Twitter for fun or business?

If you have never heard of twitter.com then you need to check it out. Its hard to explain so I will use the official definition: "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"

Its a little more than that but its easy to pick up.

Anyways, so I have been using it for about 6 months and everything has been 100% for personal use but I see people are beginning to explore the business options. The network of people you have is the most valuable thing in twitter and from that network you find yourself being informed of anything from news to someone's opinion of a hiking trail. The free flow of communication is great for getting to know a city, cause or hobby as there is likely someone with that same interest twittering. The limits to this will be amazing as it grows from just a geek (a compliment now) thing to celebs and news media now twittering.

Knowing that there are some people that are going to use it to help there business. The question is how. As I said your group of people are valuable and you SHOULD NEVER treat them otherwise, so no spam or anything else that makes them feel like your not a normal tweep (twitter friend). People however do like offers or contest as some twitter users have put up iPhones (@kevinrose) or computers (@jasoncalacanis) to whomever is their follower #X. Also I have seen one local tweep putting up a free one page website with hosting for a year for any follower interested. These ideas work and people do not view them as anything but a fun contest or giveaway, no problems there but it does drive up their numbers or exposure.

Perhaps non-personal information is the method then, allow people to give you info that could help you in some fashion. Perhaps someone puts up an account that named Boston_Bars and asks every bar in town to tweet (individual message) what their specials are for that night or who is playing that night. This idea can be applied in many forms and can be used to spread and gather information for anything. To use this in your business is the challenge, the information can be provided from people that genuinely want to help gather info for themselves and others.

Taking the example of the Boston_Bars, those bars benefit by getting the exposure of letting people know what going on which can be very tough. So their benefit is clear but perhaps you turn that info into a website? No harm in that, maybe Boston_Bars results in launching a site that shows all the twitter info in realtime and allows people to submit reviews of the nights events or specials. The limits are almost endless as long as the people are there, thats why the tweeps are the most valuable.

As for now I'm sticking to the personal twittering but the opportunities are out there as long as people know what the most important assets are.

FYI: email me for my twitter name.

Most Influential Person today?

In looking back at the lists in the previous posts there are many people that are either scientists or religious leaders. Today's most influential people are Politicians, atleast in my opinion. Sure the Pope does have a tremendous influence on the world but not as much as the Popes of 500 years ago.I have to say President Obama is the most influential person today and I'm not even sure who could rival him.You have the leaders in Business like Bill Gates, Ratan Tata or Wong Kwong Yu. But I think their influence does not match the reach that Obama has throughout the world.

Maybe the fact that politicians & even celebrities are so influential is a sign of the times. In looking back into history its Science / Art / Religion that bring about revolutionary times of growth and prosperity. The times when Politicians are on top are often the times where innovation is stifled and the revolution often takes away people's everyday lives. Of course this is not always the case, sometimes the Politicians are needed because the laws and trends have been hurting science, art and religion. That sounds like the times we are in now.

Most Influential people in history - Part 2

In my last post on this I mentioned a few people that I found particularly interesting. They were people that I have read about but there are so many people on that list that I have yet to learn about.

Here are a few:

7. Ts'ai Lin - He's the Chinese inventor or paper. Pretty important invention that everyone uses daily in some form.

20. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier - father of modern chemistry, philosopher & economist. Just this description makes me want to go read about him.

51. Pope Urban II - called for the First Crusade. Although I know about the Crusades, I have never looked at the Pope(s) who ordered them.

52. 'Umar ibn al-Khattab - Second Caliph, expanded Muslim empire. The Muslim world is not given the credit it deserves, fascinating science and politics during its history. This ruler I know nothing about and will certainly look into.

73. Lao Tzu - founder of Taoism. I have heard of the religion but thats about it. Another topic to look into.

85. Sun Wen Ti - Chinese ruler who unified China. Just like the Muslim world, the Asian world does not get the credit its due.

100. Mahavira -founder of Janism. After watching and studying Indian religions, Janism is one that was intriguing for its peaceful stance.

Over all I think of myself as a history buff, yet its great to see that there are so many on this list that I have not studied.

The Top 100 list.

The image of Mahavira

PART 1 post

Coach fired after 100-0 win.

Micah Grimes, the coach of a Texas high school basketball team that beat another team 100-0, was fired Sunday, the same day he sent an e-mail to a newspaper saying he will not apologize "for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity."

Kyle Queal, the headmaster for Covenant School, said in The Dallas Morning News online edition that he could not answer if the firing was a direct result of coach Micah Grimes' e-mail disagreeing with administrators who called the blowout "shameful."
from - ChicagoTribune.com

This was a horrible story as they were up 59-0 at halftime and they continued to run it up in the second half. Any coach should know that school athletics are a teaching tool where you instill sportsmanship in the players. That fact I guess was lost on Micah Grimes and even when the media and even his own boss wanted him to apologize, he refused.

I thought he deserved to be fired even if he did apologize and forfeit the game.

NY Giants fans should be so proud.

Man, how embarrassing that this is going to be a viral video, he will never live this down.

Religion & Politics

Recently I have been seeing all the news about how Obama has been reversing some of the actions of Pres. Bush. Some of these include federal funding for stem cell research and foreign aid for groups that are pro abortion and pro contraceptives. This to me is such a minefield for discussion because if you mix religion with politics it never ends well.

Religion affects everyone whether its a strong belief in a singular god or a strong belief in the lack of a god it molds people into who they are. Morals are developed in part by the religion of each person so when it comes to governing religion has to come into play. That being said, morals are different than religious beliefs in my opinion an that is where the trouble comes in with any politician. There can never really be a separation of church and state because of the influence that religion has on everyone.

It then comes to intent of the actions, if Pres. Bush personally felt that abstinence was the only way of contraception he wanted to fund, was this because of religious beliefs or on moral ground? Does it make a difference? To me it 100% does because people will never agree on issues but if the justification is based on moral grounds then its merely a disagreement. This distinction however makes no difference as the President does not have to justify his actions on Executive orders so the reasoning technically makes no difference. But it is interesting to me to read into these orders and see where they come from.

So far:

-Close Gitmo

-Close foreign prisons

-End all torture

-open funding to foreign organizations that are pro-abortion, not just the previous abstinence groups (since 1984).

whats next?

-end of don't ask, don't tell

MLK Day in the USA

Most of the stories are known but the quotes never seem to end.

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

Quote from June 23, 2963

Image credit.

So long to #43, bring on #44.

I hope the message of Hope has some effect on the economy.

Photos from Chicago Trib (Bush) & McHenrycountyblog.com (Obama).

100 Most influential people in history.

Let me start by saying this list is not my own, its from adherent.com. Nevertheless I do like these lists and found this one to be very interesting in a historical sense. I will list the top 10 and other notables.

1. Muhammed

2. Isaac Newton

3. Jesus Christ

4. Buddha

5. Confucius

6. St. Paul

7. Ts'ai Lun

8. Johann Guttenburg

9. Christopher Columbus

10. Albert Einstein.

Well I agree with most of these, the religious ones certainly need to be there. Isaac Newton seems a bit high to me, but thats ok. Lun, Guttenburg & Columbus I think should be lower, they did things that although revolutionary for their time, their accomplishments were bound to happen eventually.

Others that interested me,

13. Aristotle - great philosopher. People know his ideas yet rarely know that he originated them.

16. Charles Darwin - no explanation needed.

21. Constantine the Great - Roman emperor who legalized Christianity. Changed the world forever.

39. Adolf Hitler - he also changed the world but will forever by probably being the most evil man in history.

85. Sui Wen Ti - unified China, without this the world would be much different today.

Pictured - Isaac Newton from wikipedia.org

#1 Mohammed no pictured for obvious reasons.

Part 2

Story of India on PBS

There is a great series on PBS called the Story of India. Its a BBC series that shows India through the thousands of years. It is very well done and shows the history of the various regions, ethnic groups and religions. To me the highlight so far was learning about the great Patel dynasty. During that dynasty they have quotes from the Chinese that were in India to trade, that the Patel nation was viewed as the height of human culture through art, architecture and in the way they lived their lives. No war and they were all strict buddhists, this meant that they did not kill anything other than the plants they grew for food. Everything from no wars to not even killing mosquitos. I cannot even imagine a life like that, it would be amazing.

Overall its a great series and I highly recommend it. Its on PBS on Mondays for the next two weeks I believe.

The picture above is of the Sikh Temple Amritsar. Sikh's in India have a great history and thats another topic for another day.

Gran Torino (alternate title)

Saw this on HolyTaco.com and thought it captures the movie perfectly. Great movie.

Another great movie. Gran Torino

Another great movie this winter. Much funnier than anticipated.
Clint still has that look and presence that can be intimidating.

While not as good as Slumdog, its still worth seeing.

Damn Oil. 60 Minutes view on Price Speculation.

Watch CBS Videos Online

The gist of the video is that the price increase had absolutely nothing to do with supply & demand. It was Wall Street that ran the price up for its investors. Same companies that then took bailouts from taxpayers.

If we ever switch to electric vehicles (fingers crossed) I hope that price speculation

is regulated and that we don't become captives of the greed of Wall Street.

Florida Gators - Champs

The game was very good last night and the Gators came out on top.

However, I think that USC could beat them. Its sad that the BCS has a lock on the

NCAA and they will not allow a playoff because even though I hate USC, I think they are the best team in the nation this year.