Assorted Stuff & Nonsensical Twitterish

I was considering posting a heavy duty expose on this and that for today, but decided against it. I’m up against a hard magazine article deadline and am pouring my energy into making sure that what I deliver is polished to perfection. Or at least is something I’ll be proud of!

Making Good Use Of Twitter

In any event, I’ve been making good use of Twitter over the past few weeks, by following people who are relevant to what I write about (cars, mostly) while twittering away to the tune of ten to twenty tweets each day. That is, if I have something beneficial to share.

Funny how you can dismiss something simply because you don’t understand it all that much. A few years back, in June 2007 to be precise, I mentioned how I found people online and where they could find me online.

Not An Early Adopter By Any Stretch Of The Imagination

I casually mentioned, “…but I think I’ll sit Twitter out” when I described my approach to social networking. Admittedly, I’m a more recent convert to Twitterdom, having come around to understanding how useful it can be. Sure, you can go crazy with it, but I’ve been able to get quite a bit out of many of the 140 or fewer character tweets that I have been reading.

Yesterday, I connected with a one-time client, Vinny, who is a Cadillac enthusiast who happens to also live in New York City. Though I’m not able to attend the New York International Auto Show in April, he will be there and plans to take plenty of pictures of various Cadillac models and concepts.

I mentioned that if he was to send a photo my way, I would post it on one of my sites, giving him full attribution. As you can see, this is a good win-win opportunity for us both.

Helpful List Of Do-Follow Sites

I also snagged a link from Andy Beard who shared information about a report created by Alex Goad which lists scads of do-follow sites where you can leave one-way links.  Sure, it could become a webmaster’s worst nightmare if spammers game the list, but a lot of the sites are familiar to everyone and likely to be on guard for such mischief. A terrific find!

Little did I know that Twitter is also a very good search engine too.  Sure, it isn’t as thorough as Google, but if you are looking for concise and highly relevant information, there is a lot of useful stuff that turns up.

Just don’t expect to see ads on Twitter…at least yet. How they make money off of this concept is a mystery to me, but its value as an internet destination is something I’m sure some of the web giants would love to absorb.

Patriot Backlash Spurs Emergent Tea Party Group

The Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, was a watershed event in American history. Contemporary protesters hope to recapture that energy this April 15th when similar tea parties are held in cities all across America.

Americans are fed up. At least that is the opinion of the people who head up the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition (NTPC), a movement formed by three grassroots organizations who are standing in opposition to the out-of-control spending emanating from Washington, DC.

The Dontgo Movement (Dontgo), Top Conservatives On Twitter (TCOT) and Smart Girl Politics (SGP) banded together last month to hold a tea party event in Chicago, the forerunner of a nationwide tax protest phenomenon which will be repeated in more than 150 cities on April 15, 2009.

Newt Gingrich Throws In His Support

Now, one of the heavy hitters from the conservative movement has announced his endorsement and support of what is called the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.  Newt Gingrich, who led the Republican Revolution in 1994 which has been widely credited with turning back President Clinton’s liberal push is bringing his own organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future alongside to help.

The Gingrich led group is self-billed as “a unique non-partisan organization designed to rise above traditional gridlocked partisanship, to provide real, significant solutions to the most important issues facing our country.” Formed on September 27, 2007, American Solutions holds an annual event called Solutions Day which is “…focused on providing citizens with the tools, knowledge, and training needed to transform government oat all levels — from school boards and city councils to state legislatures and Congress.”

Taking A Page From The Boston Tea Party

The tax day protest is taking a page from the Boston Tea Party, a watershed event in American history where colonialists disguised themselves as Native Americans and threw tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation without political representation.  That event was one of many which signaled to Americans that their separation from the British Empire was pending.

Eric Odom, Chairman of the DontGo Movement, shares his comments about the April 15th event: “Building on the free market ideas of our founding fathers, and embracing the passion they shared to bring them to light, the Nationwide Tea Party Movement is giving voice to tens of thousands of Americans.” Added Stacy Mott, President of Smart Girl Politics, “Average Americans do not support mortgaging away our children’s futures, and the time to speak out against it is now.”

The speed at which the movement is growing may be surprising some people but given the spending packages passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in addition to trillions more expected to be spent, a sense of urgency seems to be at hand.

If you’re planning to attend an event in your area, feel free to post that information here for our readership.