Last night, my husband and I had the pleasure of seeing one of our favorite comedians, Michael Ian Black (“The State,” “Reno 911!“), at a local club. Just before the show, I Tweeted from my iPhone:

Front row again at Zanies! I hope @michaelianblack talks to us during the show like Tracy Morgan did.

When we saw Tracy Morgan (“Saturday Night Live,” “30 Rock“) last month, he spent several minutes throughout his set flirting with the women at our table and making fun of the men. At the end of the night, he shook our hands and thanked us for coming to see him. It was great! The fan-celebrity interaction added immensely to our enjoyment of Morgan’s already phenomenal performance.

And so when Black came out last night, smart phone in hand, and read my Tweet to the audience, my heart began to race. He asked me to raise my hand so that he could find me, and when I did, he laid down on the stage and looked deeply into my eyes. Resting his chin on one hand, he spoke sweetly into the mic: “So whacha wanna talk about, hmm?”

I was both exhilarated and mortified.

My throat went dry, but I managed to reply, “I–I don’t know. I’m sorry!”

Black leaped up and exclaimed to the audience, “Oh, so she gets on Twitter and asks me to talk to her like Tracy Morgan did [emphasis his], but when I do she has nothing to say!”

The crowd swelled with laughter. It wasn’t so much what Black said that was funny, but more the idea that he’d broken down the fourth wall to bring a lowly fan up to his level as the show’s star.

The hilarity didn’t end there. Black called me up on stage twice during his performance, and at one point he actually left me there by myself while he went off to get me a bottled water.

So, I did what anyone in my position would do: I called the Bob Ross-looking guy at the table next to mine up to take my place.

When Black returned, he scowled at the bearded man and said, with a surprised whimper, “You’re not Rima. [Pause] You’re the ‘Joy of Painting‘ guy.” He then turned to me with mock disgust: “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

Amid more laughs from the audience, Black transitioned seamlessly into some incredibly funny prepared material for his final 20 minutes on stage. And at the end of the night, people seemed to want to talk to me almost as much as they wanted to talk to him.

What a rush.

Old Spice Goes Viral

Michael Ian Black isn’t the only celebrity taking advantage of social networking.

Last month, Isaiah Mustafa, better known as the “Old Spice Guy,” surprised fans by producing more than 150 short YouTube videos in under 24 hours. Each clip beautifully mimicked Mustafa’s popular Old Spice ads, with their lofty metaphors and hilariously grandiose monologues about power, strength and abdominal perfection.

Mustafa and a team of writers, marketing gurus and tech geeks selected their favorite fan questions via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other sites. They then quickly put together scripts and props for Mustafa’s responses and somehow managed to produce and publish quality videos almost as quickly as fans could watch them.

The Old Spice crew even helped a fan propose to his girlfriend, as you can see in the video at right. (She said yes.)

Bridging the Gap Between Celebrities and Their Fans

I spoke to blogging pioneer and author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business, Steve Garfield, earlier today about how social networking has brought celebrities and their fans closer together. Garfield, a jack of all trades when it comes to new-media tools, is by all accounts a regular guy who doesn’t regularly hobnob with A-list celebrities. But he is resourceful and, as his book title implies, he knows how to “Get Seen.” Garfield has gotten the attention of a lot of famous people, and at present keeps in regular contact with the likes of Saturday Night Live alumnus and late-night host Jimmy Fallon.

Here’s an excerpt from our conversation.

Q: How have sites like Twitter and Facebook influenced the ways celebrities and their fans interact?

A: Social networking has really made it easier for celebrities to communicate with their fans. In the past, celebs had to get a Web guru to create a stand-alone site and set up bulletin board systems, and things like that. It was a struggle. But now, third-party sites like Twitter allow fans to share ideas with and talk to these celebrities. And the celebrities have the opportunity to talk back without having to know the first thing about creating a Web site.

Q: Tell me about Jimmy Fallon. At first, you were just a fan of his, commenting online like other fans. Now you talk all the time, and Fallon is even a prominent interviewee in your book, Get Seen. How did that happen?

A: Jimmy Fallon is the perfect example of a celebrity who has embraced social networking. He started a video blog and I commented on it. Then he mentioned me in another video blog post. Jimmy asked for videos, and so I made a video. And then he mentioned it, and so forth. So, we got little relationship going and I met him at the Consumer Electronics Show. I got to interview him there, and the next thing you know, I had VIP tickets to see his TV show. He even invited me backstage. Now we regularly communicate back and forth over Twitter. It’s so easy to communicate this way, and I think celebrities find (or should find) these communications valuable.

In the book, I interview Jimmy Fallon and we talk about interacting with the fans. He wants to set up “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” so that he can do just that. I also interviewed Gavin Purcell, Fallon’s producer, who talks about how they are working to make the audience experience more interactive.

Q: That’s fascinating. Have you found other celebrities who are open to interacting with fans online?

A: Definitely. I was just in the Bahamas and I saw the band Tears for Fears. They put on a great show. I shot some video of them, but I was really at a loss as to where to put it because of all these recent take-down notices from record companies asking fans to not put copyrighted materials on the Web.

So, I found the lead singer Curt Smith online and I Tweeted to him asking if I could put clips of his Bahamas show on YouTube. Within minutes he tweeted back at me sure, “the more the merrier“!

That would never happen without social media.

Q: So what advice do you have to fans who want to get in touch with their favorite stars, or who want to use the power?

A: The Internet and all these new-media and social-networking tools like Twitter have leveled the playing field and made celebrities more accessible. With celebrities having millions of followers or fans, it sets the expectation that a famous person might not see your comments, but there’s also the possibility that they will. Jimmy Fallon asks for responses and reads them. Recently he asked Late Night viewers to use a specific phrase in their Tweets, and then he shared his favorite responses on the air. That kind of interaction is fun.

People who want to get their favorite celebrity to notice them really only need to reach out. Celebs are just people like the rest of us, and they often check search results for their names on Google and Twitter, just to see what people are saying. If you have something interesting to say to them or ask them, do it because they might just respond back.

Steve Garfield’s video of Tears for Fears, live at the Oracle Club Excellence at the Atlantis (Bahamas) on July 30, 2010.	Curt Smith, lead singer of Tears for Fears, was pleased with the video and elected to share it with fans via Twitter.

Tell me, readers: Have you ever met or spoken with anyone famous thanks to the Internet? Share your stories below!

To say that I am a music “fan” might be a bit of an understatement. When it comes to artists I fell in love with when I first truly discovered music at age 11, the full word “fanatic” is more appropriate. There was a point in my youth when I could hear a few notes from any song in the Beatles or Queen discographies and easily Name That Tune.

As an adult, I’ve settled into a more subtle appreciation of the bands that introduced me to audial bliss. Though I can no longer Name That Tune when it comes to the songs I don’t particularly like, I do still go through cycles where I will listen to no other artists for weeks. This is probably a little strange, given that my musical tastes are extremely varied now.

Last week, my friend and fellow blogger, Sheena Barnett, sent out a Facebook message to several musicians, acquaintances and friends asking us to name our favorite Beatles tracks.

I quickly realized that this was going to be difficult. Sure, I can name some songs I don’t like: There aren’t many that come to mind, so that makes it easy. But a favorite?

Immediately, a dozen tracks flooded into my head all at once.

So, I took a rather nerdy approach to select a “favorite.” Here’s what I told Sheena for her blog entry on the topic:

I’ve never been able to pick a favorite anything. When you ask me to name my favorite Beatles song, you might as well be asking which hair on my head I love the most. So, in order to participate in this fun survey, I had to get creative.

I opened Excel and listed about 40 songs that I love, any one of which being my “favorite” depending on my mood and the day’s events. I then entered a formula so that the program would pick a “favorite” for me.

I know, that’s one pretty clinical procedure for something as emotional as music, but there you have it.

So at this moment, my favorite song is… *drumroll* “Norwegian Wood.” I love this song for the melodies, the harmonies, and for George’s masterful use of the sitar. He takes the quintessentially Indian instrument and brings it forth to fit naturally with the Beatles’ music. Dislikes include that it’s about John’s fooling around on his first wife and that the main character (according to Paul) sets a woman’s flat on because she made him sleep in the bath, but those matters aside, it’s a very solid tune with a lot of soul behind it.

But most honestly, my favorite Beatles song tends to be whichever Beatles song I happen to be listening to at the moment.

Yes, I programmed an Excel spreadsheet to select a favorite Beatles tune for me. How else was I supposed to pick one?

Tell me about your relationships with music: Do you have favorite songs and artists, or do you find it as difficult as I do to choose? Which bands and performers really “speak” to you, and why?

Newsflash!

According to rock star Prince: “The internet’s completely over.”

I guess it’s time for us Web journalists to pack up our netbooks, shut down our blogs, and go back to dead-tree news, just as God intended.

The 52-year-old rocker sat down this week with the Daily Mirror’s Peter Willis for a rather bizarre, though not un-Prince-like interview, during which he proclaimed to the reporter:

The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.

Let me write that down. Numbers…are…bad. Got it.

Still, I shouldn’t make too much fun of Prince.

All general weirdness aside, I learned a long time ago that even if someone is misguided in his opinions (understatement of the year here), he usually has a decent reason or two for feeling the way he does.

It should come as no surprise that Prince, like many artists who struck it famous before the Napster Age, is a big opponent of internet file-sharing. Although he regularly gives away innumerable free copies of his own CDs, the artist takes an ethical stance on blatant piracy. Basically, he’d rather give his fans a gift than have them pry it from his hands. That’s an opinion I can respect.

Most recently, Prince gave the Daily Mirror copies of his forthcoming CD, “20TEN,” to insert into the paper this Thursday as a free gift to subscribers. Obviously, “20TEN” will be released in CD-format only, and will not be licensed to iTunes, Amazon MP3, or any other internet-media stores.

Unfortunately for Prince, however, just because he says the internet is a dead medium, that doesn’t make it in any way true.

He’s free to avoid iTunes–more power to him–but he must understand that as long as he produces listenable music, people will distribute it online.

Even the iTunes Store stopped using digital-rights protection technology in 2009, partly because Apple executives finally realized that DRM is virtually useless–there’s always a workaround.

If UK Daily Mirror readers get their hands on “20TEN” on July 8th, you have my word that someone, somewhere, will start distributing it by the 7th.

It’s the internet. On this playing field, smart, pimple-faced, pro-free-information teens have the advantage.

Members of the class of 2010 broke into dance at my alma mater’s student union earlier today. These University of Mississippi millennials chose the song “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire for their surprise performance. They even borrowed their moves from the popular 2008 film.

You can see the epic stunt below, in all its Flip video glory.

This video illustrates in 2 minutes and 37 seconds why I spent 14 years (or half my life) transforming into such a huge multimedia geek. How can you not love this stuff?

Plus, if I were to start a “Stuff Indian People Like” blog in the vein of “Stuff White People Like,” I can guarantee that “When non-Indians embrace our culture” would be really high on my list, somewhere between “Ripping off Hollywood” and “Driving a Camry.”

My recent Social Media Blackout experiment left me feeling all pathetic and alone, but it turns out that I’m not (alone, anyway).

Last week, University of Maryland researchers found that college students who swore off social media and texting showed signs of withdrawal similar to what drug addicts experience after quitting cold turkey. Sound familiar? Here are some highlights from their “Day Without Media” experiment:

Students use literal terms of addiction to characterize their dependence on media.
“Although I started the day feeling good, I noticed my mood started to change around noon. I started to feel isolated and lonely. I received several phone calls that I could not answer,” wrote one student. “By 2:00 pm. I began to feel the urgent need to check my email, and even thought of a million ideas of why I had to. I felt like a person on a deserted island…. I noticed physically, that I began to fidget, as if I was addicted to my iPod and other media devices, and maybe I am.”

Students hate going without media. In their world, going without media, means going without their friends and family.
“Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort,” wrote one student. “When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life. Although I go to a school with thousands of students, the fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable.”

And here I thought I was going crazy; that my dependence on social media was a sign of some yet undiagnosed psychological problem. But if I’m nuts, then so are you. And so are America’s youth.

This week, New York’s Riverdale County School ran a two-day experiment similar to the Blackout, prohibiting middle school students from texting, IM-ing, and engaging in any kind of social media. As you might predict, the kids suffered varying levels of anxiety during the study. But they survived, and they were better for it.

Here’s an excerpt from “Encouraging the Text Generation to Rediscover Its Voice,” a New York Times article that references the experiment:

This text-free Sunday, the Riverdale students said, was unusually relaxing. They were shocked at how quickly they finished their homework, undistracted by an always-open video chat, or checking in on Facebook or responding to the hundred messages they typically get in a day. … “I had to look for things to do,” said [student] Zachary, who ended up watching a movie with his mother.

A movie? With his mother? Even for a young teen, this really shouldn’t be a last-resort activity. Family bonding should be commonplace.

When you have down time, your activities might include landscaping the yard. We did just that on Sunday.

This leads me to some of my own conclusions:

Since I ended my Blackout more than a week ago, I’ve found myself being more cautious about my social-media postings: links, photos, videos, status updates, private notes, private and public blog entries, etc. I find myself checking Facebook and Twitter a few times per day, but this is nothing compared to my previous almost constant use of these sites. I actually now set aside specific times for goofing off.

I’ve made good on my word to not use my iPhone in the car, except for important calls. (Remember that I’m the passenger, not the driver.) I can tell that this was probably my biggest vice, as I’ve seen more of this town in the past week than I have in an entire year of living here. I’m still ill about the time I wasted just waiting for pages to load.

I no longer feel a constant, nagging compulsion to check my favorite sites “simply because” the opportunity exists. Why pick up my smart phone when I can grab a book, spend more time with my husband or go for another run with the puppy? Why debate politics through my fingers with friends-of-friends when I can have rousing, in-person conversations with people I actually know?

Over the past week, I’ve found myself filled with creative energy. I’ve become even more productive at work, and have ended up with a lot more down time. (That I was so productive before the blackout still baffles me.)

We used some of this down time to landscape the yard this weekend (see image above right). I also try to use the time to read up on corporate policies for renovations, management and modifications, so now I’m not just thinking weeks ahead, but months. I hope that this will translate into greater career success.

Finally, I feel, for lack of a better term, more… alive. Life becomes very two-dimensional and gray when you’ve got your faced shoved into a computer screen all day. Any time away from the technology translates into reconnecting with people, animals, trees, society, and good old-fashioned mortal existence.

I will always be the News-Geek, the multimedia nerd who loves to create, to teach, and to connect through all kinds of new media. But even geeks need moderation. And for once, I’m ok with that.

We interrupt the commentary on all things editorial, political, and tech-related to bring you… just what the header says: stuff–on my dog.

Last week, I visited YoungUrbanPuppy on Etsy, a great eBay-inspired shopping-cart site that allows creative types to sell their custom-made wares to consumers worldwide. If you’re into unique art, clothing, and accessories, I highly recommend shopping there.

The above outfits were part of my first Etsy purchase, and I’ve got to say I’m really pleased. The Mario costume brings me back to my childhood, while the smart trench coat and hat make Herbie, my eight-month-old miniature dachshund, look like a dapper Sherlock Holmes. Jenielle (YoungUrbanPuppy) did an excellent job on the outfits. They’re fitted with Velcro straps so that even if Herbie grows, he’ll still be able to wear them.

So here’s my shout out to Jenielle, her dog Parsnip, and all of the people who’ve made Etsy possible! Thanks, guys!

I love a good April Fools’ Day joke.

Back in college, I helped orchestrate a surprisingly believable radio prank that had much of our listenership in conservative Northeast Mississippi thinking that President George W. Bush had resigned. This was a plausible concept at the time–it was 2006, and by then, it seemed like half the president’s second-term cabinet had already stepped down.

The joke was extremely successful–more so than my cohost, Matt “The Watcher” Williams, and I would ever have predicted–but the results were two-fold: Liberals, moderates, and right-wingers with funny-bones thought the prank was both well-executed and entertaining, while some cranky conservatives called us unprofessional and wanted our heads on the proverbial (or literal) platter. The latter group apparently mistook our commentary- and analysis-based talk show for a straight-news outfit, and likened us to their most hated “liberal” media outlets du jour. This was definitely a weird experience for me, the quintessential moderate.

The show did so well that a lot of professional news organizations across the region took notice. Marty Russell, of The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, wrote in his article “We Can Learn a Lot From Journalists, Even When They’re Lying“:

[The show] was truly inspired. Not only did the students pull off a crazy April Fools’ prank, but they used it to have an honest discussion of Bush’s failings including the war in Iraq, FEMA’s problems, possible upcoming censure supported even by Bush ally John McCain, the Dubai ports deal, illegal wiretapping, etc., etc. And they used the feigned resignations to inform listeners about the line of succession, even speculating that it could come down to Donald Rumsfeld, as secretary of defense, who would become president. Not only was the broadcast inspired, it was pretty gutsy. Ole Miss is an extremely conservative campus. There are almost as many “W the President” stickers on vehicle windows as there are parking decals.

You can listen to the episode here:

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Despite the minimal backlash from the occasional listener, the show was mostly very well-received, and here’s why: We followed my 3 Rules For Pranksters on April Fools’ Day. They are as follows:

1. Avoid pranks that cause emotional harm: The key to a good April Fools’ Day joke is to ensure that you’re not the only one who’s laughing. Playing a prank that results in embarrassment, ridicule, or plain old hurt feelings only serves to make you look like the fool. Note that during our radio show, we based all of our speculation on facts and real events. We never called names or did anything to make the president, the cabinet, or our audience look like jerks.
2. Do Unto Others…: Sometimes what’s innocent and funny to pranksters is insulting and hurtful to their prey. A general rule of thumb: If you’re not sure whether your target is going to take your jokes well, s/he probably isn’t. So, always put yourself in his or her shoes. Ask yourself, “How would I feel if someone pranked me this way?” If you wouldn’t like getting sucker punched, having your clothes stained or ripped, or being told your grandma’s goldfish died, don’t do these things to someone else.
3. OBEY THE LAW!: It seems like ever year, some idiot makes the news for taking April Fools’ Day a little too far. This time last year, two such idiots were Cele Carmona and Jerron Moffitt of Sebring, Florida. According to reports, the delinquent duo meticulously placed 70+ envelopes of “fake anthrax” (AKA baby powder) around town. The end result? Jail time and community service. (Sources: 1, 2) Remember: “April Fools’ Day” is not code for “Law Enforcement Happy-Fun-Time Vacation Day.”

   You can be sure that we were really careful with this one.

Most years, though, my pranks are so benign (read: lame) that I don’t really need to consider these rules too much.

Today’s joke had a few people going (even if it was just for a little while). Sadly, some of those folks deleted their comments when they realized I was kidding:

I wonder if I’m the only Apple-centric new-media geek on the planet who still has a first-generation iPhone. I know that my friends in the biz often laugh at me for it, but why? Anyone who understands anything about Apple knows that the company prides itself on computability. Every time there’s a new software update for the iPhone, my three-year-old device manages to keep up with those new-fangled little 3GSs with little trouble at all. There are of course certain things a first-gen phone can’t do that a 3G/3GS can, but I haven’t really noticed anything that makes me long for the inconvenience of a hardware upgrade.

The main thing (for me, as an all-in-one new-media journalist) that older models lack is built-in video capability, but even that is changing. This past December, Qik, a company striving to bring video technology to the mobile world, released an application that turns even my first-gen’s still camera into a useful video tool.

Here’s a video I shot with Qik last month. My only complaint is that I would prefer more frames per second since these doggies are fast, but all in all, I’m quite pleased. This app makes my “classic” first-generation phone feel a bit like a 3GS light, so to speak. Obviously the 3GS, which is built for video, does a better job with it over all: The camera in general takes clearer, more vibrant photos. The video, also, is clearer and less jerky.

You can see the need for a better frame rate and quality even more so in this video I shot at a hibachi grill near my house:

The frame rate for the default Qik video resolution of 200×152 is only 15 frames per second, which is half that seen in film. Shooting anything larger will kick the rate down even further, producing a choppier shot akin to old security camera footage. That said, the application is only $0.99 and hosting is absolutely free. If money is the only obstacle between you and a shiny new 3GS with video–or if you, like me, are too lazy and attached to your older model iPhone to make the switch–you might be better off with Qik. As noted above, you won’t get the same quality or clarity, but you will get usable video.

If you’re a 3GS-less journalist or anyone else looking for a quick, on-the-fly option for raw video production, I highly recommend this program. If not, well, why are you using your cell phone to shoot to begin with?

All in all, I give Qik for the iPhone 4 out of 5 stars. It’s cheap, reliable, accessible and all-in-all a well-programmed piece of software. I’d prefer a frame rate of at least 24 FPS, but 15 isn’t terrible.

Well, as many of you know, I’m finally up for American citizenship! I’ve been in the States since I was 9, so it only took, oh, 18 years to get this far. While I’ll surely miss my shiny little green card and my Canadian passport, I’ll be thrilled to finally be able to vote in elections.

I poked around online yesterday looking for the proper N400 form, and I ended up perusing some study materials and sample questions for the citizenship test.

I find this sort of thing pretty interesting, so I thought I’d share.

The spelling is of course quite easy for a native English speaker such as myself. And if any of you born-and-raised Americans can’t ace the civics portion, I worry about you.

The sad truth–or shall I say, the sad speculation and educated guess–is that a lot of Americans wouldn’t do well on this test on the first try. How many is “a lot”? Well, that depends. Now that the questions asked are more open-ended than they used to be–with queries like “What does the Constitution do?” replacing old ones like “What is the Constitution?”–lots of news organizations are digging around to see how well various samplings of U.S. citizens perform. (Examples: Fox News; CNN–you can even try your hand at a few questions at MSNBC.)

Out of simple curiosity, I’d love to see all Americans taking the 2010 census also try their hands at the citizenship test. How well do you think our citizenry would perform on average? How well will you do if you take the MSNBC sample test?

Fair is fair: I got a 95% thanks to the question regarding which listed state was not part of the original 13 colonies.

NOTE: This MSNBC test is arguably easier than the actual U.S. citizenship test because candidates for naturalization are given questions in short-answer format as opposed to multiple choice. As such, I recommend you check out the official study materials and sample questions from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Web site.

Addendum: I’ve received several messages and comments from people regarding why they think many Americans would fail the citizenship test on the first go. In summary, they point out that most of the voting public is well beyond the days of elementary and high school civics and therefore shouldn’t be expected to retain historical facts and dates that do not affect them on a daily basis.

While I don’t personally think every American needs to know the number of amendments to the Constitution off the top of his or her heard, I do think other questions on the test are very important: Which branch of government declares war? Who is one of the U.S. senators from your state? Who selects new justices for the U.S. Supreme Court and what powers does the court have?

I think that every single American registered to vote should be able to answer these questions correctly–no excuses.

Well, despite the career change, I do keep my ear to the ground for new media tools. Right now, I’m interested in Stupeflix, a really simple to use audio-slide show tool that lets you create seamless videos in Flash and for YouTube in a matter of minutes.

While Stupeflix is definitely more useful for your average user than to professional journalists (to whom I strongly recommend Soundslides), I will say that Stupeflix is quite innovative: It provides a simple and speedy API to process images, sounds, and other components into videos with relatively complex visual effects (complex for a Web app, anyway). Furthermore, the API allows users to create content and applications quickly and easily for the Web as well as Apple’s iPhone.

Lastly, the interface is so clean and simple that even a Web novice would have little trouble generating content and getting it onto YouTube.

Here’s a video I made with pictures of my new puppy. All told, it took me about 10 minutes (including interruptions).

Ahh, the World Wide Web. It’s a marvel of modern technology, to be sure. And like the steam engine and the jet engine before it, the Web-based search engine has allowed man to explore the vast reaches of the world around him–and the many worlds beyond.

Furthermore–ah, forget it. All I wanted to say was OMG CHECK OUT THIS CRAZY PARKING JOB OUTSIDE MY GYM!!!!12$@!~

Nice Job, Jerk Outside My Gym!

Because, why render just one handicap parking spot useless when you can screw with both?

Parking. FAIL!!!

In case you haven’t heard, the members of U2 are taking cues from The Beatles these days and putting on “secret” concerts. Bono and the gang played one show last night at Davis Square’s Somerville Theatre, a mere ten-minute walk from my home and one of the tiniest non-bar venues the band could have chosen for this occasion. Were it not for the internet, I suspect the event would also have been just as “low key” as the later Beatles shows were.

Justin Meisinger, a teaching assistant for the JO540 New Media discussion section, reported on the concert for CNN’s citizen journalism service, iReport. The report (as well as an interview with Meisinger) eventually found its way to Headline News. You can watch the segment below:

Thanks to my colleague Steve Garfield for putting this video online.

I’ve learned several surprising things in the two days since asking, “What’s so appealing about Twitter?” Among them:

1. Lots of celebrities use Twitter and if you follow enough of them, some will eventually start following you back. This is the case with Yoko Ono, who not only supposedly reads my Tweets now but who has also sent me a direct message via the site. Now, I’m almost positive she uses a third-party site to auto-contact all of her followers–but she also sent along another, more special note just for me. Being the huge Beatles fan that I am, the experience of hearing from John Lennon’s widow has left me feeling a little star-struck. I’ll admit I’m a little embarrassed by that.
   If you’re interested, you can search the Web for reliable lists of celebrity Twitterers, but some of my favorites are Shaquille O’Neal, Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson and, of course, the truly amazing John Cleese.
2. Experienced Twitterers can come up with really clever ways to say a lot while staying within the meager 140-character limit. That might not sound too impressive to some of you social-networking veterans who have mastered succinctness in your status messages, but if you’re a journalist, you’ll understand that brevity–effective brevity–is nothing less than a fine art. There is a reason they call it “the soul of wit.” Twitter even has awards for the best “short content” creators.
   There are, of course, some Twitterers who haven’t fully embraced the concept of brevity just yet. If 140 characters isn’t enough for them, they’ll just continue their message in a second, third, fourth or even fifth post. Yes, I’m looking at you, Dr. Drew.
3. Congress Tweets. And texts. And chats. And… does pretty much everything with their phones except take notes on important events? Here’s an excerpt from the The Washington Post’s article on what, exactly, our leaders were doing during President Barack Obama’s address to Congress last night:

President Obama spoke of economic calamity and war last night in that solemn rite of democracy, the address to the joint session of Congress. And lawmakers watched him with the dignity Americans have come to expect of their leaders: They whipped out their BlackBerrys and began sending text messages like high school kids bored in math class.

“One doesn’t want to sound snarky, but it is nice not to see Cheney up there,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) announced as Obama entered the chamber.

“I did big wooohoo for Justice Ginsberg,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) broadcast, misspelling the name of the ailing Supreme Court justice. McCaskill could be seen applauding with BlackBerry in one hand.

“Capt Sully is here — awesome!” announced Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.), spotting the US Airways pilot in the gallery.

Then there was Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), in whose name this text message was sent at about the time the president spoke of the need to pull the country together: “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour.” A few minutes later, another message came through: “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.”

Wow. Seriously? My students pay far better attention in class! And as special as I think each and every one of their smiling faces happens to be, none of these students is ever going to have the effect on my taxes, bank account and general livelihood that Congress will.

Do we need to start confiscating their cell phones?

A few months back, I downloaded a few Twitter applications for my iPhone. Yes, more than one. I do that a lot with (free) apps since it’s the only way I can figure out which ones are right for me. When you use as many Web tools as I do (as often as I do) speed and usability become paramount.

The problem is, I never bothered using any of them. I’ve tried to get into Twitter, but micro-blogging has never really appealed to me–well, until now, anyway.

Long story short, I’ve recently come to accept two important facts of internet life:

1. Twitter isn’t the passing fad I thought it would be. To the contrary, it’s still gaining in popularity more than 2 years after its release. According to a February ‘09 report from Web traffic analysis site Compete.com, Twitter is now the third most popular social networking site behind Facebook and MySpace.
2. Twitter is a symbol how internet users are now essentially online all the time. Smart phones and WiFi have really changed where we connect, when we do it, and how often we can do it. We can both have lives and yet stay in constant connection with the Web and our peers, which is a huge shift from just a couple of years ago. Sure people still have their stereotypes: To a lot of folks, if you’re online, you must be at your computer in your mom’s basement, drinking a 2-liter Mt. Dew and arguing with strangers over which “World of Warcraft” characters are the coolest. But regardless of stereotypes, things are really changing. Look at teenagers: Even the cool kids are always texting, Facebooking, Twittering, etc.

As a self-respecting multimedia journalist, I know that I should accept Twitter as the increasingly popular tool that it is. Yet it’s that journalistic part of me that really needs to decipher what’s behind the popularity of this whole micro-blogging thing. Both Facebook and MySpace offer “status update” tools in addition to myriad cool features that Twitter doesn’t have. So why do we Twitter?

While even Twitter CEO Evan Williams can’t answer that question (as he’s stated in multiple interviews) perhaps the Times of London can. Just yesterday the Times published an article in which they asked several experts about the Twitter phenomenon. The conclusion was this: We Tweet because we have an underdeveloped sense of the self. Ouch.

From the article:

The clinical psychologist Oliver James has his reservations. ‘Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.’

‘We are the most narcissistic age ever,’ agrees Dr David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist and director of research based at the University of Sussex. ‘Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.’

For Alain de Botton, author of Status Anxiety and the forthcoming The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Twitter represents ‘a way of making sure you are permanently connected to somebody and somebody is permanently connected to you, proving that you are alive. It’s like when a parent goes into a child’s room to check the child is still breathing. It is a giant baby monitor.’

Those are some pretty strong accusations. But what do you think? Are those of us who Tweet or update our statuses on Facebook and MySpace narcissistic? Are we insecure? Do we need validation?

For me… I just think it’s fun. No harm, no foul. But what do you think? Are we truly just a bunch of big, fearful, attention-seeking babies?

Let me know. And while you’re at it, follow me (and my lacking sense of self) on Twitter. You can do that at right.

Kudos to Steve Garfield and my student, Nick, for this great on-the-fly chat about new media tools for journalists. Steve interviewed Nick today during the discussion section immediately following our class. You can listen to the clip right here:

Using only his cell phone, Steve had the above report and Nick’s picture online and ready to be viewed within minutes. Now it’s just six hours later, and so far more than 120 people have listened to the file.

If you’re interested in doing this kind of reporting yourself (as any self-respecting multimedia journalist should be) you should check out Utterli. With tools like this available all over the Web, there’s no excuse for any reporter with a decent cell to miss out on breaking news.

In other news, here’s my only contribution to cell-phone reporting today:

In my grocery store’s organic freezer section–right above the soy ice cream and next to the chocolate-covered frozen bananas–is the Yoghund, a yogurt treat formulated just for your dog. Yummy. Or should I say “yuppie”? (I also have a close-up shot of the text. I took both of these images with my iPhone and posted them via the iPhone WordPress application, which I once reviewed here.)