Mitcz.com : Official blog of Rev. Mitcz, the demented devilish comedian from Hollywood, CA.

It happened slowly. I can’t put my finger on the exact moment. But, I know it’s happened. I’m absolutely addicted to Twitter and I finally “get it”. This screenshot pretty much says it all…

If you don’t yet “get it” – allow me to elucidate.

My Enablers

First and foremost, if the only time you read or update Twitter is by going to twitter.com, you’ll probably never “get it”. It might sound silly, but it’s way too much work to sit there and refresh your feed manually. And, for posting, to have to head over to bit.ly, TwitPic, TwitVid, yFrog, etc to manually shorten a URL or upload a pic/video is a giant pain in the ass. That kind of activity will discourage your Twitter usage mighty quick.

Personally, I use a great (free if you don’t mind the occasional, but very classy, ad banner) program called Tweetie. It updates itself every 5 minutes or so, and lights up a small icon in your menubar (if you so choose) when new tweets come in. If you’ve also got Growl installed (which I do), you can also get fancy Growl notifications for any mentions, replies, or direct messages. I keep Tweetie running 24/7, even while I’m sleeping, and while I don’t read every single tweet that comes through – I can skim and see if I’ve missed anything neat. When posting, it’s a simple keyboard combo (command-option-s) to immediately shorten URLs, and it has in-app “record video” and “add image” capabilities. Again, this is all within the app, no need to venture around and use all these other sites.

Beyond that, I finally bought an iPhone about 2 months ago. I bought Tweetie for the iPhone to get Twitter on-the-go. Tweetie 2, which was just released, is even better. I’d say it’s the best Twitter app for iPhone – and some other folks agree. I can snap a photo or video and post it instantly – like a dude trying to sell a baby bunny on Hollywood Blvd or my name on a marquee . That’s fuckin’ amazing, damnit.

Combine those two things and I’ve got Twitter everywhere. But, you might be asking, why the fuck would you want Twitter everywhere?

My High

Easily the number 1 detractor for new users coming to Twitter is that question “what are you doing?”. Let me say this now – I almost never care what you’re doing. Moreover, almost no one even posts what they’re doing anymore. The question should be “what’s on your mind?”. Now that’s a question I can get behind. That’s an answer I want to hear. Conveniently, that’s the question most people are answering anyway.

I follow a lot of comedians – I like to know where they’re performing next. When their next CD/DVD/Special is coming out. Better yet, most of them try out one-liners and joke concepts via their tweets. I do it, too. It’s a great way to get instant feedback. I posted the following one-liner a few days ago and it got re-tweeted about 12 times in a matter of minutes :

Beyoncé says “if you like it, you should put a ring on it” – which is why I’ve had my dick pierced for 12yrs now

Whereas, I previously talked about my Prince Albert in my stand-up act by saying “I love my dick so much – I bought it jewelry”, I’m thinking this line about Beyoncé might work better. That’s good information to know.

I read live updates from the set of Iron Man via Jon Favreau’s Twitter. Found out about UCB appearances by Thomas Lennon, Weird Al, Chris Hardwick and Doug Benson. When Reno 9/11 was officially cancelled, I found out about it moments later because of Thomas Lennon’s Twitter update. Oh, and Danny Devito loves to post pics of his “troll feet” in interesting places.

Friends of mine will post restaurant and club recommendations, summarize an evening of debauchery, live-tweet a bad date, review movies & tv shows, post fascinating/funny links… you name it. Getting the occasional snapshot of your friends’ mental state is a fascinating thing.

The Twitter Hate

The funniest thing in the world to me about Twitter hate is that it generally comes from people who use “status updates” on MySpace and Facebook. Umm… you DO realize that’s the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING, right? The pleasant difference is – Twitter doesn’t have “friend requests”. You follow whomever you want, and if they want to be notified of new followers, they will be. If you “unfollow” someone, they’d have to manually check your profile and see that you weren’t following them anymore. There’s ZERO indication that you’ve stopped following their updates otherwise. This makes follow/unfollow into a nice, passive activity. And, something you can do or undo any time you want – in ONE CLICK. Sometimes, I’ll unfollow people for a few days because they’re live-tweeting something that doesn’t interest me and it’s taking over my Tweetie stream, and then I’ll follow them again a few days later when it’s died down. I go back and forth with Kevin Smith’s tweets because he gets a little out of control with the whole thing. Right now, I’m not following him.

Wrapping Up

Seriously, Twitter is amazing. It took me awhile to “get it”, but now… I just love the shit out of it. It’s not just entertaining, it’s also great for self-promotion, and learning new things, and seeing new sides of people I’d otherwise never know. It’s just an amazing bit of technology that seems simple and stupid but is a great example of letting a community define the utility.

Oh, and you can follow me here if you’d like.

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