During the summer, while the rest of you were vacationing, I was spending most of my time in Twitter Rehab here at INVITATIONS. During my most painful bouts of Twitter withdrawal, I had nothing much to do but watch TV and the popular summer mini-series about Michael Phelps (otherwise known as The Olympics). At the time, as I was Jonesing for an opportunity to Tweet, frankly, seeing Michael Phelps turn Mark Spitz's Gold Medal record into spittle was hardly a reasonable facsimile for staring at a flat screen monitor filled with pages of friendly tweets. What's an addict to do?
IF YOU CAN'T TWEET 'EM, JOIN 'EM!
As I fantasized about my next chance to sneak in a fix of Tweeting on my Treo or iPod Touch, I started to think about an alternate Olympics consisting of social media events - call it the "Twittolympics!"
Here are some of the events I imagined:
140 Character Sprint: How fast can you complete a 140 character Tweet. World record holder is @pistachio with 0 - 140 characters in 8.3 seconds!
140 Character Relay: Four athletes from each competing team hand off a Blackberry Curve duct-taped to a baton after completing a perfect 140 character Tweet. The current record holding "Dream Team" from USA features @scobleizer, @jasoncalacanis, @techcrunch, with the final leg held by @davewiner.
DM-athalon: The first contestant to complete a series of direct messages (with return responses) to each of three random Twittizens wins the gold. Current recorld holder is @leolaporte, who is annoyed at winning the one event without TWIT in its name...
Synchronized Tweeting: Competing teams must complete the same 140 character Tweet in unison (and at the same time!)
Twittathalon: The contestants must complete three consecutive Tweets, one from a Blackberry, one from a desktop PC, and finally one from an iPhone. The fastest combined time, with points off for misspellings, wins! Current record holder, @chrisbrogan, with one hand tied behind his back!
Tabletop Tweeting: Competitors must Tweet back and forth from both sides of a ping pong table, lobbing Twitter messages by tossing an iPhone across the net.
Twittathon: Competitors must complete a grueling course of 26 consecutive 140 character Tweets. Current world record holder is the UK's @mashable, who completed the course in less time than it took to down a pint of Guinness!
Disqus Throw: See how far you can toss your blog comments! Current record holder, by a mile, @fredwilson of the USA.
What do you think? Are you ready to go for the Twitter Gold? Are you ready to mettle with my Medals? What other social media events would you like to see in the Twittolympics? Please add your ideas in the comments.
And if you think you are ready for Twitter Rehab, you can fill out an application for INVITATIONS here.
Medals Photo Credit: MTC Media - Fotolia.com
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