Is twitter a game?

I'm currently having a break from Twitter. For various reasons, my energy level is significantly reduced; so I'm turning down the quantity of inputs.  Not that I dont still value all the people and great content on there, but when youre saving 15 links to ReadItLater every day, it can get a bit much.

One of the recent links I found interesting was an analysis on how Farmville seems directly constructed to take advantage of people's Sunk Cost Fallacy. This cognitive bias features when people don't let go of what they've already irretrievably lost and make bad decisions not on what's best for them now and in the future. Gamblers who've lost a million and keep going to try to win it back, countries that continue wars based on old and irrelevant grudges.

This made me wonder: Is twitter a game? Is getting followers and #FFs a score? Could  getting retweeted by Stephen Fry be the equivalent of gaining an Elite ranking?  Certainly webapps like Klout talk in terms of scores for various achievements.

I think maybe not, but certainly there's a gaming aspect which game theory could probably explain. Perhaps its the game of celebrity, of being noticed and influential. Perhaps its the game of being given your own radio station, and its a competition for market share and syndication (RTs)

What do you think?

Auf wiedersehen Twitter

Dont know if anyone will notice or care, but Im off Twitter until further notice.

"I am prepared to complain"

How many times has this been retweeted: 'Japanese nuclear worker on the news: "I am prepared to die to avoid meltdown." Say it with me--I will not complain about my job today'.

You're all missing the point. Most people complain about their job because they feel them to be mediocre and insignificant. There's no heroism in spreadsheets and daily TPS reports.

Yet this guy is a hero. He has a higher calling, the safety of his community. He has the skills to deliver. He has the respect of his peers, who trust him to do his best and he will not disappoint them. He has a mission and the knowledge that should he lose his life now, he will die gloriously.

How many people's jobs will be glorious today? Isnt that worth complaining about?

#kevssundaynightpopquiz

Some things are planned extensively. Some things just happen.

Tonight I created a pop quiz by mistake.

One thing I've found running quizzes before is that it's often hard to strip out the intonation from when you're quoting lyrics. The words either don't work any way other than the rhythm of the song, or just by accident you find you've accidentally said po-po-po-poker in a way that couldn't be Leonard Cohen. Posting lyrics on Twitter totally erases anything but the pure poetry that is the songs of Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

The answers are below, for anyone who played along:

1)I'm sorry son but we don't stock party gimmicks in this shop try X its quicker if you run this is a chemists

House of Fun by Madness

2)Like a river flows surely to the sea. Darling so it goes some things are meant to be

Can't help falling in Love by Elvis Presley

3)The coffin bangers were about to arrive with their vocal group the crypt digger 5

Monster Mash by Bobby "Boris" Picker

4) He was reminded that Dr Oppenheimer's optimism fell at the first hurdle

Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards Lyrics by Billy Bragg

5)You are my daily meat

You've got the love by Candi Statton & the source

6)Tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday comes afterwards. I don't want the weekend to end

Friday by Rebecca Black (Apparently, I've never heard it)

7)You gotta take your time. You gotta say what you say. Don't let anybody get in your way

Roll with it by Oasis

8)He waves to greet them. Maybe? You can never be sure

Postman Pat by Postman Pat

9)Hey you, what do you see? Something beautiful, something free? Hey you, are you trying to be mean?

Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson

10)So I must go to las Vegas or Monaco. And win a fortune in a game

Money Money Money by Abba

Moon through daughter's window

What I meant to write about Japan

I often say things in the wrong way. For this I repeatedly apologise. And when it's to do with the deaths of thousands, the erasure from existence of whole cities and communities, and severe ecological and economic damage to a leading world nation - it's often better to keep my mouth shut.

However, when the earthquake struck last week in Japan I found a lot of people reacting to it in a different way to me. As an example, this came to me via Robert Llewellyn (@bobbyllew)

RT @MiChmski: It's days like these that you realize what you were planning on doing for the day is not so important#earthquake #japan TRUE

Now I didn't react this way. It didn't shake my beliefs, nor did make me feel small or the day's task seem more insignificant. And this isn't because I'm a sociopath, nor a meglomaniac who arrogantly believe in his manifest destiny, nor am I an insensitive jerk who thinks that just because people live far away that they don't suffer unimaginably in times like these.

I was struggling to put it into words, and then someone did it for me. This came from a mailing list this afternoon.

"Our time here is fleeting and no matter what we do we can never gain security or stability, they are illusions. Millionaires go bankrupt, young people get sick and and die, families split up, earthquakes wipe out entire towns. They are all just facts of life.

Being secure in life is impossible, but being secure in your own insecurity and mortality isn't. It's the latter that allows you to become a happier person, and paradoxically, more secure in yourself."

Now I don't agree with everything Tim Browson, the author of the message, writes; but this is probably the best I could have put the way that I felt about the situation.

I know in the ultimate scheme of things, my life and everything I care about are as temporary and as insignificant as a slice of fairy cake. This doesn't mean that I don't care. I care a lot. But I recognise the inevitable destruction of everything. That recognition gives me a better perspective on which to spend the time of my life; and I intend to carry on spending it doing the great things that I love and which matter to me.

Are you the Real Deal? Twitter and Identity

This afternoon, something curious occurred on a Twitter account ascribed to the nation's biggest chain of pharmacies. It started me thinking about how we know who we are talking to and listening to in an age of rapid electronic communication.

The events and it's potential impact to Boots the Chemist's PR are covered very well by Louise Kidney elsewhere. Very briefly, protestors on Oxford street were sprayed with CS gas by a policeman, and staff at Boots aided the injured whilst waiting for an ambulance. What could have been a fairly nice "Boots employees are professionals who help out injured people" story took a twist when the Twitter account "@bootsmealdeal" posted the message "We at Boots are disgusted by police behaviour today."

So how do I know that this account represents the views of Boots the Chemists? The first thing that I and at least 3 others did was to examine the history of this account. All the tweets sounded reasonable and were internally consistent. It had the Boots homepage as the external URL for the account - it all seemed quite legitimate.

Then I followed this by searching the Boots website for any mention of twitter accounts: nothing. This made me suspicious.

So it would appear that my and a few others instinctive method for validating a messenger is to search for consistency -both internal consistency and consistency with other sources. Did others do the same or anything differently to determine whether to believe what the account what?

As it happens, shortly after that, the Twitter account in question mysteriously disappeared from the site. Anyone would think Boots' legal department had had a word with Twitter..