Archive for the 'FollowFriday' category

Aug. 28, #FollowFriday

Aug 28 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

I thought I’d do kind of a different Follow Friday this week, inasmuch as I don’t actually know the people behind any of these accounts.

But there are some very funny people on Twitter and they’re making me laugh out loud in 14 characters or less.

The idea for this week’s theme of frakkin’ funny Twitterers came about when my husband showed me the first one on the list below. After sharing that account with many others, I thought I’d see what other accounts out there were laugh-out-loud funny. I got recommendations from iamwritebrained, mikafilm, TomChivers, cougarclaws, kalichan, annaliseb and Twisty58 (sorry if I missed listing anyone here).

Got lots of good recommendations, but I stick to just five a week, and didn’t want to make an exception just because these folks are funny.

So, let’s start, first with the one that started the idea for doing funny people this week:

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Aug. 21, #FollowFriday

Aug 21 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

I’ve had a lot of fun doing my themed #FollowFriday posts the last few weeks, so I thought I’d do some of my green friends. I apparently know too many, though, so I might do more next week. Damn hippies. ;-)

Fortunately, I already did @socialpyramid a few weeks ago, so that made it a little easier to narrow my list down to five for this week.

@greenbiztweets: Hugh Byrne is a great guy. Knows his stuff and comes at the whole environmental news thing from an interesting angle – business. It’s an important topic, too, because industry, as a whole, isn’t going to find being green to be a priority until it makes sense for their bottom line. Interesting tweets, diggs, stumbles, the whole shebang.

@stephhicks: Steph is an environmental lawyer who now manages five blogs (is that all? C’mon, Steph, you can do better than that!), takes care of her passel of kidlets and still finds time to run. And cook. Stop it, Steph, you’re making the rest of us look bad. I keep an eye out for her tweets, because I always know I’ll find something interesting about environmental issues.

@jerryjamesstone: Jerry blogs here, there and everywhere, including a site called TreeHugger.com. And he lives in San Francisco. I think all that means he’s legally required to hover 3 inches above the grass when he walks, so he doesn’t kill even a single blade. If you follow him, you’ll find cool green stuff, plus some really odd, news of the weird-type things he’s come across.

@thewordisberry: Sara Ost is one cool mama. Editor-in-chief of ecosalon.com, she’s a sassy little frassy (OK, I cribbed that from her Twitter bio, and admit that I have only a vague idea what that means, but it sounds great). Her tweets are imbued with a wry humor while still managing to be informative. For example, did you know that mascara could smell like crushed aspirin tastes? Me neither.

@derekmarkham: I pretty much know when I see Derek’s avatar in my Twitter stream that it’s going to be a tidbit about the environment, a retweet of someone else’s tweet about the environment or some cool photos relating to the environment. He can also tweet one-handed, which can be quite difficult.

As usual, if you have any suggestions for folks I should be following, please tell me your recommendations in the comments below. Thanks!

4 responses so far

Aug. 14: #FollowFriday

Aug 14 2009 Published by under Burbia, Environmental Graffiti, FollowFriday, io9, Lemondrop, Popular Mechanics, Twitter

For my seventh week of Twitter #FollowFriday recommendations, I thought I’d give a nod to some of my favorite websites on Twitter. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it focuses on sites where I’ve gotten to know writers and editors, which is very cool, because they’re sites I truly admire.

For the uninitiated, I do my #FollowFriday this way because it doesn’t clutter up the Twitter stream too much and I get to explain why I think you should follow folks. I do five recs each week.

I’m always looking for more interesting people to add on Twitter, so please recommend at least one person in the comments. Would love to hear who you think is worth my time to follow.

So here’s this week’s #FollowFriday recs:

• io9: Every sci-fi geek who’s not familiar with this site should re-examine his or her sci-fi geek credentials. I love this site, because it mixes an excellent amount of original writing, reviewing and listing with pickups of the best and most important sci-fi news out there – and gives credit where credit’s due. Plus, when they did their “10 Mall Massacres With Robots, Freaks and Monsters” post, I noticed they had left out a classic of the genre – Night of the Comet. When I left a comment to that effect, they not only added it in, but also gave me credit for suggesting it. That’s class.

• PopMech: Yes, Popular Mechanics, the old-school magazine, has a killer website. All Lost fans know to go there the next day for the breakdown on whatever insane brain-twisting scientific concept they’ve thrown at us. They do lots of killer articles on the latest gadgets, science news and, frankly, cool stuff. Such as: A kit that turns any car into an autonomous robot. What???

• EnviroGraffiti: The bio on Environmental Graffiti’s Twitter page says “For environmentalists who don’t take themselves too seriously.” Good description. They post lots of environmentally focused stuff, but also just interesting things in culture and nature. Like this: Amsterdam from Above. I mean, is that cool or what? But even more than that, site founder Chris Ingham Brooke is just a stand-up guy. Very cool, very nice, very smart.

• BurbiaCentral: Many of you already know that I write for Burbia – funny (hopefully) personal essays on whatever strikes my fancy. But the site has lots of good writers and tons of funny content. Definitely a taste for the bizarre and funny. You may have been following the saga of the lawn chair war there? This site’s for everyone who knows that living in the suburbs doesn’t mean you escape the craziness of the city.

• LemondropTweets: LemonDrop.com is a really fun website, where girls like me blog on whatever’s going on. They’re pretty much girl geeks, just like me. And they even have a halfway decent following among the guys, too, mostly of the geek variety. Witness this letter from a fan. Can you feel the love?

Anyway, that’s it for this week’s #FollowFriday recs. Again, please leave your recommendations in the comments for this post; I’d love to hear who you think I should be following.

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Aug. 7, #FollowFriday

Aug 07 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

For my sixth week of Twitter #FollowFriday recommendations, I thought I’d take a cue from a former college classmate of mine and give you five Northwestern University recommendations.

I graduated from NU in 1991 and have had the good fortune to not only keep in touch with many of my fellow graduates, but also run into lots of others over the years. And they’re not even all Medill grads (the journalism school).

It’s also sort of in honor of John Hughes, who died yesterday. He filmed lots of his movies in the Chicago suburbs and was a cinematic hero to my generation for such gems as Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. Every Northwestern student could recognize several locations in every one of his movies.

For the uninitiated, I do my #FollowFriday this way because it doesn’t clutter up the Twitter stream too much and I get to explain why I think you should follow folks. I do five recs each week.

I’m always looking for more interesting people to add on Twitter, so please recommend at least one person in the comments. Would love to hear who you think is worth my time to follow.

So here’s this week’s #FollowFriday recs:

• @johnjedwards3: John’s the one I referred to in my first paragraph; he did an NU-themed #FF a few weeks back and I rediscovered some folks I’d gone to school with but didn’t know were on Twitter. John’s scary smart, has worked for the Wall Street Journal for years as a reporter and editor and has a very dry sense of humor (check out his bio). John was a couple years behind me at NU.

• @moryan: Maureen Ryan is the TV critic for the Chicago Tribune and had some of the best interviews with the cast and crew of Battlestar Galactica during its run. She tweets out links to her reviews and interviews, and interacts a lot with her followers. She’s also somewhat of a sci-fi geek. I didn’t know Maureen in college, but I wasn’t surprised (was rather pleased, actually) when I found out she was a grad.

• @sizzlemaker: Shari Weiss just graduated from Medill this spring and I actually met her on Twitter. She has an outsized affection for teen soaps (90210, Everwood, etc.) and is currently interning at the Chicago Tribune. If they know what’s what, they’ll hire her fulltime. She also runs the blog TeenDramaWhore and is in charge of Breaking Tweets’ entertainment tweets.

• @toddpruzan: Todd Pruzan and I were at Northwestern at the same time. Both in the J-school. Knew a lot of the same people. Never knew each other or even heard each other’s names until running into one another at AOL recently. Todd is an editor for Daily Finance and WalletPop. And likes his rice cooker. He does, however, see the uselessness of the diaper genie. Oh, and he recently moved to Jersey. Hahahahaha! (Full disclosure: I live in Jersey.)

• @stephaniemehta: Stephanie N. Mehta and I were roommates in college for two years and her family was like my second family for four years at Northwestern. She once spackled over a hole in the wall that I … um … caused. She has always been one step ahead of me in finding cool music and I tape-recorded every single one of her CDs before we graduated on her boom box (if the RIAA is reading this, I’m just kidding). She’s now Technology Editor for Fortune magazine and doesn’t tweet nearly enough. I’m thinking that if more people start following her, maybe she’ll break out the TwitterBerry more. Hmmm, Steph?

Anyhow, that’s it for the week.

Please let me know your recommendations in the comments!

One response so far

July 31, #FollowFriday

Jul 31 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

Welcome to my fifth week of listing my Twitter Follow Friday recommendations here on my blog.

I like it because it doesn’t clutter up the Twitter stream too much and I get to explain why I think you should follow them. I do five recs a week, and have plenty of folks still to get to. I’m fortunate to know some very cool people.

That said, I’m always looking for more, interesting people to add on Twitter, so please recommend at least one person in the comments. Would love to hear who you think is worth my time to follow.

So here’s this week’s #FollowFriday recs:

@Gamebittk: I would be highly remiss if I did not recommend Mike. I’ve known him for quite some time on Digg and this week, he came up with a brilliant solution to the whole Diggbar madness (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, thank your lucky stars, or read this post). He came up with ShareTool, yes, another URL shortener. But not only does it allow for tweeting and all sorts of sharing, it enables Digg users to send their URLs with a Digg button at the top for their Digg friends, but directly to the content of the article for their non-Digg friends. Can’t we just all get along? By the way, if you want a good laugh, put the ShareTool URL into ShareTool and share it. Really. Do it.

@DianaCostello: Diana harkens back to my old life (a whopping seven months ago) as a professional journalist. I was a newspaper editor, and Diana was one of my reporters. She was always trying to find new ways to get people to come to the website by – gasp! – giving them something they couldn’t get anywhere else. She works her butt off, has a wicked sense of humor and actually cares about the quality of what she does. She also has an incredibly eclectic taste in music, maybe even rivaling that of @Surferess. OK, not quite, but she comes close.

@Primatage: Matt Rogers is a relatively new friend. He’s funny, sharp and really obnoxious. Exactly what I look for in a friend. He shares good links, writes an interesting blog and has a nice eye for graphic design. Check him out.

@PinkPackRat: Roberta is a fellow New Jersey-dweller and, despite the fact that she likes pink, is very cool. She has a fun soapbox blog that touches on subjects ranging to the fact that chubby people like me live longer to the local farm stand that runs on the honor system. OK, you may have guessed from that last part that she doesn’t live anywhere near Newark. She lives in the rural part of Jersey. (Hey, it’s not call the Garden State for no reason.)

@StuartFoster: Stu’s one of my old-timey Digg friends, too. He has a social media blog and has been my sometime collaborator on blog posts there (our most famous was the Beards + Social Media = Win post). He’s a hard worker and shares lots of good links on Twitter.

So that’s my five recommendations for #FollowFriday this week. Who do you recommend? Please tell me in the comments.

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July 24, #FollowFriday

Jul 24 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

For those of you new to this blog, this is my fourth week of listing my Twitter Follow Friday recommendations this way.

I like it because it doesn’t clutter up the Twitter stream too much and I get to explain why I think you should follow them. I do five recs a week, and have plenty of folks still to get to. I’m fortunate to know some very cool people.

That said, I’m always looking for more, interesting people to add on Twitter, so please recommend at least one person in the comments. Would love to hear who you think is worth my time to follow.

I’m still catching up on some of my oldest social media friends:

@LouieBaur & @LouieBaurDigg — Louie was my first Digg friend and thus one of my very first “online” friends. We’ve spoken on the phone many times and he cracks me up. We were coming up in Digg about the same time, even though he has damn near twice as many front page submissions than I do (that means he’s better at it than I am). He’s so popular he has to have two Twitter accounts, one specifically for Digg.

@Deathwish808 — Steve and I also go back a long way. I call Steve an ass, but it’s only because I mean it. I kid, I kid! Seriously, he’s someone you want to have in your corner. He’s loyal and hard-working and funny as heck, plus a good dad to boot.

@Emily_at_Asylum — Emily’s almost like a guy, and I mean that in a good way. She likes boob jokes and is usually saying or doing something inappropriate. I’ve actually met her in person, even, and she’s a sweetheart. I always enjoy seeing what she’s gonna come up with next.

@w0lfh0und — Matt Barnes is a fascinating person. He’s been homeless and has a wonderful blog that raises awareness of the plight of people who find themselves in that situation, for a variety of reasons. It’s well-written and fascinating. And Matt’s just a stand-up guy who I’m proud to call a friend.

@socialpyramid — Brian Clark Howard is one helluva writer and editor and an even nicer friend and Digger. He’s also another online friend I’ve actually met in person, because he has the good sense to live in the NYC metro area. He’s always got your back and is always tweeting about cool environmental-related stuff.

That’s it for this week. Again, please let me know in the comments whom you think I should be following.

One response so far

July 17, #followfriday

Jul 17 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

For those of you new to this blog, this is my third week of listing my Twitter Follow Friday recommendations this way.

I like it because it doesn’t clutter up the Twitter stream too much and I get to explain why I think you should follow them. I do five recs a week, and have plenty of folks still to get to. I’m fortunate to know some very cool people.

That said, I’m always looking for more, interesting people to add on Twitter, so please recommend at least one person in the comments. Would love to hear who you think is worth my time to follow.

I’m going to start off with one of my oldest friends in Social Media:

@Regretful: Jason is hilarious. He also has the sensibilities of a horny high schooler, and I say that in the most loving way possible. He is the mastermind behind Regretful Morning, a site that lives up to its tagline: “We laugh at your misfortune.” As juvenile as the humor there tends to be, more often than not, it’s still funny, dammit. Add to that the fact that Jason’s actually really sweet (dammit, was I not supposed to tell?), and you’ve got a winning combination.

@delsquacho: As funny as Jason is, David just might be funnier. OK, no offense, Jason, but David is actually the funniest person I’ve ever met. You can send him an e-mail or a Tweet or a DM on something utterly innocuous and you’ll get back a short reply – sometimes only one word – and it’s so funny you can’t catch your breath. I honestly laugh out loud (not lol, but actually LAUGH OUT LOUD) at least once a day reading his e-mails. He’s a new daddy, too, and loves his wife and child.

@MariKurisato: She loves zombies, cyborgs and giant robots. She’s also a very talented artist, has a very biting sense of humor and when she tweets a link, it’s always worth looking at. People have actual conversations with her via twitter. Cool people. Oh, and I didn’t know her from a hole in the wall until about three or four months ago; “met” her on Twitter.

@neenerspb: We met and bonded over our mutual love of Battlestar Galactica. She’s funny, a blogging machine, has children, goes to school and watches too much TV. She’s kind of like Amy-plus. I don’t go to school. I am not quite sure Nina has ever had a thought she didn’t express, but I think that’s a good thing.

@AngelWarDriver: A relatively new Twitter friend, we got to know each other because of Digg moving its shouts off-site. She’s always subbing and retweeting interesting content and if I see a Tweet from her, chances are I’m clicking on it. Always nice to chat with to her, too.

That’s it for this week, but, again, I’d love it if you left your recommendations in the comments below. Always looking for new and interesting people to add on Twitter, and my friends’ recommendations carry some weight, needless to say.

3 responses so far

July 10, #followfriday

Jul 10 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

As I did last week, I am posting my Twitter Follow Friday recommendations here, so I can recommend a few people, but also explain why I think you should follow them.

In addition, I’d love it if everyone who read this recommended someone to me in the comments. I’m always looking for new, interesting and fun people to follow, and take my friends recommendations seriously.

So, here are my five for this week:

@The_Emecks, who used to be @AndrewBurnett but isn’t anymore. Andrew has been a wonderful friend in social media whom I now consider to be a – gasp! – “real” friend. He lives in Edinburgh and is best buds with one of my recommendations from last week, @AppleMacBookPro (who still needs to shorten his Twitter handle!). I would go to the mat for Andrew, though I wish he’d change his avatar so we could see his face again.

@SogeShirts – Tim and I go waaaay back in social media circles. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you translate the Internet time I’ve known him into human years, it works out to approximately 40,000 years. He’s just a really nice guy, very funny and owns a T-shirt company that puts really funny stuff onto T-shirts and baby onesies. My favorite? Mood swing. He’s a gentleman and a scholar. OK, he’s definitely a gentleman.

@PingPants is one of my touchstones. And I actually know her real name, but I’m not tellin’. She’s one of the hardest working people I know and once took a road trip with her cat. No, really. A long one. @ her some lolcat photos – she loves ‘em.

@AbsolutelyTrue is a relatively new friend of mine, but she’s another I consider to be a real friend (like all the people on this list, actually) and not just a “social media friend.” She’s a great Digger, Tweeter and all that stuff, but also a great mom with a REALLY cute kid. Serious cuteage going on there. Another one of the hardest working women in show business.

@EMFK is someone I’ve only just gotten to know in the past week or so, but she’s a sweetheart. She tweets fun stuff, is a Power Mixxer and has a really cool avatar. Check her out.

That’s my five for the week. Who would you recommend? Please tell me in the comments!

8 responses so far

July 3, #FollowFriday

Jul 03 2009 Published by under FollowFriday, Twitter

I decided to follow the lead today of my friends Brian (@NowSourcing) and Donna (@BeShirtHappy) and do my #FollowFriday recommendations on my blog this week.

As many of you know, for the past couple of months, I’ve done just one Follow Friday recommendation each week because I felt it was all getting out of control. But the more people I get to know on Twitter, the less sufficient that feels, plus I’d like a chance to better explain my recommendations.

This is the first real post I’ve done here, as this blog is more of a repository for links to my work around the web than an actual blog to come read. I think that’s going to gradually change.

So, anyway, I thought I’d try doing it this way, at least for a few weeks, and see how it goes. I’d love to hear in the comments who your recommendations are, especially if I’m not following them already.

Here are my five for the week, people I knew before I started on Twitter and I honestly consider to be actual, real-life friends, even though I haven’t met a single one in person:

@Patrick_Parise: Patrick was one of the first people I got to know in social media. He’s also one of the funniest and one of the nicest. If you follow him, I guarantee you’ll laugh at least once a day, whether from him or one of his links. Also, he likes pie. (UPDATED: Patrick changed his Twitter ID from his old Digg ID, Jenocide312 to his name, so I changed this post and the link to reflect that.)

@AppleMacBookPro: Adam is a true gentleman who is generous to a fault and scary smart when it comes to people and the Internet. He also graciously supports me in my bacon obsession. If he retweets someone’s links, there’s a good bet you should be following that person. I do wish, however, he would shorten his handle (and have told him so).

@BridgetAyers: Bridget is like the oldest sister of my crazy Internet family. Efficient, organized and responsible as heck, she’s also friendly, supportive and helpful. The links she sends out tend to reflect all of the above.

@Surferess: Kate is a former rocker chick with great taste in music and even better taste in friends. She’s funny, sarcastic and a good ally in life and online. Even better, her feline, @RustytheCat, also tweets.

@BeShirtHappy: I know I mentioned Donna above, but it’s hard for me to say too much about her. I truly consider Donna (as I do all of the people mentioned in this post) to be a friend. I’m partners with her in iMommyTalk.com, and we’ve worked together in other ventures. She’s pretty much the nicest person I’ve ever met and is a great mom to boot.

So that’s my five for this week. Check back next week for Five More to Follow, and please do let me know in the comments who you think I should be following.

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