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I missed a few tips or "rules" on my last post, but fear not, my friends, because I am here to guide you through the Twitterverse so you don't end up looking like an ass.
Shall we begin?
a. Stop posting links. I'm not sure how I missed this one, since it's so obvious. Perhaps it was because I kinda talked about it. Either way, some Twitter accounts are supposed to post links, that's why they are called "funny videos" or "bizarre news", but if the account is a "human" account, then post something about you or what you do, otherwise it will be another boring linker Twitter profile.
b. Comment on the posts of the people you follow. It happens often that someone who you have no clue what they are about starts following you, so you don't start following right away and wait until this person writes something that will give you any hint about who they are. But they don't. These people should at least @reply you to show they have interest in what you have to say. If you start following anyone, even if they don't follow you back right away, just say something, goddammit! Otherwise we will think you're just blind-following random people and we won't follow you back.
c. Don't look too professional in your avatar, but do have one. Guys in suit and tie freak me out, and girls with modeling pictures scare me. Why? Because these are typically the types of avatar that spammers, linkers, and "social media marketers" use. Same goes with any other too professional looking picture. However, any picture is better than none. There's nothing worse that someone who looks like is hiding from "something". There are too many freaks out there not to be paranoid.
d. Curse. Yes, curse a lot, spice it up. Write fuck, shit, cunt, bitch, asshole, etc. And don't bother to censor your cursing adding lame asterisks. What's the point? Everyone knows you totally meant to say "fuck" if you write "f**k". We all know you have a dirty mind, you're not fooling anyone but yourself. Make sure you check how much you're cursing at cursebird.com. If you are going to censor your cursing, then replace the offending word with one less offensive. For example:
What the frack, instead of "what the fuck".
Bob Saget, instead of "Goddammit".
e. Detail you #followfridays. Every Friday I get to see dozens of people getting "followfridayed", but I have no clue what they do or who they are. You will have to go to each one of those people's profiles and read what the fuck they do, and sometimes that can be a pain in the ass. For this reason, every Friday I decided I was going to only pick 3 people, and give a short description on their background and why other people should start following them. Let's say I like to pimp well my bitches.
That's pretty much it, my darlings. I apologize for being absent minded on my last post.
Your friend always,
Cesar
I'm sure you have already read several posts on your Twitter timeline about "how to be a successful at Twitter". It seems they never stop, so you get to read over and over again the things that, in my opinion, are rather obvious to anyone who's been on that social network for a little bit. There are no secrets, just common sense. A lot of the people who continuously post links to that kind of information are people who seem to have only one goal: get a shitload of followers, no matter who they are or what they do. Pretty lame.
Well, this won't be another blog about how to attract millions of new followers, but a few basic "rules" to separate yourself from the typical lame-ass that you will constantly find on Twitter. Take in mind that this is my opinion, and it might have an adverse effect on the number of followers you have, but in my eyes at least, you'll be cool. Now, I say "rules" because there are really no rules. It is a social networking site and you can do whatever the fuck you want with your page. Hell, you can have a MySpace profile that's pink and has glitter and stars and things that move all over it, and have huge pictures of you and your friends, and fill up the music, movie, and TV with pictures of your favorite bands, movies, and TV shows, and also have a flashy slideshow with all your hottest pictures, and your favorite YouTube clips all over it too, if you like. You might think it looks awesome and it reflects your personality yaddah yaddah yaddah, just like I've heard many say when I say anything about some people's profile "design".
Anyways, let's cut the crap, these are the things I think you should do to be Twitter cool, in no particular order:
1. Never use automated DM's. Some people might not know this, but it's just lame. Maybe it was fashionable in 2008, I don't know. You might think that sending an automated DM when someone starts following you to say thanks will make you look more polite, or serious, or all the above and also it's a good chance to promote your crap. Nope, it's just lame and so impersonal, I prefer not getting anything. When I do get them I start to think that that person really doesn't give a shit about me, or perhaps is following so many people that they have very little time for me or whatever I have to say. I see more and more people posting about how they dislike automated DM's. Just don't send automated DM's, it sucks. Don't do it to say "thanks for the following", or "sorry about the automated DM, I'll read your shit, I promise", or "hello, you seem cool, here, this is my website and you should check it".
2. Don't ever thank anyone for following you. It doesn't even make sense, so just be an ungrateful motherfucker and never do it in any form (regular post, DM, or their automated variations). Why "thank for the following"? If they are following you it should mean they are already getting something out of you, but if you say thanks it sounds like they are doing you a favor, or that you might be using them for something (to promote your shit). Either way, don't do it, no one will ever judge you for that, but you will get judged (at least by me) if you do it. Same goes with my first point.
3. Don't talk about how many followers you have. That number doesn't mean anything, really, especially if most of your followers are people who don't care what you have to say and all they want is to sell you something. The only time when talking about your number of followers is when you reach 666 followers, but that's because what's important is not the amount, otherwise don't mention it and even less say "OMG, I've reached X thousands of followers! Thank you very much". It doesn't mean you're successful and nobody cares.
4. You don't have to follow every single person who starts following you. First of all, that's dangerous, like the recent Twitter Worm showed. Second of all, a whole lot of spam accounts and "Twitter Marketers" will start following you because they know most people just follow back blindly. They just want a new follower, they could care less about what you post, so they just use you to up their "numbers". It is so obvious, that if you don't follow back, instead of engaging you commenting on any of your posts, they will just unfollow. Lame. The typical Twitter profile for these type of account says something about "social media" or "Internet marketing" on their bio, has links on every single post they make, and some @replies, sometimes they also have many thousands of followers and are following a similar number of people. Be a Twitter snob.
5. For the love of god, stop talking about Internet/Twitter marketing tips! At first I checked out some of the link and after a while I realized they all say pretty much the same shit. I can easily Google marketing tips or even search it on Twitter, so instead of keep posting that crap just say something interesting like "I just changed my tampon" or "my friend just farted and smells".
6. For the love of god, stop talking about how to gain more followers! Most of the links tell you what you already know or tell you a sleazy way to gain followers, or even worse, random followers! Why do I want random followers? I don't. Do you?
7. Don't spread one thought over 3 or 4 posts every single time you say something. The whole point if to post short, concise, to-the-point posts, not to write a whole blog about your life. Every once in a while it's not possible to post something on just one set of 140 characters, and using 2 or 3 it's OK and understandable. But don't do it every time, it's kinda annoying and your posts will most likely be separated by other people's posts blah blah blah.
8. Don't thank for the Re-Tweet. Unless the post they are re-tweeting is promoting you or your company or your band, etc, there's no need to thank them since it's obvious you already gave them a piece of information they consider it's worth sharing, so perhaps they should thank you instead.
9. Don't Re-Tweet like a maniac. I think there's no explanation needed for this one.
10. Be human. A lot of companies are getting on Twitter now, and they are making it completely boring by acting like... a company. I think Twitter is interesting and the most social of all social networking sites because it shows the human side of their users. These companies get on Twitter and will only post links to more crap, which it's OK if it's post 2 or less times a day. Unless you are CNN, or another news network, or a specific Twitter user that says will posts funny videos or pictures or music advice, then don't do it that way. You won't gain anything, it's bad marketing. Make a profile for a person who represents the company (the owner or person in charge would be best) and let this person express his feelings and emotions and share them with the world, as well as some promotion here and there. People do like that much better the constant bombarding of promotional stupid links. This brings me to my next point...
11. Don't be a self-promotional whore. This is probably the one that will keep you from looking like a loser. Let me tell you a story. I stared following this guy who works in an industry that interests me, so I thought following him was good networking. He was alright, lots of RT's and many self-promotional links, and a couple personal posts here and there. One day due to a certain "Festival" he started self-promoting himself like a maniac. Every 20 fucking minutes the dude would re-post the same shit, which consisted on 3 posts, that usually were: a link to his crap (where he also compared his crap with major signed stuff), a link to some obscure article that said he was a "Twitter success", and a RT of someone saying anything good about his crap. He also started talking about how many followers he had and how many more he was gaining that day. The guy seemed to be having a Twitter-gasm, I could almost imagine him with his eyes wide opened having a delusion of grandeur moment, salivating, pulling his hair out. I'm the most patient person in the world but I couldn't take it. I had to unfollow. Maybe he was a nice guy, maybe he will be successful, and maybe I lost a work opportunity (doubt it) but that was exactly the kind of shit that professional bullshiters say all the time and I can't deal with that shit. Moral of the story: promote yourself in moderation. Your posts won't go anywhere, so if three post don't make people check our your shit, one million won't either and will get your ass unfollowed.
So, there it is, at least for now. Many of the "don'ts" I mention here were done by me at some point, and are still done by many of the people I still follow and care about. Not because TechBabe send an automated DM to welcome you to her Twatstream and give you a link to her shit doesn't mean she's not cool. She is cool, and most, if not all the people I follow I consider cool. The fact that they do a couple of little annoying things every once in a while (or even often) doesn't mean I will stop following. We're all human, and we all make mistakes, but that's why I'm doing this, to help you get on the road of Twitter redemption, right? Haha, actually, many (the two or three people that will actually read this) will probably disagree with me on several of the points I make here, so perhaps I'll end up looking like an asshole in the end. And if this is the case, then it will be the perfect opportunity for you to be a friend and help me out just I'm trying to do here.
Now, how do you feel about the ten minutes you just lost reading this?
Love,
Your friend.
Cesar
(Originally posted on October 5, 2005 at 2:49AM)
A P O L O G Y
I accidentally erased my last blog, and that's why the number of this useless thought is VII and not VI. It was the lyrics for a JAMC song anyway, so not too much was really lost.
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Well, oh well, here we are again, my dear readers (the three or four of you). This one goes into territory that I don't usually go to on MySpace, because I want to express as little as I can about myself, especially about my emotions and feelings, and save that for those who really want to get to know me at a personal level, those who are real friends, and those who perhaps will become my friends. I believe that all MySpace identities are fictional, maybe based on truth, but most of the personalities we perceive here are usually the combination of what the person believe he/she is, and what we 'create' in our minds after filling the gaps after reading what they have to say. I take advantage of this and take it to the next level, as some of you may know. That's the main reason I try not to use self descriptions, because self descriptions are usually wrong, even if the person is being honest. How many people believe they are smart when they're really not that smart? All of them? In any case, this blog is a thought, and it is useless as well, so I decided to write it and post it anyway.
T H E B L O G
I hate goodbyes. I get very uncomfortable in 'goodbyes situations' and I always try to avoid them. There might be several reasons for this. I dislike goodbyes even in everyday social situations, maybe because I feel I need to say goodbye to every person in the group which takes some valuable time. It's even worse when someone wants me to stay and I just want to leave. When I was in university in Venezuela I used to 'disappear' all the time when my university group of friends were hanging out. I perfected my act over the years to a point where it seemed magical. My friends called it 'the mute', and at first it bothered them, but eventually they got used to it. I still practice the mute once in a while so if I ever do it to you, do not take offense to it, and if you do, then fuck off.
When the goodbye is one of those that actually hurt I can get very anxious and do things that might not make sense, probably as a defense mechanism. The first 'big goodbye' I had to face was not when my brother died, or when my grandfather died. In my brother's case, I was still too young to comprehend anything and I still believed in god and the afterlife, so, for what I was told, he was in some cool place having fun. I really never thought about him until recently. He probably would have become a great bass player and with my other brother, we would have rocked the world a la Hanson! Well, maybe a little harder and more intensely, and definitely raising way more hell! Fuck yeah! In my grandpa's case, well, I think at the time of his death I was not very close to him. He was a very nice person, but I was a very confused young boy who didn't even remember when was the last time I talked to him. The first 'big goodbye' I remember was when my best friend Servando moved to another city. I remember the night before he left my other best friend, Johana, Servando, another friend, and I went to the movies. They were showing Braveheart. I was already feeling really sad, depressed, and confused when we stepped in the theater, and as the movie went along, I was trying with all my might not to cry. When William screams "freedom" before he died I almost lost it, but I managed to disguise my tears. When the movie was over, Servando and I ran outside as fast as we could. We were almost the same person at the time, and we both were probably thinking the same thing: let's run out and don't let anybody know we've been crying. Once outside we were able to joke a little and change our moods. I will always be biased about Braveheart, I love the movie and every single time I've seen it it has made me cry, so please don't play it for me, especially if I'm sad. After the movie, we went to the club where all our other friends were waiting to party for the last time with our dear friend. Oh my fucking god!, after a while everyone was drunk and crying like little girls. I tried to keep it together as much as I could, but very close to the end of the night I couldn't take it anymore and started balling. I think the only one who didn't cry was Servando himself.
I have been through some other tough goodbyes, like moving here, or braking up with girlfriends who were my best friends at the time, or even having friends who just faded away for some reason. All goodbyes suck. I hate goodbyes, and I hate them all, and I will have to face many more goodbyes, I know, but they are unavoidable, and sometimes, necessary. I guess one of the reasons I hate death so much is because it is the very last goodbye. If any of you are going to be at my funeral, let me tell you that I'm going to make things a little easier for you, because I'm going to put a very good compilation of songs to be played there, so you will get to hear good music and maybe make fun of me one last time. I will also write on my will that my mortician should put a huge smile on my face, because that's who I am, I wear a smile even when my eyes are sad. I might also have a sampler with some recordings inside my casket to make sure I scare the shit out of some of you. Of course, all of this will happen if I don't do a mute instead, and just vanish.
E P I L O G U E
There are many songs I love, but there's only a few that can make me cry. I will write here the lyrics of this particular song that has that power. On this band's home video they show a bit of their last show, and before they started playing the song the singer talks about all the years he had spent with the guitar player making music, traveling the world, and being best friends, then he dries his eyes with his arm. That's when I always thank "god" that nobody is watching that video with me...
Farewell To You
Well it's time to say goodbye my friend
I'm glad you stayed until the end
I hope that you've enjoyed the time we spent
Though I know that I will be back again
I don't know just how soon my friend
Until we meet again just think of me
I'll think of you
It was easier to say hello
Than to say goodbye
Now the bus is leaving once again
I bid farewell to you
I remember all the fun we had
And all the tears when times were bad
But you were there when we were down and out
And I know that I will not forget
What was written and what was said
And who was there when we were not on top
Of the world
It was easier to say hello
Than to say goodbye
Now the bus is leaving once again
I bid farewell to you
Yes it's time to say auf Wiedersehn
Sayonara and ciao my friend
You'll always have a place within my heart
And rock will come and rock will go
The scene will change and time will show
But still I hope that you'll be there for me
I'll be there for you.
It was easier to say hello
Than to say goodbye
Now the bus is leaving once again
I bid farewell to you
D E D I C A T I O N
This is for all of those who have shared a little bit of your lives with me, even those who's shining only lasted very few moments before fading away, even those who only shared their bad times, even those who hurt me, even those who hated me, to all of you, thank you, you made me who I am and I'm grateful for that, even if I'm just a lost soul.
Cheers!
T H E E N D
To this day I still can't understand why iPod's became almost synonym for mp3 players. Well, I do understand why, but still, the fact this is the case kinda bothers me a little. I've been waiting to write this blog for years now, and since I haven't done any research recently, some of the information I talk about here might be outdated.
iPod's were not the first or the best mp3 players at the time they came out. Long before this happened I was craving having all my music collection (over 1000 CDs) in the palm of my hand, so I could listen to any song any time I wanted. I found an mp3 player that was the size of my wallet with either 60 or 80GB, I don't remember. It flipped open to reveal a big LCD screen where you could see all your files and folders, like a computer does. It had a remote control and you could also see pictures on it, in fact, this product was more advertised in photography sites than on audio sites. I don't recall the brand, and it wasn't cheap, but $600 to have all my music with me seemed like a good price at the time. I would plug it in with a regular USB cable and my computer recognized it as a regular hardrive. I would then drag and drop my music in and out of it however I wanted (by then I had already converted several of my CDs to mp3s because for a year or two I've been using a "diskman" that could play mp3s. Being a technology freak, I was ahead of the game). I would double click on any music file in it (it played a few different formats) and they would play from any music playing software on any computer.
Several months later my best friend from Venezuela came to stay with me and my girlfriend at the time for a couple of weeks. She's a graphic designer and a Mac lover, and during these days the long awaited iPod finally came out. I must say I had no clue about an iPod was. With much excitement, my friend bought an iPod. She showed it to me, and I must admit, it was a beautiful device. Minimal, tiny, white, stylish, exactly the kind of things my friend is into. I believe it had 10GB, which was not nearly enough for me, and the price seemed a bit too much. It was around $350 or $400, but I might be wrong, all I recall is that I thought it was too pricey. But my friend was happy.
We charged the white little thing and plugged it in to her laptop to test it out. This is when I started to realize iPod's were not only overpriced, but also a pain in the ass. First of all, the USB cable is not a regular USB cable, but a special one made only for iPod's, which makes them more expensive, and it ever brakes I couldn't use any of my other USB cables or buy one at the Office Depot close by. And this cable seemed very easy to break. It was also way too short. "Better connection" my ass.
To add music into it you had to use iTunes and only iTunes, and create playlists, and with the default configuration, when we dragged mp3s from my mp3 player to her iTunes playlist it would not only copy the music to her iPod, but also to her computer, to a weird folder with strange names inside the iTunes folder. And it took forever. We spend two days adding music to her iPod. But my friend was happy.
The interface was awesome, it was such a clever design, too bad you had to go through all that shit just to add music to it. I know that we were probably doing something wrong, and we didn't adjust the settings to our needs, but still, who the hell wants to have their music "organized" in a huge mess of folders that didn't make sense? But it was a little later that we discovered what I thought was just way too ridiculous for anyone to even consider getting an iPod: not only you couldn't use it on another computer without deleting all your music, but you couldn't take your music out of it! That's just insane, I thought. I had spent weeks converting all my CD's to mp3s, my CD's, and I was not allowed to copy my music to my other computers, or even to my friend's computer? I've always had more than one computer, right now, in this house there are 5. My friend was happy, but I started to look at her thinking how dumb was to buy that thing. The design had her hypnotized, which I can understand in her, and even when my mp3 player was not that big and cute enough, it certainly didn't look like an iPod. But whatever, the more she learned all the steps to be able to use her iPod the more excited she got. Then she got the mic to record voice and the FM transmitter to listen to music wirelessly in her car. Each one was like 40 bucks or more at the time.
So my friend left and I was thinking what a stupid purchased that was. But then I started seeing the commercials on TV, and more and more people getting iPod's, and I just didn't get it. Have the world gone mad? In the mean time, I just discovered that my mp3 player didn't really have a good audio quality, and me being an Audio Engineer, this was unacceptable, so I started researching to get another one, and perhaps, one with more space. Enter the almighty Xclef, a Korean made mp3 player. It came in 40, 60, 80, and 100GB drives, but you could also get a hardrive yourself. I got the 100GB one, for about $270. It read almost all audio formats at the time, including wave files, it used a regular USB cable, it was recognize on all computer as a hardrive, it had a mic and a line input, customizable EQ, FM tuner with the ability to record radio, and the battery lasted 24 hours. It also read ID tags, which we'll talk about in a bit. Perfect. It was a lot bigger than the iPod's were, and really ugly in comparison, but the looks didn't bother me and I was not going to go out jogging with speedo shorts listening music on my huge mp3 player any time soon.
I started to hear that the batteries of iPod's only lasted a few hours, and after only one year they died, and you had to send your mp3 player to Apple for a few weeks to get the battery replaced for an ridiculous amount of money. And then, one by one, all the iPod's that my friends had started breaking. Fuck that.
During my search for my mp3 player I read about many other choices that seemed much better, in fact there was, and probably still is, a website called anythingbutipod.com. Whenever any of my friend mentioned they were thinking about getting an iPod, I would do the right thing and tell them that they shouldn't do that. I would explain, give them information, statistics, articles, websites, etc, etc, etc, to no avail. They all wanted a fucking iPod. What's wrong with these people? By then I had already discovered that iTunes was the devil. It just suck. It's a clumsy media player that has all kinds of shit that I, and most of you don't want. It's a big advertizement disguised as a media player. It's a store, more than anything else. And iPod's are required to use iTunes. Yes, there are several hack tools and whatnot, but it shouldn't be like this. If you buy a song on iTunes then maybe it's fair to have restrictions about the amount of times you are allowed to copy such song, but your own music ripped from your CDs? "But it keeps my music organized". Bullshit, and how lazy are you, if you are talking about reading ID Tags, most media players do too.
I know that over the years iPod's have gotten better. They break less, cost less, the battery runs longer, etc. I have an iPhone, a jailbroken iPhone, which is not the same, but it's such a turn off to have to use iTunes every once in a while. I use the best audio player out there, and it's called Foobar2000. It's free, small, fast, easy, you can add as many add-ons as you need, change the way it looks, program a bunch of stuff on it, and I believe it was created by an audio engineer.
But I just didn't write all this just to say iPod's suck, and this is not another blog discussing Mac vs PC, which it's a stupid discussion, by the way. Apple is a corporation after all, and what they want is to sell their products. Yep, it's true that iPod's were a piece of shit and that iTunes is the devil, but I'm sure they are working on this and it's not their intention to put out crappy products once in a while, like all corporations do. In the mean time they just use very good marketing, and it's obvious it has worked. It works because some of you people have this need to fit in, to follow the trend, to stop thinking rationally, and to disregard any objective research just to look cool. I don't think it's even fear that the other mp3 players are products of less quality, it's just that you want to be cool. That or that you are too lazy to look up all the many other better options you have. You, my friends, are the iSuck's, and most of you who have paid top dollar for that white little thing have sucked it really hard.
I might have sounded harsh, but I promise I wrote this with all my love, and to the two or three people that might read this, I just want to say that I love you.
Your friend,
Cesar
ps. After years and years I still have my Xclef, it still works perfectly. My brother and father have Xclef's too and they still work also. Unfortunately, the company who was importing them went out of business a few years ago, just before they were going to put out a media player smaller than iPod's with a 5.1 output. Thank you.
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