Two Vacations?
My friend just got laid off. Well, her lay off doesn’t officially start until May, but still she’s going to be losing that income. And there’s always the chance that her husband will be among the laid off crown very soon. But she’s planning not one but two Orlando vacations this summer. One is already reserved. She’s taking 4 children, herself and her husband. I have no idea what the first vacation is going to cost her, but I can’t believe she wants to do two.
Her reasoning, of course, is that she wants to break up the BIG vacation into parts. But that doesn’t seem very smart, as far as I’m concerned. Why wouldn’t she take both vacations at the same time? It leaves her pocket book less empty and her time better spent finding other employment (if she can find other employment in this market). Plus the traveling back and forth and… Well, it just seems that her idea to save time by breaking up her vacation will ultimately cost her more time and money.
On another note, I’m a little jealous that she’s even going to Orlando. Only because my family can’t go and we’re stuck weathering the Ohio summer. Maybe (and that’s a big maybe) we’ll be able to go to the lake for a couple of days this summer. Other than that there is no big vacation in our future. Hopefully she’ll think fondly of those of us stuck home while she’s away this summer (and hopefully she doesn’t miss a great job opportunity while she’s traveling back and forth).
Popularity: 8% [?]
Sphere: Related ContentTo 1 Million Followers
If you haven’t heard, Ashton Kutcher (aplusk) is the first person to surpass 1 million followers on Twitter. He was challenging CNN to a follower-off (or whatever) and promised to both ding-dong ditch Ted Turner in Atlanta and donate $100K to Malaria No More. A worthy cause, yes?
So, yesterday evening a bunch of the Twitter Geek Elite TM had some light bulbs go off. They were going to punk Ashton and unfollow him (via Robert Scoble) just as he went on Oprah to celebrate his victory. I believe their just peeved because the Twitter Entertainment Elite TM has more influence in the online world than they do, but I digress.
They’re plans were thwarted when they discovered that they could neither follow nor unfollow Kutcher or CNN. When anyone tried they received the message that an error occurred and Twitter suggested refreshing. That didn’t work, though. Twitter, apparently, had frozen the two dueling accounts in an effort to keep people from ruining the game (this is all unofficial conjecture, of course). This set off a firestorm for a while. So between the hype of Ashton and CNN neck-in-neck in their race to 1 million, there were mad tweets about not being able to unfollow celebrities.
I don’t know exactly how I feel about all of this celebrity hoopla. I know that for the longest time Scoble and his pack were the Twitter celebrities to follow. But most of them gained too many followers and so didn’t follow back– save Scoble, who is kind enough to follow back anyone that follows him. The Entertainment Elite TM don’t bother with that nonsense. A few of them will occasionally throw a bone to one of their adoring fans, but for the most part they simply follow each other (no doubt they haven’t figured out that Twitter apps can allow you to politely follow back and then filter out the annoying, adoring fan noise). At any rate, there are scores of people signing on just to follow their favorite celebrities and hoping that someday they’ll be noticed by them and the Geek Elite TM don’t seem to be taking to kindly to them. And I don’t know if I, the lowly blogger that I am, really care for that kind of interaction on Twitter either.
Twitter’s main purpose is for social interaction. There are, of course, those hordes that are using it simply to advertise themselves and their products (social media gurus are horrid about that sort of thing) but most of the twitterverse– until now — is incredibly interactive and willing to include even the lowest of the low in their conversation. So, why would the Entertainment Elite TM suddenly decide to make a mad dash for our favorite IM tool? Because the Media Elite TM finally discovered that it’s a great way to communicate with the masses, develop mass followings and get their message out. And Entertainers are nothing if not narcissistic. Twitters great for those types of personalities.
Still, I don’t think it’s fair for Evan Williams (Twitter founder) and his crew to disable the follow/unfollow (not so much the follow, of course, as that would have ruined the game) for a few of his favorite accounts. Unless, of course, he was getting paid to do that. I’m all for Twitter making some money so that we don’t lose it. A little transparency on the part of Twitter would have been great in this instance. Twitter used to be about down-to-earth people (and Geek Elite TM) to come together on a level playing field. Now that’s changing depending on how special you are.
I’m not leaving Twitter, of course. The conversations there fascinate me. But I think that if the crew behind it are going to promote a game like this they should do it like they promoted discussion during the election season. Allow the masses to discuss and decide and keep their hands off the controls.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Sphere: Related Content
