Dan Zarrella has a guest post on Read Write Web on how you can use Twitter to boost your social profile. I have to say that my first reaction to this idea is highly negative. Can you tell from the post title? Call me naive, but what I love about Twitter is it’s utility as a tool for increasing social interaction between real groups of people who then (sometimes) build real relationships. As Terry once said to me, “I used to always follow everyone who followed me, but now it’s too many people.” I’ve found the same. Or rather, I’ve found that the majority of people who start following me are people who I have no chance of building a connection with, because they are following 2,000 others or they are a brand. So, I don’t follow them back. That’s regrettable, because that lack of interchange is the antithesis of what Twitter is about. What saddens me is that Dan’s article (and I should really emphasize I have nothing against Dan or his advice) is a marker to me for the growing commercialization of Twitter. We are in the middle stages of what we (assuming you are old like me) already went through with Usenet, and the web itself, and blogs. You knew it had to happen, but why did it have to happen so fast?
UPDATE: Here’s an even more jaundiced view from Nate Westheimer.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Dan, the author of the piece I criticized, took the time to come here and comment on my post. So, rather than replying in the comments, I decided to add another update: Yes, Dan, I am aware that you can unfollow, but it doesn’t really address what I am talking about. My title is both a little over the top, and (more importantly) misleading, because I am not really criticizing your advice (which is actually good for it’s purposes). My reaction is driven by the realization that Twitter is becoming as commercial as the rest of the web, and it makes me a little sad. In any event, you will get to call me a hypocrite, when my guest post on MetzMash appears later this month. It’s going to be about why web content publishers should have a social networking presence.
LAST AND FINAL UPDATE: Ok. We all knew it had to end this way. I started following Dan’s Twitter.
I went to another SF PHP Meetup last night. As always, it was highly entertaining, and well worth staying in the city until 10 PM. I love the fact that we host these at CNET now. Big thanks to Tougeron for running these meetings. As you can see from Touge’s account, Terry was in full effect (that’s a good thing). Next time, Mager should come instead of watching VT getting their ass kicked.
Here’s a list of the books, I read over vacation. I may do longer reviews of some them later.
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
– by Antony Beevor. A good account of the Spanish Civil War, although biased against the Nationalists.
The Tenth Man
– By Graham Greene. Not as good as The Comedians, but still good.
Vile Bodies
by Evelyn Waugh. The sequel to Decline and Fall. Like the earlier book, not so witty after 80 years.
The Stepford Wives
by Ira Levin. Trash, but good trash.
One of an occasional series of posts on PHP algorithms. I found this originally at United Scripters, and bookmarked it for some reason.
Code
function bubbleSort($array=array()/*could have been a pointer*/){
$lastIndex=sizeof($array)-1;
while(true){
$newStartIndex=false;
$newLastIndex=0;
for($j=($startIndex)?$startIndex:1; $j<=$lastIndex; $j++){
if( $array[$j-1] > $array[$j] ){/*SWAP:*/
$temp=$array[$j-1];
$array[$j-1]=$array[$j];
$array[$j]=$temp;
if($newStartIndex===false){$newStartIndex=$j-1;};
$newLastIndex=$j-1;
};
}
if($newStartIndex===false){return $array;};
$startIndex=$newStartIndex;
$lastIndex=$newLastIndex;
}
/* keep this comment to reuse freely:
Orwant, Hietaniemi, Macdonald algorithm as Php implemented by:
http://www.unitedscripters.com */
}
Last June, General Mills raised the price of its cereal, but decreased the size of the box, so that the price per box went down. Apparently, this confused some analysts. Here’s the transcript:
Analyst: So let me see if I understand this. The price of your cereal is going up?
General Mills Spokesperson: That’s correct.
Analyst: But the price per box is actually going down?
General Mills Spokesperson: Correct.
Analyst: So then how is the price going up?
General Mills Spokesperson: Because we’re making the box smaller.
Analyst: Ok, but you just said the price of each box is going to be less.
General Mills Spokesperson: Yes, that’s true.
Analyst: So then you’re actually lowering prices.
General Mills Spokesperson: No, we’re raising prices.
Analyst: How?
General Mills Spokesperson: Look, you’re an analyst, you work with numbers.
Analyst: Right. Ok. I got it.
General Mills Spokesperson: Next question.
Analyst: Uh, actually, I don’t get it. How can you raise the price by lowering the price?
General Mills Spokesperson: Because we’re decreasing the size of the box.
Analyst: Ok, but you’re charging less for each box.
General Mills Spokesperson: Yes. Because we’re decreasing the size.
Analyst: Ah, I get it. So then the price is really the same, you’re just making the box smaller which makes the price look lower.
General Mills Spokesperson: No, no, no! Listen. We’re raising the price of our cereal.
Analyst: But –
General Mills Spokesperson: Shut up! Now listen, we’re raising the price of our cereal.
Analyst: (Silence).
General Mills Spokesperson: Say it.
Analyst: We’re raising the price of our cereal.
General Mills Spokesperson: Good. We’re raising the price of our cereal… while simultaneously making the box smaller. Go on, say it.
Analyst: While simultaneously making the box smaller…
General Mills Spokesperson: But… and this is the important part… but we’re raising the price more than we’re decreasing the size of the box… go on…
Analyst: But we’re raising the price more than we’re decreasing the size of the box.
General Mills Spokesperson: So…
Analyst: So…
General Mills Spokesperson: That…
Analyst: That…
General Mills Spokesperson: Come on…
Analyst: Come –
General Mills Spokesperson: No, I mean, come on and follow the thought. So that…
Analyst: Oh. So that…
General Mills Spokesperson: The…
Analyst: The… price is lower?
General Mills Spokesperson: No! So that the customer…
Analyst: So that the customer…
General Mills Spokesperson: Will.
Analyst: Will.
General Mills Spokesperson: Oh good Lord. So that the customer will think the price has gone down when it’s really gone up!
Analyst: Oh.
General Mills Spokesperson: See? Price increase. Smaller box. Larger price increase than smaller box.
Analyst: Right. I still don’t get it.
General Mills Spokesperson: You know what? Just forget it.
Analyst: I’m going to have to downgrade your stock, you know.
General Mills Spokesperson: Good. Good. You do that.
Analyst: I will.
General Mills Spokesperson: I don’t even want you to rate our stock positive.
Analyst: Good, because I won’t.
General Mills Spokesperson: It would be an insult to the company for you to rate it positive.
See more analyst fun here.
On my recent trip to Huntsville, I borrowed the Graham Greene book The Comedians
from my parents. I had seen it on several visits before, but I had never picked it up, mainly due to it’s rather garish cover promoting the 1967 film version. This time, more from lack of alternatives than anything else, I started reading it and quickly became hooked.
Set in the Haiti of Papa Doc Duvalier, the main character of the story is a hotel owner who gradually becomes involved in Haitian politics despite his almost desperate cynicism. He and his compatriots are the comedians of the title: those who stand aside when commitment is required. The main theme that indifference is worse than a mistaken zealotry is only finally made clear near the end of the book:
The priest was a young man … He preached a very short sermon on some words of Saint Thomas the Apostle: “Let us go up to Jerusalem and die with him.” He said, “The Church is in the world, it is part of the suffering of the workld, and though, Christ condemned the disciple who struck off the ear of the high priest’s servant, our hearts go out in symphathy to all who are moved to violence by the suffering of others. The Church condemns violence, but it condemns indifference more harshly . … In the days of fear, doubt, and confusion, the simplicity and loyalty of one apostle advocated a political solution. He was wrong, but I would rather be wrong with Saint Thomas than right with the cold and craven. Let us go up to Jerusalem and die with him.”
Here’s the Amazon link.
Check out this story in The Sun (yeh, I know that it’s not the most credible source, but they have video). According to the story, fifty drunken santas ran amok in a cinema smashing stuff up and swearing at customers! The manager of the cinema is quoted as saying:
“As they ran through the complex they wrecked everything they could, the Christmas tree – they bowled everything over … (they were) just absolute fools.â€
That’s the spirit of Christmas for you!
So, I added myself to Tweeterboard. It’s an application that tries to measure your influence on Twitter. It’s not a bad service, but it still has a few problems to work out. In particular, it doesn’t seem to update the stats very often, and it misses a lot of links that I post. Still, a good initial effort, and worth checking out.