dot.life

The Twitties

• Maggie Shiels
• 8 Sep 08, 15:44 GMT

I realise this following post about Twitter should only be 140 characters long, but you know me better than that by now surely?

In case you are unaware of Twitter, it's a micro blogging service that allows you to wax lyrical and extemporise on any subject you like all in the confines of the magic 140 characters.

It's a challenge and a half to sum up life, love, the universe and your nightmare boss in such a pithy fashion. But it's something that is being recognised by a consulting firm in Philadelphia which has decided to honour the best Twitterers and Tweets with an award competition called The Twitties.

Charlie Chambers of iFractal told me that "We saw so many neat things here in the office and how creative people had been with it that we just thought this would be a fun thing to do."

To that end Charlie and his cohorts have a created a dozen categories from Flirty Tweets to Best Breaking News and from Best Avatar to Funniest Tweets. He admitted beer might have helped in the creative process in coming up with the different groups.

In regards to Twitter's technical problems over the last few months with the service more or less conking out, the issue is covered in the Best Putdown category which includes this entry from killregrets who tweeted "twitter: 60% of the time it works every time."

Ouch!

So what are the glorious prizes on offer? A luxury cruise? Furs? Jewelry? Loadsa money? No that would all be so crass wouldn't it? Charlie told me he hopes the Twitties will simply make people famous. At least within the Twitter community.

He admitted they did think about offering prize money of $140 but when they started to add it all up, they nixed that idea as simply too expensive.

Over at Twitter HQ, co-founder Biz Stone told me he was "flattered by the idea of the awards" and has himself in the past thought "it would be great to make a fuss about a particular tweet." He even offered to throw some T-shirts in for prizes.

Voting is open until the 12th of September and the winners will be announced online on the 1st of October.

My favourite so far is from tj in the Straightman Tweet category. Tj tweeted "I told him about a problem. He said he'd "throw some bodies at it." He's a mortician. The problem was a sinkhole. I'm trying not to worry."