Ann Arbor's Tweet

Twitter seems silly at first. Using 140 characters to tell someone you're on the bus or standing in line at Starbucks or having a meeting at the pub. Who cares, right? And not to mention that calling grown adults "tweeters" just sounds funny. Is this just another thing on the long list of things? What's the point? How can this be useful? And yet, it's all the rage.

Even Evan Williams, a co-founder of the 140-character craze (and the founder of Blogger, for that matter), said Twitter's concept was seemingly simple and trivial: "You say what you're doing in 140 characters or less and people who are interested in you get those updates," which is called following someone. "If they're really interested they get the update as a text message on their cell phone," he said to the audience at the annual TED conference last month.

Well, seemingly simple and trivial things have, in the past, found ways of transforming themselves into something much bigger than their initial uses (see: television, home computers, and dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park).

And though hard numbers aren't available, estimates have put Twitter users somewhere between four and six million – not to mention a highly popular Japanese version.

But of course it started much, much smaller. In Twitter's book of Genesis, which starts in 2006, creator Jack Dorsey and the founders of Twitter unveiled it as an internal program for themselves. They wanted to keep employees of their company connected by a real-time application – something more convenient than cell phones and faster than email. And that was Twitter. By March 2007, however, its popularity was catapulted into the public and it won the Web Award in the category for blogs at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.

"Think of when the telegraph, the radio, TV, or the Internet came out," says avid bus tweeter Vielmetti, who calls himself 'a man on the move in Ann Arbor'. "Twitter is getting more and more public attention. People are slowly figuring out more and more ways to use it. And it makes taking the bus a lot more interesting."

Social media is a fairly new term and, unless you live in New Jersey's Pine Barrens, you've probably heard of it. Twitter has joined the same team as Facebook and, yes, even Myspace with its pimped out wallpapers. Although Myspace and Facebook are practically old tyme when it comes to social media, the general concept is quite new. People are still figuring out how to use Twitter, how many areas it can be applied to, and the best way to achieve fame and fortune with it.

And here in the Ann Arbor area it is no different.

"I've been skeptical of all social media, still have great skepticism for it, but after a few people started following me I felt that I needed to keep up the posts, keep them engaged or entertained. I felt I had to satisfy the three people that were following me," says Ann Arbor Chronicle editor Dave Askins. He operates the online pub's Twitter feed as well as a feed for his bike delivery service HD Hauling, the Ann Arbor Teeter-Totter Talk interview series, and anything else he observes as Homeless Dave.

Askins says Twitter has helped him cultivate current readers more so than create tons of new traffic.

"I use [Twitter] to present the [Ann Arbor Chronicle] more as a persona and not an institution," he says. "I try to give the feed a voice, a persona. I don't usually link to stories. I try not to be overt and less blunt. If I post something about a story I want the follower to know that a human being collected that information, that it was written by a human being."

On the other side of Washtenaw, in Ypsi, Steve Pierce runs a similar operation with YpsiNews.com coupled with a Twitter feed. He, however, does link to stories.

"I use it to let folks know about new stories," he says. "Instead of going to Ypsi news my followers will know within a couple minutes that a new story has been posted. It's been successful in creating new traffic and driving traffic to the site."

Additionally, Pierce also runs WirelessYpsi, a community collective to bring free wi-fi to the whole city. And he uses Twitter another way. "We use it for tech support but you don't have to send an email or call, just Twitter it. We'll see the problem quickly and be able to solve it faster," he says.

John Roos tweets the good word at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market every Saturday to let followers know what coffee he's slinging that particular day. Oh… and there's this other thing he did.

"I twittered that Hillary Swank came by my coffee stand last week," he says. "But I didn't know it was her. She didn't have money but wanted some coffee so I said I'd save her some and asked her to write her name down. She wrote Hillary Swank! I had to Twitter that!"

Roos says that someone expressed to him that there was no value in Twitter, that the 140 characters seemed useless. "I said, 'Are you kidding me?' There is so much value in Twitter. Sometimes you don't want to blog, it's too much of a thing, so you can Twitter and get the same point across. It doesn't have to be serious. There's a whole world out there in that 140 characters. It's been great for me."

They say not to mix business with pleasure, but that's kind of what Twitter does.

"Twitter has become a huge business development tool," says Catherine Juon, co-founder and CEO of Pure Visibility, an Ann Arbor-based Internet marketing service. "It's been huge on building relationships and partnerships with people. People want to do business with people; they feel comfortable with a person. Twitter allows that. People see our Twitter and get a feel of who we are as people instead of a company. A lot of good can come from the ability to share this type of information with large groups."

A shining example of the power of Twitter as a business developer is a taco truck in Los Angeles… but a taco truck with a bit of a twist. The Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck started last year in the second half of November. The owners thought of putting Korean BBQ inside of a taco shell and putting the entire operation on wheels. The Kogi truck travels around L.A., tweeting where its next stop will be. Sounds simple. Sounds trivial. Right? It's proved to be a force. When the Kogi truck parks and tweets its 20, a line begins to form, and it gets longer and longer and longer. It tends to draw somewhere between 300 and 800 people per stop. Twitter has not only turned Kogi into a successful business, but also a cult experience.

Ann Arbor Tweeters aren't there yet. But Juon says it can't be far off.

"(Twitter) will continue to grow at a really rapid pace," she says. "It could get as big as Facebook."

Darryl Zanuck – Hollywood major player and Academy award winning producer, actor, and director – once said that people would get sick of television. That they would get sick of staring at a plywood box every night. He was wrong.

Don't be Twitter's Darryl Zanuck. It's not as silly as you think.

Seven feeds that'll get you started in the area:

@vielmetti (Ed Vielmetti): "I'm interested in everything," he says. He's a man about town, dude on the move, and seems to be all over Ann Arbor – and the Ann Arbor tweeting nation. Follow for updates on his Ann Arbor meetings, his Ann Arbor comings and goings, and, of course, his bus trips. 
 

@a2chronicle, @homelessdave (Dave Askins): He started Ann Arbor's Teeter-Talk interview series and, along with Ed Vielmetti, conducted his first Twitter-Talk interview. "We went a long way for a small play on words," he says of the interview. Askins is the editor for Ann Arbor's online pub the Ann Arbor Chronicle. He also tweets observations and happenings while delivering loose-leaf tea and rare books with his bike delivery service HD Hauling. 

@StevePierce (Steve Pierce): He operates the YpsiNews and WirelessYpsi. Keeps his Twitter feeds packed with Ypsi content. Follow and he'll keep your Twitter account packed as well. And let him know if the wi-fi around Ypsi falters, he'll get right on it. 

@getdowntown (Nancy Shore): Nancy keeps Ann Arbor updated through the Get Downtown blog and Twitter feed. If you're looking for commuting information or opportunities, start it's the feed to follow.
 

@ghostlyint (Ghostly International): Ann Arbor's acclaimed record label gives you all the news you'll need about Ghostly. 

@jephM (Jefff Meyers): Concentrate's editor moonlights as a film critic for Detroit's Metro Times. He's started tweeting his reviews. Get the skinny on what's worth seeing.

@vaguery (Bill Tozier): Tweets a lot about other tweeters in Ann Arbor. Social media man with his thumb on the pulse of what's going on. Has a lot to say and says he's not afraid to unfollow, and says it with such disdain!
 

Three other that'll keep you reading:

@factotem (David Bloom): He doesn't update as much during the off season but come back to during the fall for a complete Twitter experience of Chelsea High School football games. "I started because my daughter was in the marching band. Something happened on the field and I Twittered it. The opponents' coach was a business client of mine who followed me. He tweeted back during the game, 'More, More!' And now I do it every game," he says.
 

@roosroast (John Roos): Follow Roos for Farmers Market updates of his coffee products as well as potential celebrity sightings.
 

@cjuon (Catherine Juon): CEO of Pure Visibility is plugged in and tweeting. No shortage of tweets for her but in this case her signal outweighs her noise (if any of it can be called noise).  
 

National feeds that are worth the click:

@THE_REAL_SHAQ : Shaquille O'Neal tweets. And it's him. It's the real Shaq. And it's hilarious. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. His Twitpics are something else.
 

@michaelianblack : Michael Ian Black was a cast member of MTV's The State, has been in several movies including Wet Hot American Summer, and was part of NYC's comedy troupe Stella (possible comedic geniuses). His tweets range from absurd to ridiculously absurd.
 

@paulfeig : Paul Feig has directed episodes of The Office, Weeds, Mad Men, Arrested Development, and created the short lived but beloved Michigan-centric show Freaks and Geeks. And he's from Royal Oak. He's brand new to Twitter. But if he keeps it up it'll surely be worth it.

Terry Parris Jr. is the utility infielder for Concentrate and its sister pubs Metromode and Model D, and uses Twitter a lot more now than before. His last feature for Concentrate was Border2Border.

(In Homage to Edward Hooper)Steve Pierce Tweets From While Drinking Coffee at The Ugly Mug-Ypsilanti

Ed Vielmetti Had to Hop Off His Bike to Tweet-Outside Beezy's Ypsilanti

Bill Tozier Tells Mike Kessler to 'Hang On a Sec' While He Tweets Exactly What He's Doing-Ann Arbor

From the Mean Streets Of Ann Arbor, Homeless Dave Tweets the Scene-Ann Arbor

Twitter Screen-World Wide Web(AKA The Internet)

John Roos is All Hopped Up on Twitter-Ann Arbor

Nancy Shore Must Have Learned About Something Very Exciting on Twitter.  My Guess is it Relates to getDowntown...-Ann Arbor

John Shares His Worldly Visions on Twitter-Ann Arbor

All Photos by Dave Lewinski

Dave Lewinski is Concentrate's Managing Photographer.  He does not tweet, but he stings like a bee.

He also has a blog.  Give him some feedback.  Take him down a notch.