If you’re open to connecting my ID is: Machione.

I can from the Gonzo Social Media Carnival.

Once again, you have managed to crack me up with your Twitter obsession. Seriously dude, re-reading your post reminds me why we hired you.

I see that Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) has just awarded his 20,000th Follower a digital voucher for his new readings of Oscar Wilde short stories. Personally, I’d rather have cake.

But as Oscar Wilde once said… “I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones”. Touché, Messieurs Wilde, Fry and Litman…

Today in the office, we had a mini debate about ‘real mates’ versus ‘Twitter mates’ but what Twitter’s shown me is that you can develop real relationships with people who share a common interest rather than a post code or a geographic border with you.

You just have to show up at tomorrow’s ShoreditchTwit or next month’s DirtySouthTwit to see that we, the Twitterati are the most connected, pub-centric socialites that exist today.

Likewise, I can also name a surprisingly large list of people that I’ve really got to know through Twitter but have never met in the real world and may never actually physically shake hands with.

I guess the beauty of Twitter is that it really allows us to build a picture of what makes someone tick. Here’s a test: Select someone you’re following on Twitter and visit his/her profile. You don’t have to go beyond the second page of Tweets before you’ve built up a pretty good idea of what they’re about. All this, based on a series of 140 character messages tied to a specific time and (sometimes) a location (see: Twibble). Brilliant, huh?

The fact that the number of people you can follow on Twitter is limited somewhat by how much ‘noise’ you can mentally process means that you tend to be selective about who you choose to Follow. Which means that your 500th Follower is indeed something you should be celebrating, because it means that 500 people have decided that you are somebody that they find interesting or relevant to them.

It’s something that fascinates me, and although Twitter isn’t yet mainstream (although the day is near, my friend) – it is changing the way we connect to people and get to understand what makes them tick.

As for @dannywhatmough – here’s someone who has probably gained a few extra Followers from your outreach and in the process got to taste some sweet, sweet baked cake goodness.

You could say, he can have his cake and eat it.

Nice work Mike – lovin’ yer work…

To borrow another phrase from the great man Oscar Wilde… “It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”. That’s what raxraxrax.com’s for, I guess…

http://blog.wildfirepr.co.uk/2008/11/25/the-chocolatey-benefits-of-twitter/