find this blog post lame, then maybe you might find my yellow lab playing in her pool entertaining. And if you don’t think she is the cutest thing ever then you are just cold and heartless.
I’ve been a enormous fan of Shakespeare since I was 11 years old. His writing was like a puzzle to me and cracking the code was part of the enjoyment I got from reading his work. Yes, the engineer geek in me has been there since birth.
My favorite plays were Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and the absolute best, Much Ado About Nothing. As a young girl, I didn’t entirely understand why I loved these particular stories, but as an adult I can only conclude it’s because of the strong female roles Shakespeare wrote. I mean, Beatrice was probably the first female character I can remember who matched, if not exceeded, her male counterpart’s witty quips and jabbing retorts, line for line. Take even Juliet, some may think her just a silly love sick puppy. But I saw her another way. I saw her a young girl that was brave enough to be open with her heart and to trust in her love and sacrifice for that love, which I find Juliet very courageous.
So you can only image my pleasure when I found out that one of Shakespeare’s most notable plays, Romeo and Juliet, is being acted out on, of all things, Twitter. (The sweet voices of angels and gentle trumpets rejoice). Just like ice cream cake, the world has joined together two wonderful things to create one mega amazing thing!
So here’s the run down. There are five characters (Juliet, the friar, the nurse, Tybalt, Mercrutio) and you follow them on Twitter. Their tweets ‘act’ out the play in modern English over the course of 5 weeks. You can check out their website, Such Tweet Sorrow, to get more information.
I’ve only been following the tweets for a short period of time, but I’m hoping that modern day tweeting Juliet doesn’t play into the angsty, whiney teen role but rather is true to the young, strong, and determined young woman I have in my mind.
Thank you internet for being so awesome and thank you England for introducing me to my new favorite word, “nob”.
I recently found out that CBS is planning to make a TV series out of a Twitter account. I’m sure many people may think this is a bad idea, but I am not one of them. I love the idea and the reason it is because of the Twitter account they will be using, <a href="http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays" mce_href="http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays" target="_blank">S*%#@ My Dad Says</a>.</p> <p>The Twitter account was created by 29 year old Justin Halpern after moving in with his 74-year-old father. And just like the title of his Twitter handle would suggest, he tweets all of the stuff his dad says. Justin has gained a lot of notoriety with this Twitter account; he has over a million followers. Beyond the rumors of book deals and tv shows, it has also been hinted that <a href="http://www.realtvaddict.com/2010/02/22/william-shatner-cast-in-pilot-for-shit-my-dad-says/" mce_href="http://www.realtvaddict.com/2010/02/22/william-shatner-cast-in-pilot-for-shit-my-dad-says/" target="_blank">William Shatner will play Justin” alt=”" />. If that doesn’t smell like fame and notoriety, I don’ know what does. Besides the fact that the gems of wisdom Justin’s day provides, the situation can be related to by so many people. We all know the crotchety old man/woman/grandparent that says the most ridiculous things, that you can really only laugh about.
CBS is doing something remarkable. The show might end of flopping or it might do well for several seasons. But no matter what, CBS is doing something that has caused some chatter. As more people continue to embrace social media platforms like Twitter it will continue to shape our culture and marketplace. Or at least give us a high from semi-direct contact with famous people.
Many of you already know that I sing the praises of Twitter. I mean, where else on this planet can you easily connect and converse with your idols. But I guess not everyone agrees with me. According to the Las Cruces Sun-News Twitter has already gone bust with regard to teens online.
According to the article “it’s been determined Twitter is a bust, a report shows; it cannot be called a “fad” anymore. Today, only 8 percent of online teens twit or is that tweet?”
Well, I might be a little out of touch with what teens want or what they find important. But 14 years ago when I entered teen-hood the most important things to me was, well, ME and the community of other teenagers around me. I would assume that teenagers of today feel the same way. That only makes sense that Twitter wouldn’t be for them. That’s what Facebook is for; connecting with those people you are friends with. But Twitter, that’s the place you go to connect with people you don’t know in real life. My twitter account is peppered with other bloggers that I have become aquainted with over through cyber space, companies, new sources, and other organizations that I want to get fed daily information so that I don’t have to go searching for it. Bloggers will tweet links to their posts. News sources tweet links to breaking news stories. Like I said, information gets hand fed to me and saves me the trouble of going to search for it.
As a teenager, I couldn’t care less about news stories. So perhaps the Las Cruces Sun-News and I do agree that Twitter is not for teens and is basically busted for that particular demographic. But is Twitter completely busted? I don’t think so. I think companies and bloggers should gear their marketing on twitter towards adults 25-35. I think that’s the demographic that is getting the most use from the application, definitely not teens.
Twitter will make you loose your mind, or at least it’s made me loose mine. So, if you haven’t heard of The Pioneer Woman, get with the program people. The woman not only takes awesome photos, but she has great style, tells a good story, cooks like a dickens, and has red hair. As a red head myself I’ve always had an affinity for empowered and accomplished red haired woman. Let’s face it, I was obsessed with Anne (with an ‘e’) of Green Gables for like the first 23 year of my life. I mean Anne is partly the reason I spell my name with one ‘s’. Cause if you’re going to call me Jes,
would you please be sure to spell it with one ‘s’? …Print out J-E-S-S, it looks absolutely dreadful, but Jes with one ‘s’ is quite distinguished. So, if you only call me Jes with one ‘s’, I’ll try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia.
I digress. Back to P-Dub, or Pioneer Woman for those of you less acquainted with her. I recently made Pioneer Woman’s recipe for Potato and Leek pizza. And let me just say it was the most delicious pizza, EVER! I of course had to tweet about the pizza and referenced P-Dub as seen in Exhibit A.
Exhibit A: The Tweet
Moments later I realized that P-Dub herself had replied to my tweet and here’s the proof.
Exhibit B: THE PROOF
She told me “Great Job”. She must know that I am an awesome red head like her that enjoys taking photos, and cooking, and being just down right plain awesome and that together we would rule the universe. Needless to say her tweet lead to this:
Exhibit C: The Result
And then other people started tweeting about how incredibly lucky and awesome my night was:
Exhibit D: The Fame
So now, I’m basically famous. I’ll soon have paparazzi following me around, I’ll be getting free stuff sent to be all because I have red hair and can follow a recipe. Pretty awesome if you ask me.
My name is Jes. I'm a web and numbers geek. I live in The Great White North. I've always dreamed of being a blues singer in a rockin' band. But I guess if you're the kind of person who uses the word "rockin", you were never meant to be in a band; so I blog instead. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy!
Jes Cady
