Twitters Never Win

[vovat]

Is there a trick to getting celebrities to reply on Twitter? Yeah, I'm sure there isn't, but I'm still kind of amazed that I've received two replies from Amanda Palmer, who has 192,162 followers. The occasional reply to a fan is actually a really clever marketing technique, though. Even if you only reply every once in a while, it presents the illusion of actual conversation. I guess Amanda has always tried to maintain a good rapport with her fans, but I think it could also work for less sociable celebrities.

The constant changes to the Facebook interface just reinforce what I've pretty much thought from the first, which is that it's SUPPOSED to be confusing. It's chaos with small bits of order, which is the worst kind of chaos (except possibly the end boss of the first Final Fantasy). I have more contacts on Facebook than any other site, yet I check and update it considerably less than I do LiveJournal, Twitter, or Tumblr. I do try to link to my more interesting LJ entries, but I'm not sure how many people go here from there, although I know a few have.

This past weekend, I read through the archives of Questionable Content. I'm pretty sure I'd seen it linked from various communities before, what with its plethora of references, but I'd never read it with any regularity before. I'm actually kind of pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the characters; as bizarrely exaggerated as some of them are, they seem like people I'd want to hang out with. Too bad they're, y'know, fictional. That's the story of my life, though. As much as I love the magic, humor, and weirdness in the Oz books, a large part of their appeal for me (especially in my junior high years) was always how accepting the fairyland was of characters who didn't fit in elsewhere.

Speaking of web comics, Captain SNES has FINALLY resolved the standoff between Alex and the Sinistrals, and Chaos has shown up in 8-Bit Theater. Now that latter one is a comic where I DON'T want to hang out with the cast, as amusing as they might be. Too much chance of being stabbed or Hadokened. {g}

Comments

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

Jeph from QC used to date on of my husband's college friends. Apparently I met him once, at a wedding. I don't remember that at all, but there you have it :-P I also enjoy reading it, though.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I guess most comic artists aren't the kind of people you'd recognize unless you were actually looking for them. Aside from Jim Davis, who regularly walks around wearing a sign saying, "I created Garfield, bitch!"

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I find Twitter even more confusing than Facebook just on principle, because you at least KNOW everyone on Facebook. I was looking at an orange juice carton yesterday that said "Follow us on Twitter!" and I was thinking "WHY? Why would someone follow an orange juice company on Twitter? So they can read 140 character ads about the health benefits of orange juice?" Seriously I think sometimes people go too far with this "Twitter as a marketing tool" idea.

But anyway, I have my Facebook-- or is it my Livejournal-- well, one or the other of them set up to import my public lj posts as Facebook notes. Lately I haven't been going to Facebook at ALL, but my public posts still end up there, which is nice because my friends there sometimes actually read them and will comment anyway, so I still have a presence there, even though I'm not wasting my time trying to keep up with the Feed.

Speaking of Amanda Palmer, if you followed Neil Gaiman's blog's RSS feed here on lj you would have seen my comment there the other day telling all about the dream I had about her. Well, actually it was primarily a dream about Neil Gaiman and his Royal Entourage, but Amanda Palmer was in it, and her part was that she forced me to sign a Secrecy Contract swearing that I would not call the paparazzi on her. She was very adamant about it, even though I had had absolutely no intention of calling the paparazzi on her. Does telling you about this mean I've broken that contract?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I find Twitter even more confusing than Facebook just on principle, because you at least KNOW everyone on Facebook.

Actually, it's kind of the opposite for me. I know pretty much everyone I follow on Twitter (if not personally, then through their work), while I have more Facebook friends who added me due to common interests. But yeah, the orange juice thing is kind of bizarre, and I don't typically follow corporations on Twitter. I follow celebrities who advertise their own work, but that's probably more interesting than tweets about how cool orange juice is. {g}

I never set up automatic LJ updates for Facebook. Maybe I should, but I like being able to add a picture and a blurb when I manually link entries, which I don't think automatic clients will do.

Does telling you about this mean I've broken that contract?

You'd have to ask a lawyer to be sure, but I think contracts made while under the influence of sleep are not legally binding.

Hmmm...there's that Lady Gaga song "Paparazzi," and I believe she's cited Amanda as an influence. Is there a connection there? {g}