FLF: Twitter Tools to Fuel Your Addiction

Since this is Fun Links Friday, I have to start out with Seesmic's video interpretation (or realization) of tweeting on video while visiting Twitter... get it? No? Watch!

Now, if you can relate to this video and think in tweets (in your head or outloud), you then need to be introduced to David Armano's Top 10 Signs You Might Need a "Twittervention." It's one of the best Top 10 lists I've seen in a while. In fact, it's the David Letterman Top 10 list for Tweeters, like myself.

True to what makes social media so great, as soon as "@Armano" published his list, followers of his Twitter feed and blog began adding to the list, which as of today, is more like "Top 30" Signs You Might Need a "Twittervention." If you face this addiction, add your comments to David's post at Logic + Emotion. It's a great list and truly captures a social media tool that many love and many "still don't get."

To recap @Armano's list, this is where it stands today:

Top 10 Signs You Might Need a "Twittervention"
By David Armano, Logic + Emotion

1. You type "@" before names in e-mail, blog comments and data fields.
2. Your written communications have become extremely short.  140 characters or less.
3. You change your Twitter avatar at least 3-5 times a week.
4. You don't use your phone to make calls anymore.
5. Your blog hasn't been updated in weeks/months.
6. You check your Twitter account daily/hourly to see if you have new "followers".
7. New followers = euphoria while no new followers sets off mild depression.
8. You tell your friends to just "Twitter it" to you.
9. You experience panic attacks if Twitter is down for more than an hour.
10. You experience "Twitter remorse" due to having a high number of updates, but still can't stop doing it.

Comments added by the community, include:
11. You arrived at this post via a link that had snurl, tinyurl, or is.gd in it.
12. When you should be sleeping, you twitter instead.
13. When you come in from an evening out, you check twitter to see what everyone else has been doing and make sure you haven't missed any big news.
14. You watch events (like the Super Bowl or Academy Awards) on TV so you can twitter them. Then you spend more time twittering than watching the event.
15. You give everything hashtags #Armano
16. You have referred in to your officemate in spoken word as "at Barbara." (it only happened once, I promise)
17. You read this post and realize you are under-leveraging Twitter and immediately resolve to watch more pop culture events so you can Twitter them.
18. You have stopped watching big TV events like the Super Bowl, political debates, and the Oscars because you'd rather just follow the tweets about the TV events --- the tweets are more entertaining.
19. You no longer communicate with people not on twitter - if they don't get your tweets, they don't hear from you...
21. You no longer use your RSS feeder - Twitter is the source of all updates and all news.
22. You've worn out the F5 button on your keyboard.
23. You get more messages from Twitter in your IM software then you get from actual people.
24. You keep getting dirty looks when you tell people you're 'following' them.
25 You constantly rearrange and edit (in your head) your thoughts or observations so that they are less than 140 characters.
26. You type a blog post about Twittering and wait anxiously watching your Twitbin to show you that Twitterfeed has uploaded your Twitter account of the update on your new post about Twittering...and then smile with glee :)
27. When twitter goes down, your first impulse is to twitter about it, but of course you can't.

This Question May Be Step 1 of the 12-Step Process for Twitter Addicts
Chris Heuer posed a great question on Twitter, "What do you do with your "disposable attention?" Given that this question was positioned in Twitter, where all of us are multi-tasking, following, micro-blogging, commenting, co-collaborating, etc. -- asking the question about "disposable attention" made me think...
Do I need to profess: "admit we are powerless over our addiction and that our lives may become unmanageable" with too much twittering. Hmm... Nah!

So, to continue my craving for more, I also took time to play with some pretty cool Twitter maps and filters to continue my "exploration" with Twitter.

• Christopher Penn shows you How to Make Custom Twitter Groups with Yahoo's Beta "Pipes."
• Next, @ristenkay tipped us off on Twitter Blocks, an interactive visualization of you and the people you follow on twitter.
• Lastly, I just stumbled upon Twittervision, a Twitter+Google mashup which is very cool to view a real-time display of the public Twitter stream on a the world map.

Also, for those who use Twitter and haven't used Twitter Karma yet, this is a great tool to view your connections and who's following you and who's not.

P.S. -- I was going to write more, but believe it or not -- Twitter is down at the time I am writing this post. That's kind of ironic, huh?

Comments

[Michelle/chelpixie]

You Twitter after waking up from passing out in the street with police officers directing traffic around you.