Death By Twitter: Olympic Edition

While the rest of us settle in to watch the opening ceremonies tonight, Greece’s triple jumper Paraskevi Papachristou will likely have a very bittersweet experience.

Greece banned Paraskevi from the games this week, after she composed and tweeted what was deemed to be a racist comment from her Twitter account.  Ready for it?

"With so many Africans in Greece... the West Nile mosquitoes will at least eat homemade food!!!"

You can guarantee she regrets that one. 

Sentiments in Greece seem to be divided and reflect the opinions of a larger economic issue in the country, the influx of illegal immigrants from Africa and Asia. 

I was initially struck with what seemed like a double standard in the digital age.  I can’t help but remember just a couple weeks ago when Daniel Tosh all but threatened one of his comedy show patrons with “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped right now” with repercussions no more than an apology tweet.  What’s the difference?  How can Tosh get away with just typing an oops message and Paraskevi gets her life dream smashed? 

If there's a balance here, it must come down to who you represent.  Paraskevi was a face of her country.  Therefore, her tweets meant more than just random thoughts.  As the face of Greece in the Olympic games, she would also be the voice of Greece in the Olympic games.  And when you’re words have that weight, extra and extreme caution must be taken even in social media. 

Think before you tweet, people.

I don’t want you to be Death By Twitter’s next victim.

RECIPE FOR A PERFECT TWEET

1 cup of knowledge, a dash of insight and a pinch of humor. Isn't that the recipe for a perfect tweet?
If only it were that easy. What does that look like in the real twittersphere? What's the perfect combination of 140 characters to release to the world?
Earlier this month, All Twitter's Shea Bennett gave some insight into the perfect tweet that I wanted to recap for our readers. Shea is right on that the essentials are readability and retweetability.  
To help you achieve Tweeting Perfecton, check out these 6 tips.

1. Think Like Your Readers This is really just about knowing your customer. Don't tweet in a way that just appeals to you. Know who is reading your tweets and what they want to hear. Think like they think and you'll appeal to them. The result is more clicks, more retweets and more engagement. 2. Sell The Headline in a Non-Salesman Way No one wants to feel like they are being sold something. Even so, people need a good reason to click on or engage with a tweet! That is the conundrum that needs to be balanced for the perfect tweet. "This is cool" and "Buy my stuff now!" are among the worst statements to make next to a link. Steer clear also from making extreme promises or overhyping to your readers. If people find they can't trust your words, they will ignore them. 3. Use Correct Punctuation Just do it. Some people might not mind when you don't, but those that do, mind a lot! Use commas, put apostrophes in the correct places, employ parentheses when appropriate. Additionally, watch out for programs that auto generate tweets. While very helpful, some use erratic punctuation and hashtags that give a less than professional impression. 4. Check Your Spelling Comeon, guys. You probably know how I feel about spelling mistakes and the need to proof your own work. I've posted about it before. This goes for all tweets because this stuff matters. One caviat to this is "text-speak" such as "R U going?" or "Going 2 restrnt!". Obviously, this is not ideal. Sometimes in the twittersphere, however, it is very tempting to abbreviate because you can save yourself a few of your precious 140 characters. You need to avoid this at all costs. Here and there, I'll let you get away with a "u" instead of "you", but you are definitely better off taking an extra moment to craft the message differently and use proper spelling than resorting to text-speak. 5. Prepare For The Retweet Brace yourself. The perfect tweet shouldn't utilize all 140 characters. Yes, I am taking away some characters. To properly prepare for retweets, you need to leave room in the tweet for someone to retweet it. This is because many retweets add either your twitter handle or the retweeter's twitter handle to your original tweet. So, sorry, folks, but I am about to remove a piece of your 140-slice pie. Actually, 20 pieces. That's right, the ideal tweet is 120 characters, leaving 20 blank characters for retweeting. Granted, Twitter's internal retweeting removes the need for a shorter retweet (because it just copies your original message directly) but not everyone uses that specific type of retweet. So, strive for 120 characters when you can, but do not sacrifice the quality of your tweet. 6. Shorten Your Links Can I say this enough? Use Bitly to shorten your links. DanZarella, the social media scientist, shared a great chart that shows why Bitly is the best URL shortener. Try it, learn it, love it. Thoughts on our steps to the perfect tweet? What else would you advise?

Can Your Smartphone Predict Your Future?

An interesting new feature for smartphones is being tested in the UK. 

And when I say “interesting”, I really mean futuristic/crazy/almost scary intel!  Soon, your phone may be able to tell where you are going, predict your future movements throughout a day, and adjust accordingly. 

Now, understand this with me.  I do not mean GPS tracking where you are.  That is a cool feature and most people with at least a decent level of smartphone intelligence have benefited from real-time map directions, traffic updates, “near me” restaurant recommendations and weather reports.  Those are wonderful, but not what I am talking about here.

I am talking about future-predicting smartphones; basically tracking your past movements and recording what your friends do to determine what you are most likely doing next.

According to Mashable, researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed a remarkably accurate algorithm that follows users’ mobility patterns and factors in patterns of people in their social networks to adjust for abnormalities. 

The algorithm has been tested on 200 volunteers, whose smartphones tracked their every move for months. The result was pretty accurate predictions of where they would likely be 24 hours in the future. 

The challenge now is to establish the capabilities of this future-prediction feature that make it the most useful for users.  Personally, right now, I don’t want my phone to track every single move I make.  And I certainly don’t want it feeding information to anyone out there concerning where I might be in 24 hours!  Hello, stalker-much!? 

But, let’s take a little glimpse into the possibilities.  I might be okay with this entire process if, say, my phone could tell me there is a dry cleaners for the clothes I need laundered right next to the gym I was going to go to tomorrow after work.  And, better yet, give me a 30% off coupon for said dry cleaners.  Or if, say, my phone alerted me a day ahead of time that there was going to be heavy traffic on my way to work the next day due to an Obama-visit.  It might even offer to auto-set my alarm 30 minutes earlier for me.  Why, yes, dear smartphone.  Please do. 

Since the UK study and algorithm are still in prototype phase, I don’t know if these will be the future capabilities of the data.  Unlike the smartphones, I can’t predict the future.  But I do know it would need to be extremely safe and amazingly helpful for me to use this feature.  Only time will tell.

What would you want this future-predicting smartphone to help you with?