Photo By John Hoff
A day after the Metro Magazine party for this year's "Metro 100," my brief contact with Ryan Adams of the Lake Calhoun Boys (pictured above, promoting Naked Grouse Scotch) taught me something valuable, almost by accident, sort of by osmosis.
My Twitter profile (NorthsideJohnny) can be hooked to my Facebook profile.
Woo hoo!
Why does this matter? Well, in the battle for revitalization of North Minneapolis (NoMi) there are certain advantages held by the "revitalizers" and other advantages held by what might be characterized as "thugs." One of the greatest "revitalizer advantages" is being on the digital side of the "digital divide."
There are many times I've wished my Facebook and Twitter could talk to each other. I always figured...
Well, "FB" and Twitter are sort of competitors. So why would they cooperate? But after meeting Ryan and checking out his FB and Twitter, I realized, huh, this guy has those two hooked together somehow. Interestingly, it seems "Crackpot" Mayoral Candidate Al Flowers also had a serious amount of replication between Facebook and Twitter, and may have known the same trick or (more likely) had somebody like Farheen Hakeem helping him with his technology while he did...whatever. Smoked big fat doobies, maybe.
So, yeah, I got my FB and Twitter hooked up. It wasn't hard at all. It was as easy as going to FB, searching "Twitter" in the search box, and going to the first thing that came up, clicking on "Application." A little more after that. Not hard, really. Not hard at all.
The friend who was with me at the time--we were at Mall of America in a Caribou Coffee, launching Al Flowers info, almost doubling over with laughter because it was just so much FUN--asked, "Are you SURE you want to do this?" Like I was getting a tattoo or something. And I was all, like, "OF COURSE I want to do this? Why would I NOT want to hook my Twitter to Facebook?" And she was all, like, "Oh-kaaaaaay."
Almost immediately after I started announcing my plan via Twitter and Facebook, another friend told me, via FB chat, "If you do that, I will immediately unfriend you." And I was all, like, "Wait. WHY?"
Noise. Because of noise. There are too many email messages, too many Tweets, too many cell phone calls, coming at all of us all at once. Who wants to check a friend's Twitter status, then check their Facebook status and have it be EXACTLY THE SAME? Better to un-follow or un-friend that person in one of the forums.
Sigh. If only I had a way to hook my Twitter to Facebook only SOMETIMES. For example, if I could type "FB" in front of a tweet and have THAT tweet appear on Facebook, but no other tweet.
But I have other technology problems to wrestle with: today I forgot my cell phone at home and couldn't even call 911 on some hooker.
Lesson learned: the digital divide only works in favor of revitalizers when they ACTUALLY REMEMBER TO BRING THEIR TECHNOLOGY WITH THEM.
Oh, and then there's that "noise" problem. There can be such a thing as TOO MUCH technology.
ADDENDUM: Check out Ed Kohler's helpful comment about Selective Twitter Status. Ed rocks!
My Twitter profile (NorthsideJohnny) can be hooked to my Facebook profile.
Woo hoo!
Why does this matter? Well, in the battle for revitalization of North Minneapolis (NoMi) there are certain advantages held by the "revitalizers" and other advantages held by what might be characterized as "thugs." One of the greatest "revitalizer advantages" is being on the digital side of the "digital divide."
There are many times I've wished my Facebook and Twitter could talk to each other. I always figured...
Well, "FB" and Twitter are sort of competitors. So why would they cooperate? But after meeting Ryan and checking out his FB and Twitter, I realized, huh, this guy has those two hooked together somehow. Interestingly, it seems "Crackpot" Mayoral Candidate Al Flowers also had a serious amount of replication between Facebook and Twitter, and may have known the same trick or (more likely) had somebody like Farheen Hakeem helping him with his technology while he did...whatever. Smoked big fat doobies, maybe.
So, yeah, I got my FB and Twitter hooked up. It wasn't hard at all. It was as easy as going to FB, searching "Twitter" in the search box, and going to the first thing that came up, clicking on "Application." A little more after that. Not hard, really. Not hard at all.
The friend who was with me at the time--we were at Mall of America in a Caribou Coffee, launching Al Flowers info, almost doubling over with laughter because it was just so much FUN--asked, "Are you SURE you want to do this?" Like I was getting a tattoo or something. And I was all, like, "OF COURSE I want to do this? Why would I NOT want to hook my Twitter to Facebook?" And she was all, like, "Oh-kaaaaaay."
Almost immediately after I started announcing my plan via Twitter and Facebook, another friend told me, via FB chat, "If you do that, I will immediately unfriend you." And I was all, like, "Wait. WHY?"
Noise. Because of noise. There are too many email messages, too many Tweets, too many cell phone calls, coming at all of us all at once. Who wants to check a friend's Twitter status, then check their Facebook status and have it be EXACTLY THE SAME? Better to un-follow or un-friend that person in one of the forums.
Sigh. If only I had a way to hook my Twitter to Facebook only SOMETIMES. For example, if I could type "FB" in front of a tweet and have THAT tweet appear on Facebook, but no other tweet.
But I have other technology problems to wrestle with: today I forgot my cell phone at home and couldn't even call 911 on some hooker.
Lesson learned: the digital divide only works in favor of revitalizers when they ACTUALLY REMEMBER TO BRING THEIR TECHNOLOGY WITH THEM.
Oh, and then there's that "noise" problem. There can be such a thing as TOO MUCH technology.
ADDENDUM: Check out Ed Kohler's helpful comment about Selective Twitter Status. Ed rocks!
