Nestle staffer 1: “Greenpeace have done a viral video attacking our sourcing policy. I do so hope people don’t pass it on and it becomes a huge viral hit.”
Nestle staffer 2: “Yes. I know what will stop people passing it around and it becoming a huge viral hit: get YouTube to take it down for alleged copyright infringement.”
Nestle staffer 1: “Yes, that will definitely stop people passing it around and it becoming a huge viral hit. That is a good idea and I hope you get all the credit for that.”
Here’s a bit of fun for a Friday. Here are 9 types of Twitter user that I reckon exist – you might be able to think of more. I’ve not included spammers and bots because, not existing, they won’t be reading this. So… which one are you?
The Conversationalist
You follow a couple dozen people who mostly follow you back. Most of your tweets start with @. Twitter is the new Facebook to you.
The Polymath
You follow a few thousand people. Twitter is just one big pool of potentially interesting stuff to you, and you’re followed largely by people who feel the same way. Most of your tweets start with RT. Twitter is the new Google Reader to you.
The Networker
You follow a few hundred people, most of whom work in your industry or you know professionally. You try to keep track of most of what they’re saying and your tweets are a mix of replies, retweets and remarks. Twitter is the new LinkedIn for you.
The Broadcaster
You follow half a dozen people who either work with you, or are actually you on another Twitter account. Most of your tweets come from Twitterfeed and end with three dots and a URL. The @ sign never appears in your Twitter stream. Twitter is the new blog for you. With comments disabled.
The Fan
You follow a couple dozen people, mostly DJs and TV personalities, who all ignore your @ messages. You found out about Twitter on the radio and although you talk to your friends about it, you don’t talk to your friends on it. Twitter is the newgossip magazine for you.
The Experimenter
You probably plugged your plant into Twitter or something. It sounded like a good idea at the time.
The Marketer
You follow a few thousand people but never read anything that they say. Your biography includes WORDS IN CAPITALS and reads like you vomited up a pile of business cards. A few hundred people have followed you back by mistake. To you, Twitter is the new email newsletter.
The Misanthrope
Your updates are protected. You never let anyone see your updates. Actually, you never post any updates but no one knows that. Your Twitter account exists purely to annoy people – to you, it’s the new ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.
The Dabbler
You heard about Twitter on TV, signed up to the site, posted one tweet and wondered why nothing happened. You’ve since forgotten all about it but in 9 months time one of your friends will start following you and it will all make sense. Twitter is the new Friends Reunited to you.
Great post at Boing Boing (which AP could learn a thing or two about new business models from) on AP’s recent announcement “that they had spent millions of dollars on a DRM system for news that would limit how you could paste the text you copied from your browser window”. Ed Felten did some digging:
“Unfortunately for AP, the hNews spec bears little resemblance to AP’s claims about it. hNews is a handy way of annotating news stories with information about the author, dateline, and so on. But it doesn’t “encapsulate” anything in a “wrapper”, nor does it do much of anything to facilitate metering, monitoring, or paywalls.
“AP also says that hNews ” includes a digital permissions framework that lets publishers specify how their content is to be used online”. This may sound like a restrictive DRM scheme, aimed at clawing back the rights copyright grants to users. But read the fine print. hNews does include a “rights” field that can be attached to an article, but the rights field uses ccREL, the Creative Commons Rights Expression Language, whose definition states unequivocally that it does not limit users’ rights already granted by copyright and can only convey further rights to the user.”
To those who haven’t been caught up in the fuss, Plurk is a new microblogging service and rival to Twitter. Users are invited to post about what they’re doing using one of 15 verb prefixes, including ‘loves’, ‘is’, ‘thinks’ and ’shares’. Indeed, it has found itself so successful among disenchanted Twitterati that Plurk has decided to introduce 15 new verb options. These are:
smokes - e.g. “ryanlimsmokes another wimpy rollup”. In an attempt to generate revenue, users will be charged a 15% tax on every smoke-Plurk. However, due to health and safety regulations they will not be able to smoke-Plurk indoors.
shouts - for users who accidentally leave caps lock on. e.g. “ryanlimshouts GOING HOME NOW”.
lies - for double-bluffing Plurk users.
lurks - for users who are only there to read other Plurks. Lurk-Plurks are invisible.
waffles - for users who, even with a 140 character limit, still manage to talk too much.
dies - for users who smoke-Plurk 60 times a day.
rhymes - for hip hop artists, poets and drunkards.
impersonates - for identity thieves.
mutters - for users who really don’t want to be heard. mutter-Plurks disappear after two seconds.
reincarnates - depending on a user’s karma score, they may be reincarnated as follows:
0.00 to 21.00: a bee
21.00 to 41.00: a big bee
41.00 to 61.00: a wasp
61.00 to 81.00: a small mammal
81.00 to 100.00: a drummer in a tribute band
steals - Plurk “warns users that valuables are left on Plurk at their own risk”.
denies - for users who have been accused of steal-Plurking and Plurk-lying.
shags - Plurk-porn is a further business model being considered by the founders, who promise shag-Plurks will be done tastefully and with great lighting.
gloats - for users with inordinately high karma scores
leaves - for Plurkers who have decided one Twitter service is enough.
Identified by KerryJ, sufferers exhibit intense feelings of alienation after missing out on viral ‘event’, e.g. Twitter Cartoon Day. See also: FOOcamp anxiety.
Wit Anxiety Gloom Syndrome (WAGS)
Identified by Sarah Hartley: “The sufferer feels what they have to add to the world is so humourous it must be shared – but only after every one of the 140 characters has been considered in depth. Stems from a deep-rooted phobia of “comment shame”.”
Community Disconnection Attack
Patient experiences disorientation upon becoming stranded from social media ‘anchors’ such as Facebook groups, Twitter, blog community etc. Triggers include: service outage; power or battery failure; loss of wifi signal.
User Account Phantasm
Patient is haunted by the ghosts of user accounts created but never used, or long since abandoned. Symptoms include random friend invites from imaginary MySpace users; emails from Plaxo; and Pownce files from the ghostly Dave Winer.
Greenpeace’s Kit Kat video: behind the scenes at Nestle
