Follow Friday is a fantastic meme on Twitter. Obviously the central core of Twitter is to communicate with others, so having recommendations of people on your follower list that you believe other Twitter users will enjoy following is a great way to 1) show your appreciation to quality Twitter users and 2) find people worth following.

The only problem with Follow Friday is the limited amount of characters involved. Sure, I can recommend 2,000 people to follow, but how do you know if my recommendation is right for you? I’ve tried doing 1 Tweet per follower (with a short description of why you should follow them), but that gets spammy. So when I saw Danny Brown making a blog post with his recommendations, I thought – hey…. great idea. I’m stealing it.

So here’s my Follow Friday recommendations by category.

Whedon Related

donnagow
The funny, cheery and fun Aussie that is donnagow is to be followed and loved. She’s a TV fan and probably one of the kindest Twitter folks I know.

The Biz (Social Media, Blogging, Entertainment, New Media, Etc…)

buddyTV
If you want to know what’s going on in the wonderful world of TV, Buddy TV is a great site and Rachel from BuddyTV is a great Twitter resource. Plus she gives fun quizes like her recent How I Met Your Mother trivia slew. Keep up to date with the latest news, discussion and speculation about your favorite TV shows and try and remember details like “what color was their phone in their living room?” (okay, that was a Monk reference, not a BuddyTV one).

Podcasting

hjkuzcotopia
When it comes to podcasting very few people work as hard as Heidi does (Larissa might be the other), but I’m biased. Heidi is one of the assistant producers for Buffy Between the Lines, Angel Between the Lines as well as co-running the Castle Cast and being part of Joss’d, Future Traditions and possibly more that I can’t think of right now. Heidi is a true gem of a person. She’s sweet and kind (honest, those nasty glares are just a trick of the light) and her Twitter feed is full of interesting updates, ideas and two new cute kittens! Heidi’s one of those people who would potentially have a lot to complain about, but I’ve rarely ever heard her complain – making her a joy to friend on Twitter. Plus, my favorite part, she’s a geek!

Celeb

Felicia Day
I’ve held off on Follow Friday-ing Felicia Day because, well, it seems kind of obvious and I think she’s more than just a celeb. Felicia is one of those people who have proven if you have a dream, you work your butt off, and you look really great in 9 inch heels, you can do anything. She’s friendly, approachable and super helpful on Twitter. And by helpful I mean 90% of what she tweets is interesting links, ideas or things like her #favepod meme where folks recommended great podcasts (and now there’s a fun search for new podcasts if you type in #favepod in Twitter search). And Felicia is one of those rare folks who has a huge army of admirers but hasn’t let it go to her head. If you love quirky comedy and haven’t yet watched the Guild or Doctor Horrible – go do so now. I’ll be here while you do so.

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Follow Friday is a fantastic meme on Twitter. Obviously the central core of Twitter is to communicate with others, so having recommendations of people on your follower list that you believe other Twitter users will enjoy following is a great way to 1) show your appreciation to quality Twitter users and 2) find people worth following.

The only problem with Follow Friday is the limited amount of characters involved. Sure, I can recommend 2,000 people to follow, but how do you know if my recommendation is right for you? I’ve tried doing 1 Tweet per follower (with a short description of why you should follow them), but that gets spammy. So when I saw Danny Brown making a blog post with his recommendations, I thought – hey…. great idea. I’m stealing it.

So here’s my Follow Friday recommendations by category.

Whedon Related

buffyfest
If you love Buffy (and you should really) you should not only read Buffyfest (a fantastic blog about all things Buffy related, with some of Joss Whedon’s other shows tied in as well). The Twitter page is interactive (not just a list of what’s been posted at Buffyfest) and fun!

The Biz (Social Media, Blogging, Entertainment, New Media, Etc…)

problogger
Darren is probably one of the most interactive, sweet and successful bloggers on Twitter. I really can’t stand folks who have gained a huge following and start acting like they’re the hottest thing since sliced bread — Darren is the exact opposite. His twitters are helpful, engaging, he shares useful links from other bloggers (no matter their size), and he’s a great resource person for tips and tricks for your own blog. If you blog or write Darren is a great person to follow.

Podcasting

Swoopy
Just in time for DragonCon! Swoopy is a fantastic podcaster and the head of the Podcasting Track at DragonCon. You couldn’t want for a nicer person (who gives amazing hugs). Swoopy’s twitters are a mix of funny, informative and helpful (a lot of replies to her followers).

Celeb

DavidBlue
I fell in love with him first on Ugly Betty and was overjoyed to hear he’s going to be in Stargate Universe – David Blue is one of those fun celebs who enjoys interacting with his Twitter following.

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Follow Friday is a fantastic meme on Twitter. Obviously the central core of Twitter is to communicate with others, so having recommendations of people on your follower list that you believe other Twitter users will enjoy following is a great way to 1) show your appreciation to quality Twitter users and 2) find people worth following.

The only problem with Follow Friday is the limited amount of characters involved. Sure, I can recommend 2,000 people to follow, but how do you know if my recommendation is right for you? I’ve tried doing 1 Tweet per follower (with a short description of why you should follow them), but that gets spammy. So when I saw Danny Brown making a blog post with his recommendations, I thought - hey…. great idea. I’m stealing it.

So here’s my Follow Friday recommendations by category.
Whedon Related
As most of you know I’m a huge Whedon fan, and part of my Twitter follower list is all Whedon-related.  So this category is for a fan or website you should be following on Twitter because you love Joss Whedon.

This week it’s:
JoTheCat
Not only is she funny, clever and an out and out Joss Whedon fan, but she’s highly engaging and entertaining. If you do follow her make sure to @ her and tell her Tabz sent ya.

The Biz (Social Media, Entertainment, New Media, Etc…)
This week it’s:
Gennefer
Gennefer is one of those rare people who will not try and get you to drink the koolaid or sell you some snake oil. She gives clear, decisive and funny commentary on Entertainment, Advertising, New Media and more. She’s also darn funny.

Podcasting
This week it’s:
Schmandrew
Co-host on the Echo Alert podcast, he’s geeky, informed and entertaining (what more could you want out of a Twitter follower?)

Celeb
This week it’s:
emmacaulfield
So I have a special place in my heart for the talented Emma Caulfield. Her tweets are entirely entertaining (and not a lot of self-promotion).

Tune in next week for more Friday Follow reccomendations!

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1. Realize Not Everyone Uses Twitter the Same Way. Many “social media experts” have made up rules about how to use or not use Twitter. While using the word “rules” may make them sound authorative the reality is there’s not a ton of hard-and-fast rules. There’s probably at least 10 exceptions to every rule that people put forward. The sooner you realize that the rules you’ve adopted may not be the rules that another user has adopted, the better.

2. Give Users at Least 3 Days to Follow You Back (if Not Longer). I am not a Twitter power user, but I get about 40 requests for Twitter followers each day. It was too much to deal with immediately, so I have all requests forwarded and deal with them all at once. Sometimes (especially if I’m away from my computer) this may take a day or two for me to follow you back. Some Twitter users auto-follow everyone, but I do manually accept or decline all of the requests.

3. Don’t Start Following People You Don’t Know Until You Post at Least 3 Updates. I can’t tell you how many times I get followed by accounts that have no updates. I never follow someone with no updates, so that person probably won’t ever get a follow back from me. A lot of Twitter users quit because they’re not being followed, but they can’t be followed until people know why they’re following!

4. Don’t Take it Personally When People Don’t Follow You Back. Now it’s true, I only follow people who follow me back unless their value is high enough (Wil Wheaton, for example, doesn’t follow me back, but I love his twitters). Even so, I do not take it personally when someone I follow does not follow me back. I do recommend sending them an @ message if it’s been longer than 3 days and tell them WHY you started following them. People who aren’t following you still see @ replies. Do not threaten them or get pissy. If it’s someone like @StephenFry realize he has close to 40K followers. He can’t follow everyone. But most celebs still read all of their @ replies and sometimes reply to them!

5. Make Sure You Read Tweets in Context. Sometimes the twitter stream goes by too fast and you’ll miss some of people’s Twitters. If a message makes your blood boil make sure to check previous messages in the user’s twitter stream to make sure you read it right. Also check the Twitters of anyone they are responding to or anyone responding to them. Search Twitter is your friend in this regard. Most of the arguments I’ve seen on Twitter erupted because someone missed a previous tweet.

I hope this is helpful to you. If you have some more tips, leave them in the comments for other Twitter users.

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I had been, for a long time, a Twitterfic user. And I really enjoyed it. But somewhere after the swap with ads it just stopped working.

Then I tried Twirl, which everyone raved over. It kept freezing my system. So I trashed it.

Most recently I’ve tried Tweetr. Which worked for a good day, then froze up and died a horrible death.

I follow about 600 or so people, so maybe it’s the rate of their posting, but if you don’t keep up it’s easy to get bogged down or miss the discussions happening.

So for now I mostly use the site itself. Which is fine, but kind of old-school annoying.

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I recently had the opportunity to interview Nick Belardes about his Twitter novel, “Small Places“, which is about breaking life into small pieces. I’ve been following the story for a couple weeks now and thought I’d ask Nick some questions about this new way of story-telling.

Tabz: Tell us about the premise of Small Places…

Nick: It’s a very compartmentalized love story tailor-made for twitter.com. People, jobs, lives, thoughts, all tucked away at times in the compartments of lives we lead. “Small Places” takes that idea to an extreme by imagining everyday problems in micro-form, in bug-like terms, in tiny thoughts, bits and pieces. A life is revealed piecemeal, slowly, as if your friend is text messaging you a story about himself and taking a month
or so to do it.

Tabz: Tell me about yourself…

Nick: I’m a journalist, blogger, videographer and novelist, though on my twitter novel profile for “Small Places” I refer to myself as ABC TV newsroom twitterer, editor, novelist, lunko…

I’m Managing Editor for ABC (KERO) in Bakersfield, Calif., where I write several media blogs, including Nick 2.0. That was actually the idea of Brenda Knight, vice president of Palace Press. “You have to re-invent yourself,” she said. So I did and now when I appear on TV, the Nick 2.0 catch is often used.

I write other blogs including Noveltown’s Paperback Writer. That’s really the blog that got me attention as I was once a gadfly to local media. But then I started working for the media. Go figure, I went from blogger to journalist in a matter of weeks. In a way it’s a dream come true. Now my journalism often appears on CNN.com and other broadcast news sites across America.

I’ve worked as a history professor, a creative writer for a Las Vegas animation company, a marketing creative director. You name it, I’ve probably done it.

With all that I’ve done, literary writing continues to be my passion.

Tabz: When did you first get the writing bug (pun intended)?

Nick: Writing is a buggy thing, isn’t it? It’s like an annoying flea at times that bites you. You have to do something about it. You have to deal with the bug or you go insane with scratching. I got the writing bug in the early 1990s. Around 1998 I finished my first novel, a great exercise that showed myself I am capable of lengthy manuscripts, though it still collects dust on a shelf. Before that I wrote a lot of short stories and small-time magazine articles. There was no Internet then. I imagine if there were, my writing career would have flourished sooner as social networking, blogging and digital media are my strengths.

In 2005, Noveltown released my novel, “Lords,” which describes the infamous Lords of Bakersfield. I’m working on a non-fiction documentary on the topic.

Tabz: Where did you get the idea to do a twitter novel?

Nick: The idea to do a twitter novel came out of the simple act of joining twitter. I joined twitter to have some fun with providing news junkies a window to a broadcast television newsroom (twitter.com/nlbelardes). I was already aware of Japanese text-message novels and so did some research right away and found hardly any literary-themed twitter profiles. Upon further research I found hardly any actual twitter novels. I’ve really only seen sci-fi and erotic fiction twitter books. I have seen flash fiction novels — not really novels in my opinion. I think a novel has to have a certain word count or cannot be a novel. I’ve seen some twitter group projects, but nothing like “Small Places.” It had to be done. I wanted to experiment. But I didn’t necessarily want to be quiet while doing so.

Tabz: Do you feel more creative – or hindered with the Twitter 140 character limit?

Nick: Twitter is a big place made up of many small 140-character micro-blogging places. A twitter novel consists of many small mostly stand-alone parts. It’s compartmentalized and yet together by its very nature.

“Small Places” is a complete reformation of what was a half-built lump of manuscript. Even with parameters, there’s a lot of creative freedom. At the same time, I am taking a portion of an existing manuscript and reforming that along with new buggy themes and characters into a micro-blog form. It’s not a hindrance, but a fun challenge in being concise and clear. I’m stripping away the flower petals of my usual prosody.

Really, every entry is rewritten and molded for Twitter. If I were editing a novel I wouldn’t edit every line. So it’s a very creative fun sculpture with parameters. And I should add I’m refraining from using short-form text messaging techniques (i.e. L8R equals later, or UR for you’re or your).

The merging part takes all that I have: incomplete novel plus new ideas and reforms them into a twittery
piece of literature that at its very root, I hope people enjoy as it’s revealed.

Tabz: What kind of feedback have you gotten?

Nick: I get a lot of feedback from people who get “Small Places” twitter updates via their cell phones. Someone could be walking a dog in Washington, D.C., taking photos of a flood in Canada, or on a bus in L.A. and get an update that strikes them. They in turn can send instant feedback.

Maddie Grant, author of “Diary of a Reluctant Blogger,” which investigates emerging social media tools in the Web 2.0 and 3.0 culture calls “Small Places “…another lovely thing.”

A twitterer wrote, “Reading a twitter novel is like getting a luscious petit four while wanting a great big-ol slice, but despite the diet, I like.”

Darryl Ohrt writes in his “Brand Flakes for Breakfast Blog” about new ideas and design branding said, “This is an interesting writing technique — because once it’s posted, it’s published. He can’t go back and edit. That’s got to be a real challenge for the author of a novel. This is a fun, and really cool idea.”

Another twitterer wrote, “The whole concept of a Twitter novel is great — mostly because the separate bits are much like postcard stories/snapshot.”

Tabz: What’s your goals with doing a Twitter novel?

Nick: To continue to push digital media potential, to connect/link to new people and other emerging social media experts. You never know, I might get a sponsor before I’m done. I’m definitely positioning this project to build up for success rather than simply an experiment to see if it can be done. After the first five “Small Places” twitters I knew it could be done.

The rest is commitment to a project and to readers who expect me to be as committed as they are as readers.

Tabz: Have you thought about (or done) other new media ways of sharing your writing?

My personal web page at www.nlbelardes.com is a hub to social networking outlets like Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, blogs and more. Some links on the page I use more than others, yet it’s a new way to link in to the social networking craze. It’s how I share something like an ABC documentary and “Small Places” all in one easy-to-use space.

I already share my writing in various ways through blogs, YouTube, MySpace and more…

I have been considering an entire LED throwie campaign to promote my next big project, which is sort of a
clean graffiti methodology…

Tabz: What advice do you have people who might think about starting Twitter novels (things you wish someone would have told you when you started)?

Nick: This was my thought from the beginning: Don’t write a novel using Twitter, but mold a novel, transform a novel using Twitter. In my opinion, Twitter isn’t a scratch pad. Any good writer should have a plan, and so should either use a completed manuscript, or a portion, as is my case. The line-by-line rebuilding of the manuscript should be challenge enough. There should be lots of note-taking, forethought, and not just random phrases thrown at readers.

Know what you’re building.

I do wish I had a larger audience from the beginning, but that’s the problem with starting from scratch. No Twitter list is just going to appear out of the blue unless you’re Guy Kawasaki. So that’s the only frustrating part, not having an audience in the thousands already reading “Small Places,” though I’m working on it, and building for the possibility of another Twitter-form novel.

Tabz: What advice do you have for writers in general?

Nick: Don’t settle for mediocrity when you can reach your full potential. Don’t make excuses for not writing– everyone is busy, has a family, has a life. Writing takes sacrificing time.

Strive for your writing goals even in the face of rejection.

Understand why you might get rejected. Is it because of your writing, or because you don’t have a large enough writing platform. You can build your writing platform through social networking, and especially, networking with other writers. Support them, especially those who are freshly published. Wouldn’t you want them to do the same for you?

Tabz: What are some blogs, twitter accounts or new media sites you follow?

Nick: I follow the L.A. blog site www.thenervousbreakdown.com, run by L.A. Times Best Selling Author Brad Listi. I am honored to be among its emerging writers and am always entertained by the bloggers there, which really, are from around the world.

I’m always scouring blog sites and interesting media folk via Twitter.com. With each message is usually some kind of interesting emerging media blog worthy of perusing. I also enjoy the blog community from Bakersfield, Calif., Bakotopia.com, which has won an Edgie award or two.

Some of the most interesting literary voices I’ve met have been through MySpace (www.myspace.com/nlbelardes, www.myspace.com/kerotv23). I’ve even got several outstanding news tips that have made CNN.com and the local news via the site.

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I just read an interesting rant (his words not mine) over at DigiDave about Twitter follower/following ratios and it reminded me of the catch phrase from Pokemon – “got to catch’m all!”

If you’re unfamiliar with Pokemon, it’s a Japanese cartoon with these pocket monsters. There’s tons of them and the kids try to find them all. The cartoon is also a card game in which you try to collect all the cards.

In a similar way Twitter for some seems to be a “collecting” game. Collect the most followers, but keep the ratio shoved to one side. Either people have 2,000 people they’re following and only about 100 or so following them back or they have 2,000 people following them and they follow a couple hundred. This is referred in the Twitterverse as “the ratio” and long-time Twitter users, such as myself, hate real people whose ratio is skewed.

A new phenomenon seems to be to follow someone and then immediately after they follow you, “unfollow”. I normally follow everyone who follows me, unless you’re a Bot or your twitter time line is full of spam. Then I take a glance at my numbers to find a bunch of these new friends have unfollowed me.

Twitter isn’t a game guys, you don’t need to have a bunch of followers. You don’t have to follow a bunch of people. Twitter is a conversation. If your ratio is skewed, you’re having a one sided conversation. It’s the 1990′s equivalent of blocking everyone in the chat room. You wind up talking to yourself.

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