140 Small Steps For Man (And A Giant Leap For Social Networking Rehab)

As announced here, early in 2010 we will be publishing an eBook of "140 Steps To Cure Your Twitter (and Social Networking) Addiction" and we are looking for YOU to help us compile the 140 best steps toward recovery.  So please, look in the mirror, admit you have a problem, and then SHARE your suggested road to rehabilitation in the comments below, or in the comments at this post.

The staff at INVITATIONS started collecting steps for the book at a recent Miami Tweetup and we present a few of your suggestions in this Public Service Announcement:



Thanks to Jeff Pulver, Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells, Yvette Ferry, Alex DeCarvalho, Maria De Los Angeles, and everyone else who was willing to raise their hand and face their addiction head on...

To be continued...

Feed Your Addiction With A Phoney Twitter

Virtually all of the Twitter Addicts we treat here at INVITATIONS have a mobile phone and use their phones to check in with Twitter. Ideally, we would like to therefore confiscate their phones upon arrival, however for various insurance and liability reasons we are not able to leave our visitors disconnected from their world outside of the INVITATIONS Social Networking Rehab facility. Fortunately, many of our "customers" have iPhones and thanks to AT&T their ability to get a decent network connection is sufficiently borked to limit their on-site tweeting while in recovery. For the non-iPhone patients, we have put strict limitations on their mobile phone use.

THE "DM" METHOD

In an effort to ease the pain of being weaned from Twitter, and preventing the sometimes serious side effects of twithdrawal, our own Dr. Dierichter Meisinger (known among the patients as "DM") has postulated that personalizing one's phone with Twitter related ringtones and wallpaper images can serve as sublimation for actually using Twitter on their phones. To prove his theory, Dr. Meisinger has assembled a collection of Twitter ringtones and wallpapers that we regularly use here at INVITATIONS. Patients following the DM method hear a Twitter song every time their phone rings, feeding their "need for Tweed" and reducing their desire to shirk all other worldly responsibilities in favor of their 140 character communications. It is still early in the study, but initial results seem promising.

YOU CAN PLAY ALONG AT HOME

As a courtesy and public service, we are making these twitterized mobile phone goodies available to you here, so that you can begin treating your own addictions by using the DM Method at home. Please use with care.

(Note: The ringtones and wallpapers below are made available via Myxer, where I work when I am not acting as proprietor of INVITATIONS. Click "Preview" to hear any of the ringtones.)

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Beware Of Fake Twitter Addicts!

As Twitter has hit the mainstream, everyone from Actors such as Ashton Kutcher to TV personalities with only first names such as Oprah and Ellen to Politicians such as the Governator and his lovely wife Maria Shriver have all now become good Twittizens. They have joined the ranks of Shaq and Scoble, to smell like a Kevin Rose and whine like a Vaynerchuk, 140 characters at a time. All these characters are welcome additions to the social networking community, and should any of them fall prey to the siren song of constant status updates and find themselves "addicted" to Twitter, they will not have to worry as we have recently launched a celebrity wing at INVITATIONS, the nation's premiere Social Networking Rehab Facility.

NOT ALL TWEEPLE ARE CREATED EQUAL

While there are some celebrity Twittizens who are legitimately in need of Social Networking Rehab, the staff at INVITATIONS has been inundated with a rash of applications from some more dubious tweeters, claiming to be in need of help dealing with the pressures of maintaining their tens of thousands of followers, while at the same time engaging in, shall we say, less than sincere social networking practices. This behavior is not unlike someone "admitting" to having used marijuana, and then saying they never inhaled. Who would ever make such ridiculous claims???

The mission of INVITATIONS is to help those truly in need, and we have no patience to accept patients who are actually bot-bearing, auto-following, link-baiting, self-proclaimed "gurus." With that in mind, we have prepared a simple checklist to help you avoid inadvertently aiding a false addict:

TOP 10 WAYS TO IDENTIFY A FAKE TWITTER ADDICT

10. The words "SEO", "MONEY", "CASH", "PROFITS" or "WEIGHTLOSS" are part of their Twitter name...

9. You receive an immediate DM when you follow them back.

8. The DM you receive links to their SCAM, er, blog or website.

7. They follow thousands, have thousands of suckers, er, folks following them back, and they have posted 0 updates.

6. If they have posted updates, 99.9% of them contain a link to the same website or blog.

5. The only @replies they have are to other accounts they own ("self tweetillation" or "masturbatory tweeting.")

4. They NEVER Re-Tweet.

3. They Tweet about gaining 1,000's of followers "overnight" (and will show YOU how!)

2. Their profile image is a Dollar $ign.

And the number one way to identify a Fake Twitter Addict:

1. You end up HERE when you look for their Twitter profile!

How about you? Have you encountered any "fake" twitter addicts? If so, please tell us how you identified them in the comments!

Photo Credit: © Fullvalue - Fotolia.com

Day 419: Twittolympics! Let The Games Begin!

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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Day 235: Twitter Addiction is a UNIVERSAL Problem!

I recently attended a "Tweet-Up" (which is a fancy way of saying a "Twitterholics Anonymous" meeting). Typically I attend as many such gatherings as I can in order to recruit those in need of rehab. At this particular meeting, held at a secret location, I was quite surprised by the motley crew of Twitter loyalists gathered to pay tribute to that seductive siren, who calls to them 140 characters at time. Clearly, Twitter addiction impacts all walks of life... on this planet and beyond...



Special thanks to patients Todd Van Hoosear, John Keyes, and the Aliens.

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