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My new world of 140 characters

The web’s been full of Twitter buzz for a while now. Some love it, some hate it, some call it shallow and silly, while some come up with weird theories and banal research deeming it dangerous. Reams of online/print media, hours of phone/telly/web time on interviews/talks/tweetups, scores of blog and other portals have been going tizzy over the Twitter idea, over what can one do with Twitter, over speculation on take over bids, over it’s almost non-existent business model now, over it’s next possible business model, and over it’s been touted the next Google.

Naysayers may dismiss the 140 characters long “What are you doing?” as trivial rubbish, but this seemingly innocuous 140 characters (or less) is enough to get you a job offered, fired, fined, sued, married, freed after being arrested, cause professional embarrassment and transmit groundbreaking announcement.

I registered my Twitter account some 2 yrs back while it was still a shiny new toy (out here), managed to grab my rather common name as Twitter handle, but abandoned it since. Towards the end sometime last year, I finally gave it a jumpstart. I did look out for “Tia” and close-ups, but they were all signed up. Shoving @generalmumbojumbo down, as a handle, would have been too much of a challenge with the already strenuously tough 140 characters limit for tweets, so sticked to my short name instead (so sorry, not flaunting my Twitter handle as yet).

Simple as it is, it wasn’t very difficult to catch on. Its micro-blog styled messaging grows on you. The 140 limit, more than being infuriating, forced discipline in me. In an attempt to fit in a more concise thought, I had to re-read re-think re-write quite a bit. In the process, I often caught all kinds of typos — misspellings, repetitive words, wrong prepositions etcetera. Spelling errors weren't really a surprise, it happens. Redundant words definitely were; like saying, "re-reading the book again". “In” “on” preposition mix-ups are pretty common. But realised how using “of” instead of “for” changed what I actually meant, seconds too late. For instance, just mull over “menu of the day” and “menu for the day”. Ok, I'm about digressing.

While brevity’s indeed proven to be the soul of the wit for most of my over 140 character tweets; for the ones off the 140 radar, I have more than once called "don't! wait!" as I pulled my finger that tapped the return key. Wish there was an edit for 15 seconds, much like how Basecamp allows comment editing on messages for 15 minutes or the more recent undo send of Gmail. Of course there is always a delete, but I’d rather not use that if I could.

I love its concept of followers and following. Unlike most social networking sites out there, I can follow someone in a single click. I decide whom I want to follow — friends, great brands, interesting folks, possibly-interesting-random-folks-following-me and celebrities. Not everyone’s interested in my yapping, and the cool thing is, they don’t have to follow me back for me to get updates of what they say. But let’s say some tweets later, someone started tweet-spamming with streams of inconsequential RTs (retweets, like a mail forward) and #followfriday's, someone said something that just pissed me off, someone turned out to be a fake celebrity, someone’s interestingness took a big nosedive, or I was just going nuts following hundreds and keeping up with my cramped timeline. What now? First off, don't panic. Just hit remove. Unfollowing someone is as simple as following them, again, just a click away.

I use their search a lot, looking for tweet-mentions of company brand, competitors and general trends. What got me really hooked, though, was the endless stream of instant aggregated news in the twitosphere, during the Mumbai terrorist attack last November. It proved its awesomeness in a time of great need; people all over the world were tweeting and setting up aggregators to read these tweets. There were so many updates on it that it was refreshing furiously at a pace faster than I could catch up! Their search deserves a place on the fixed sidebar, and they just did that two days back.

When I started out, I was wondering why they don’t track all mentions of @name instead of just tracking replies beginning with @name under /replies. And they added that soon enough too. My only two gripes now are its mostly non-functional advance search and the somewhat buggy replies. Most of the advance search (with additional operators) gives no result or serves a page with “The page you were looking for doesn't exist” message. And although it’s a 404 page implying I mistyped or the page moved etc, it doesn’t serve its standard 404 page either. Bollocks, you say? Go ahead and try one like “twitter from:ev since:2009-04-01 until:2009-05-01”. And well, if it does work, just thank me for driving your attention there :) Now about the mentions or @name page, the first page load gets you the data right. But just do a “more” and scroll, you’re gonna find your timeline there and not mentions!

Ok, I'm very nearly done with the Twitter banter. Hush that sigh now!

For the uninitiated, try it once before you judge it. I can faintly hear some shout outs for Facebook, Orkut and the kinds. But it's no toss-up really. You got to use it to get it. And once you do get it, you’ll love it. There are of course, the Maureen Dowds who are never gonna get it or perhaps don’t want to get it. In case you’re wondering, she’s the nutcase who was ridiculed for her absurd and unintentionally hilarious Twitter interview. Don’t worry, she’s one of a kind.

Looking for more to do here? There are hoards of Twitter clients and twitter-specific apps floating around to help you manage your updates on windows, mac and mobile; and do a buncha other cool stuffs.

Twitter is gradually evolving as an incredible insta news search engine. Over a period of time, with millions of active users; an enhanced search and data packed to the gills, bulging at the seams; it could emerge to be a real-time Google. Who knows, some predict so...

Love is...

Love is... being silly together

Love is... my MacBook Pro!

Let's talk!

It's been over two years since I started this blog, over two years since I've been going on.. nameless... 

Being anonymous, trust me, is not all fun. Besides lurking on boredom, with all the word plays you start to lose the gist of the matter camouflaging it in an envelope of randomness. And sometimes, just sometimes, you get this irresistible urge to move out of the shadows and be known for who you really are...

I'll perhaps regret being so impulsive later. But what the heck, you get to live just once. I'm new to this, so we'll take it one step at a time. Here goes... 93712 72497.

Yep, just like that. It's not like I got a lot of readers and it's not like I expect all of them to bombard me with calls or something, but just got this new number so it doesn't mix up with work. Besides, you already have an edge having read me and all that, so I just wanted to answer the "Hello" with the informed knowledge of that.

Let's get talking!

Update: Guys, pardon the hiccups on the line. It went down the morning after I posted this, but is now back up! Hurrah!

Miss you already

Tum ho toh gaata hai dil, tum nahi toh geet kahaan
tum ho toh hai sab haasil, tum nahi toh kya hai yahaan
tum ho toh hai sapnon ke jaisa haseen, ek samaa…
jo tum ho toh, yeh lagta hai, ke mil gayee har khushi
jo tum na ho, yeh lagta hai, ke har khushi mein hai kamee
tum ko hai maangati, yeh zindagi…

Tum ho toh raahein bhi hai, tum nahi toh rastey kahaan
tum ho toh yahaan sab hi hai, tum nahi toh kaun yahaan
tum ho toh hai har ek pal meherbaan, ye jahaan
jo tum ho toh, hawa main bhi, mohabbaton ka rang hai
jo tum na ho, toh phir koi, na josh na umanq hai
tum mille toh milli, ye zindagi…

Soon after I came back from my holiday, I got a call. Without so much as a “Hello”, the caller started singing this song. It felt wonderful that my absence didn’t go unnoticed. I guess we all like being told “I miss you already” however clichéd it be, especially after a date or a great holiday. I was totally gushing.

It was a chilled out vacation. We had a good time generally lazying around. Frolicked on the almost unoccupied beaches. Climbed up a lighthouse for the first time. Had to run up a heady flight of stairs, but it was a small concession for the amazing view on top. Feasted on sea food, had prawns for almost all 3 meals a day! No wonder m feeling so fat these days. Went on a safari, we couldn’t have picked a more bad time though. It was, I guess, siesta time for those animals, just saw some deers, three lioness's (no lions) sprawled on lion grass under the shades, a mother hyena running behind a jackal chasing the baby hyena for prey and cheetals (or maybe it was again a deer). Got all touristy visiting over 400 year old churches with most exquisitely carved rosewood pulpits and temple by the sea (located in the midst of a seemingly ordinary town) that has risen like a phoenix each of the 6 (or is it 7?) times it was destroyed over centuries; shopping in the local market; going click-click over just about anything.

On the way back we even lost our way once and played the mind-game I bought for him, he lost the match both as a code-maker and as a code-breaker. Next time I meet him though, I know he’ll beat both his sis and me; he picks up pretty quick for a third grader. After he and his sis, my niece, sing-songed “tum ho toh…” till the very end on phone, he hung up asking me to call back on 98##### (my sis’s number). Dialed it to listen to the “tum ho toh” track again, they only picked up the call after two lines of the caller tune were being played. Asked me which version I liked more (theirs on my phone or the original one on their mom’s) and quickly added doing some free PRgiri for their current fav song-list, “If you like the song, buy the Rock on CD” before dashing off with “talk to mommy.” So much for missing-you-already.

[While on nephews, my other nephew sent me a text today (yesterday now) saying “Today is shahrukh khan’s birthday.” He went around showing my “Will wish him in his b’day party tonight :)” reply to everyone believing I had an invite!]

Need a push? Hop in!

Hop in for the Chinese joy ride, maximum push guaranteed!

And to think I was fretting over sweaty arms brushing past me in the crowded (or so I thought) station and was glowering down upon the guy behind with immeasurable annoyance for stepping on my shoes the second time (mind you, I don't chafe at the first, I am quite considerate that way!). Chinese sure know how to "fit" in.

From the blogroll: some love-lorned guy's sappy tale about his girl, it's the same ol' clichéd story of online love and all that goes with it, you get the picture. But you got to read the complete thing. And while you are there, dig out some posts from the archives too, good read.