Celebrities: Do they help your tweeting experience?

You know we are very nosy people; that's no question. Even though we, ourselves, would hate the paparazzi harassing us, we're either at the supermarket looking at the latest issue of Us magazine thumbing through trying to see which celebrity is having a baby, or which celebrity is dating whom, or even which celebrity is walking out of the bathroom to take a number 2 (Did you know Paris Hilton even takes a number 2? Wow!). Social media sites, like Twitter, have taken it to another level by letting you know what the celebrity is doing directy, as long as you're following them. Nothing wrong with following with that, but when is celebrity tweeting too much?

From my experience of following celebrities from John McCain to Wyclef Jean to P. Diddy, I realized something: are they helping or hindering my tweeting experience?

The more I read celebrity tweets, I've come to the conclusion that they may hinder my tweeting experience. There are few ones that I follow that I enjoy but there are others that I stay away from.

A key point that helps me:

Follow those celebrities that are informative
Diddy is releasing "Last Train to Paris." The point is, I would like to follow a celebrity that has news about what they're doing professionally in order to keep me abreast. If all they're going to do is rant and rave about ridiculousness, I don't want any part of it; I have my own problems. If you want to know about your favorite author's book release, the Cd release of your favorite musician or to see what fascinating project, follow them. For all of the others, simply leave them be.

Here a few celebrities that I enjoy following:

• Anderson Cooper


• P. Diddy


• Lil' Mo, R&B artist


• Dwele, Neo- Soul Artist


• Eric Roberson, Neo-Soul Artist


• John Forte, musician


• Matt Mullenweg, WordPress


• Maxwell


• John Legend

*Honorable mentions:

• John Mayer. The guy happens to be one of my favorite artists and a natural comedian.

If you notice, my celebrity list is a tad bit smaller than others. Who are great celebrities that help your tweeting experience? I'd love to hear from you.

The Star Jones tweet above represent celebrity tweets that I do not care about.

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Google's gift to the King of Pop

Today is the late Michael Jackson's birthday. What better way for Google to show a perfect tribute to the King of Pop by dedicating their homepage to the legend who forever changed the game in music and entertainment. Jackson who died on June 25, 2009 would've been 51 today.

In the meantime, his primary doctor Conrad Murray is being investigated for manslaughter and the L.A. coroner is ruling Michael's death a homicide.

The dedicated image links to an automatic search page for Michael Jackson.

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The Storm

My wife sent these photos to me while she was running errands. Thought I'd share.
Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from In my Lifetime

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Unfollow Them! (Twitter Ettiquette)

As I get more into blogging and trying to figure out the advantages of how social media will affect me professionally, I came to a startling realization; I may have to unfollow a lot of my friends (who I'm following). I told myself that I should, "Be cautious to who I follow on Twitter." This sure is easier said than done, however as I further pondered this, some points came to mind that I thought was interesting as to why I should consider cleaning my Following list on Twitter.

1. How are the people that you follow furthering you professionally?

I tend to follow people that are knowledgeable in the areas that interest me. I love technology and I love my guitar. Befriending people that are up on technology and some that play guitar fluently helps me to stay abreast on what's hot. This indeed is a plus for me.


2. Stay away from Negativity

Where should I begin? Tweets that are depressing can sometimes in turn depress you. Stay away from them. Why follow someone that picks fights with other tweeters or will tell you the day is cloudy even though you see sunshine. I recall one Gospel guitarist, tweeting about being in church and saying a worship service sucked. Not amusing at all and it's certainly not encouraging.


3. Trending Topics

Social Media connoisseur Wayne Sutton once said something that rings true. "Partaking in Trending Topics may be fun, but think before you tweet." Sometimes those you follow participate in topics that are entertaining. However many are crass and if you yourself have fun with it, people who are trying to take you seriously, won't. I say this to point out that sometimes your "friends" can drag you into these topics that may get you in trouble in the long run. Be very cautious.


4. You're not following me, Why am I following you?

They have nothing informative to say except they woke up in the morning, eating frosted flakes and watching the BET Awards on Tivo instead of working. Yet they have 30,000 followers and following merely 500 people. (Most of their follows are celebs and they're most likely not following them back.) This certainly is not helping you. Unfollow them!


5. Celebrities are just like you

The only difference is that they have lots of money and are very popular. That's all they have. Following them won't further your networking, especially if they're not there to help you get you to where you need to be.

I challenge those that are looking for Twitter to help them further them in their prospective careers to ask themselves these questions. I'm curious to know any more factors that should be looked at when following and unfollowing people. Do you know any? I'd love to hear from you.

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Will users pay for an Ad-Free ÜberTwitter?

Last week, the famed Twitter client for BlackBerrys, ÜberTwitter, rolled out its latest update to the liking and dismay of BlackBerry and Twitter users alike. While an update was definitely needed, ÜberTwitter, faced much scrutiny for rolling out their ads feature with their Beta-4 release. While this shouldn't have came as a surprise, the TwitterBerry crusher never explained how they would roll out the ads and "bam" just like that, they showed up. However, after many complaints, ÜberTwitter heard the call and got rid of the annoying ads, that showed up at the of the tweet timeline.

Today, ÜberTwitter releases this announcement:

While the idea may be understandable, it may not be a smart one? Since Twitter's DDOS a couple of weeks, ÜberTwitter has been encountering many API issues with no fault of their own. Tweets ingoing and outgoing have been delayed despite user settings. Not to mention, there are still a few bugs that the developers have to fix before they consider a paid option.

My 2 cents to ÜberTwitter
Let's not jump the gun too soon yet. You may be jumping the shark here and I would advice you to hold off a while before you make a decision that may cost you down the line.

What are your thoughts? Would you pay money for an Ads Free ÜberTwitter, would you remain loyal to ÜberTwitter and go with the Ads, or will you find another client? I would love to hear from you.

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The C3 Church: Awesome Place of Worship

My friend and I used to always argue about church. Every time I invited him to come and worship at my church he constantly refused. I recall us arguing for hours and hours about why he didn't attend church and why I thought he needed to. It finally got to a point where we would "agreed to disagree." It wasn't that he wasn't a Christian, that he was, but I always wondered why he would rather sit at home, turn on the TV and send his tithes without the real fellowship. It wasn't until he moved away and he began to tweet more, he would start attending a church that he felt welcomed and obligated to join some kind of ministry.

After repeated tweets about this church my friend joined, I kept asking to myself, "What church made him get his tail out of bed, out of the house and into a sanctuary of worship." Today, I finally got that answer: The C3 Church.

The C3 Church, or Connecting Communities to Christ Church, truly lives up to its name. Breaking the boundaries of traditional worship, this church with their friendly and loving members believe in a true cause: Sending souls to Christ, and it shows. When my wife and I walked in for the 11:30 service (they also have a 9:30 service), we automatically felt welcomed. Funny thing is we felt so overdressed. To me when you say casual wear, I think of jeans, a nice button up and some nice shoes. This church is truly a come as you are church. People with shorts, sandals and t-shirts dominate the membership of this House of Worship.

Smiling faces and gestures of warmth, the C3 Church make it their priority to make you feel as comfortable as possible. The nursery that they run is safe and secure. The awesome bookstore is there for your needs. But what got me the most is the C3 café with, get this a Starbucks franchise!! On top of that, you are more than welcome to drink your coffee and pastry in the sanctuary as you worship and hear the word of God. That is way too cool to me.

Also, Mega churches always seem to have a certain stereotype about them. Primary example: the pastor doesn't have the time to fellowship with his members. Not so with this church. Matt Fry, the pastor, took the time to meet with guests by the beautiful water fountain outside of the church and seems to be easily accessible. Pastor Matt's delivery of the Word is nothing but gospel truth. Feeding your spirit with the truth, he backs them up with Scripture. It is no wonder that they were able to grow from a small congregation at an Elementary school to over 2,000 members at the state of the art facility they have today.

By accident, I forgot to bring my Bible before I left town. At C3 church, they help you out by providing the scriptures that Pastor Matt is deriving his message from (Don't make this a habit though, if you have a Bible, I would advise you to bring it *winks*). Also with their awesome Technical team, you're able to follow along with Praise & Worship, because the words are right there on the screen.

Whenever you're in Clayton, NC through a Sunday, check out the C3 Church. I promise, you will be amazed at their hospitality and of their mission to worship Christ.

Pastor Matt said during his sermon today, "We are a Rock & Roll church..." I say to him and the rest of the members at C3 Church, "KEEP ROCKIN' FOR CHRIST! And I will be back!"

On the web
C3 Church
Matt Fry

On Twitter
@C3_Church
@mattfry

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Hello. I'm a Saggitarius and I Tweet (Why Twitter)

Image by Matt Hamm via Flickr

In June of this year, I had a pleasure of attending Word Camp 2009 in Raleigh, NC. Being fairly new to Twitter at the time, I was amazed at the amount of people who I encountered that actually tweets. As I approached people at the convention I introduced myself with general conversation and then asked, "Do you tweet?" As I left the convention, I left with Twitter handles like phone numbers (Fellas try asking a potential date for her Twitter handle in lieu of her number. I kid, I kid).

I tell that story to bring an importance of tweeting and networking. While many non-tweeters call people that do tweet "tweetaholics," they can't seem to grasp the potential that using Twitter may have.

Everyone is not on Twitter, but EVERYONE is on Twitter
Minu what are you talking about? Allow me to explain: You may not be on Twitter, but everyone else may be. Yes, you don't want to go with the "status quo," but in this case it may be behoove you to do so. From Pastors to Entertainers to Professors to even Neo-Soul singer's Dwele's pet puggle Rockstar, everyone is on Twitter. It's interesting to read how these people (or animals) spend their time daily.

Tweeting is a major business booster
Yeah, you can have a website. You can do FaceBook. You can even attempt to use Myspace, though I wouldn't advise you to. But you'd be surprised at the amount of traffic your business could encounter if you tweeted. Everyday, people are looking for the who's who on Twitter. What if you have a great restaurant and someone (like me) tweets on how great it is. Someone is going to want to go on your Twitter page to see what you're all about and any key announcements that you may have. With people using mobile apps to tweet these days, they can use their device to read what's going on with your business if their not close to a computer.

Man!!! I didn't know Larry King had another baby!!!
You would've easily heard about this if you tweeted. Either Larry King would've announced it himself, or you'd read about it in the Trending Topics section. Twitter is known for the "what's hot, what's not." You want to know what's people are saying about a TV show you're watching, or what's the big deal with Google Voice? Try twitter and you'll easily get your answer.

Personally, I use Twitter for the sole purpose of networking, but it's always cool to goof off every once in a while. Especially now that I have a blog, it's a great tool to announce a new post so folks can go and quickly and deeply read what else is on my mind. Go on meet new people and don't be scared to ask for their twitter handle, trust me, they'd want to keep up with you if they don't have the time to pick up the phone to call you.

Do you or do you not Tweet? What do you think about it? I would love to hear from you.

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