Multiversity Comics Update

Today was a huge day for the comic blog I write for. Multiversity Comics started the day securing three interviews (including one from one of our favorite creators in the industry) and finished it with by far the biggest day in terms of visitors in our short history. In fact, we managed to have significantly more visitors today than we typically do in an entire week, as we have nearly 1,500 unique visitors today with 4 hours to go.

How did this happen?

Well, Matt (MC's creator, writer and editor-in-chief) wrote an innocent post sharing the Twitter accounts of a ton of different comic creators in an attempt to create the most comprehensive Twitter account list out there. Of course, it started well as many creators commeneted on the post and emailed Matt to get added, but it all escalated like crazy when first MTV's Splash Page (MTV's comic movie blog) made a tweet about our post, and then arguably two of the biggest writers in the industry did the same: Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis. Throw in Marvel blogger/champion Agent_M (he of 1.2 million followers on Twitter), and our site just went completely insane.

This is just an absolutely gigantic day for us, and we're really excited about the future of our blog. Who knows what it holds, but man, it was an incredibly fun day to watch unfold. Hopefully we build on it and make Multiversity even bigger than it already is.

You Gotta Stay Positive

Craig Finn pouring his heart out with Franz Nicolay behind him

This past Thursday I went to see The Hold Steady perform at Bear Tooth. I expected it to rock pretty hard. I mean, The Hold Steady are a ridiculously cool band who makes rocking tunes about drinking, women and life in general. In many ways, frontman Craig Finn is simply a storyteller and that comes out even better live. They pretty much rocked the house, as every song sounded just as good as the recorded material does and the intense guitar solos melted my face maybe even moreso than usual (that may have something to do with the fact I was right next to one of the two primary speakers though).

The best thing I can say about them though is that this is a band that obviously loves to play music. Whether you like their recorded material or not, the way they are obviously loving performing is infectious and makes the whole experience that much better. As Finn said during the show (and I paraphrase), "I was 30 and working in an office when I realized that I was really bored. So I decided to form a rock and roll band and by the time I was 32 we had played our first show." To someone who is looking for proper direction in life, Finn's words rang very true to me. What's the point of life if you aren't doing something you love? Finn clearly loves what he does, as he would encourage singalongs perpetually and drink Budweiser between moments he would need to sing (my friend pointed out how funny it was that the band was drinking Budweiser while Bear Tooth was loaded with tasty craft beers).

Due to laziness, my aspirations are not being met on this post as I originally intended to write it up in a significantly longer form. But the heart of what I wanted to say is still there. If you like live music and energetic performances from tight rock bands, see The Hold Steady if they are near you. This is a band who is at the peak of the live rock world and I wholeheartedly recommend seeing them, if only to see their keyboardist Franz Nicolay, whose dance moves, dapper suits and amazing mustache needs to be seen to be believed.

Craig Finn rocking it

The one, the only, the Franz Nicolay

FRANZ HARMONICA SOLO! And Craig jumping

Guitar meet up - faces were melted

These people were insanely drunk and dancing like very entertaining idiots - loved them

Contemplating Tumblr.

As I get more and more engrossed in the comics blog I'm affiliated with, I'm connecting with the fellow writers on there increasingly as well. One of the writers, Carina (aka the token girl), told me about Tumblr. Tumblr is a site that exists in some sort of gray area in between blogging and tweeting, and from what I can tell is likely to be the next big thing in terms of social networking (already 1.2 million plus on there). A better write-up of what it is comes from Wikipedia:

Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, video, links, quotes, and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users are able to "follow" other users and see their posts together on their dashboard. You can like or reblog other blogs on the site and other users can do the same to your posts. As your blog becomes more popular your tumblarity will rise. The service emphasizes customizability and ease of use.[2]

So there you have it - it is a site that pretty much acts as a fusion between the on-the-go nature of Twitter but with room for more substance if you desire it. If Blogger provides blogging and Twitter provides micro-blogging, then you could make an argument that Tumblr invents a third genre (if you will) of blogging that I will now name mobile blogging (in the immortal style of Michael Scott - I declare that trademarked!). I signed up quickly and checked it out for a bit and it really seems like the entire audience right now is strictly early adopters. Of course, with early adopters you often get the too cool for school types, those people who are cutting edge or no edge at all, so I'm unsure as to how I'd fit in with that fine group.

However, the question I mean to ask isn't based off of whether or not I should join Tumblr (too late for that). The question is are these micro-blogging sites a good thing? Sure, I love Twitter and have a complete blast with it and Tumblr seems like another fun venture, but if people are going to be learning how to write from 140 character posts or from text messages or from Tumblr mobile blogs, what exactly does that means for the English language in twenty years? Hell, what does that mean for the English language in five years?

A great example is Shaquille O'Neal. The Big Aristotle is a larger than life personality who many people love across the world, which is clearly reflected in his enormous Twitter following. However, take a look at his Twitter feed. It's completely shattered English. However, not only is it acceptable, but there is likely a large population of younger people looking at that writing as something to aspire towards and imitate.

Of course, it is hard to argue that mobile/micro blogging really is a good representation of the English language. These people do not speak like that, they just write that way because of limitations established by the medium they are using. I understand that and am not chastising them for that. My implication is that if we have generations growing up reading these posts as enviable items, we're headed for a really ugly and illiterate future.

I really have no room to talk though. I wrote two tweets in the midst of writing this post, and I made a Tumblr post (quoting Douglas Adams no less) as well. But I do openly recognize it as a burgeoning issue within the next decade or so, and openly wonder when the world will start to address it. Until then, I'll continue doing what I do. Always posting...but secretly judging.

The Next Step?

One of the things that I'm really interested in is the pending death of print. It's not that I want it to go away, as I honestly don't think I'd ever like to read books or comics via digital media, but its impossible to ignore the fact that print news has decreased in relevance over the past decade. That's especially evident in the news sector of print, as you have to ask yourself why you would want to purchase a daily newspaper when you could simply get the news for free and faster online.

With the recent death of Michael Jackson though (this is the one and only time you'll hear about his death on here), something became evident even within the realm of online news. In terms of being used as an aggregator of news stories, Twitter is the next big thing in news. That's not fair actually. It already is the best option for news today, as you can collect news from around the world about all subjects all in one place at incredible speeds by following a few select users.

For example, the Michael Jackson deal. Here's the timeline for how the news spread in my office, starting with 0 minutes as when I found out and moving from there:

0 minutes: See a post on Twitter referencing a report from TMZ that MJ died. I announce to surrounding co-workers "crazy, Michael Jackson evidently died from a heart attack."

10 minutes: Coworker comes from office "Did you guys hear? Michael Jackson had a heart attack!" I share that he died. Response is incredulous statement of "that's not what CNN.com says!"

13 minutes: Another coworker comes out, she heard from an HBO rep that they are being sent home because MJ died and paparazzi was swarming. Their offices are in Westwood which is where MJ was taken into the hospital.

25 minutes: Another coworker comes down to say that she heard he had just died.

37 minutes: Big boss from end of the hall comes down to announce that MJ had died.

That whole timeframe made me realize a few things: if the optimized form of news is via online (versus print), then the optimized form of gathering online news is via Twitter. It combines the best two ways to acquire news into one single form, as it properly pairs word of mouth with the instantaneous transfer of information the online realm allows. Why go to multiple sites to acquire news when you can follow the same news sites Twitter feeds and have it delivered to you. Twitter in a few ways is the real form of the way information is delivered in Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan.

Clearly I've become some sort of Twitter fanboy, but I'm sold on this entirely. The power of Twitter at consolidating the day to day world is an extremely powerful thing, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the next step is. Of course, when Twitter shuts down because of the massive amounts of increased traffic this type of thing causes, that makes me realize they need more capacity. Let's work on that, mmmk Twitter?

Tweet tweet!

When I first signed up for Twitter around a year ago, I tried it on for size for a while but a combination of things brought it down: not a ton of users, limited experience, and frankly, I didn't really get it. The whole concept of Twitter just didn't make a whole lot of sense in my head. Why would I want people to be aware of everything I do? Seemed like I was forcing people to stalk me, and I was not a fan of that.

Apparently, I've recently grown to forced stalking quite a bit, as I'm sort of addicted to the whole concept. It kind of seems like the entirety of the world has gotten into it simultaneously, as in England you would read about celebrity updates in their tweets and in Italy you'd see half the people dropping tweets whilst perusing the net at cyber cafes.

No less, I think a lot of my interest in it really tied in to the primary subject matter of my previous post, and that's the extreme lack of time lately. When I typically write blog posts that are hundreds of words long, it's hard to find the time in the day to do that when I want to be outside hiking, playing frisbee golf, and barbecuing with friends. But with Twitter, the concept of microblogging that they present is totally perfect for my lack of time. I can share my thoughts in 140 characters or less, allowing for a concisiveness that I've previously never had and forcing myself to edit thoroughly.

It's pretty freaking awesome, and sometimes I feel the need to do it all the time. Really, I can do that because it takes all of 30 seconds to write a great tweet, while it can take me 10 minutes to an hour to write a blog post. The time management aspect of it is just fantastic (for those that want to blog but don't want to spend a lot of time doing it, this is perfect), and I'm really starting to enjoy the community aspect as well. With that said, those that aren't on their I think should join ASAP. When you do, make sure to follow me. I'm davidlharper2 on there, and am looking forward to seeing you on there!

Color Wars 2008

Not to steal this entirely from Boing Boing (even though that is exactly what I'm doing - click the link for the evidence), but I discovered a site called Color Wars 2008 today. From what I've gathered, it's a Twitter based website where people align themselves with various teams that gather together in Twitter groups, and those groups participate in challenges, like an online summer camp (the site's tagline is even "it's just like summer camp"). What kind of challenges? Well, so far they include:

• A Nerd Rap Battle
• A Roshambo (rock, paper, scissors) competition
• Broom Game (Click link to find out what it is - it's funny)
• Bingo Thursdays

and most importantly, the primary reason for this post (besides the inherent awesomeness to Color Wars): YoungMeNowMe.

So what is YoungMeNowMe? Strangely enough, it was something akin to a post I had planned for my site, except mine was less based off replication and more based off of "this is what I looked like through the years." YoungMeNowMe is a contest in which people submit pictures of themselves from when they were young, and the winner is the person who most successfully recreates the image with their current self in it instead. What does that look like? See below...(although definitely check out the site, as the resolution wacks out to fit in blogger)

I think this is an incredible recreation, and pretty much the funniest thing ever. User RMCW from Twitter created it (name is Rob McWhinney - let me know if I should take down the image!) but I think he did a heck of a job and I'm pulling for him to win. Want to see more? Go here to check more out.

So I'm looking to get some old pictures this weekend so I can try my hand, but I doubt I can do anything nearly as successful. I just think it's a great idea, and sounds like a blast of a website to frequent. Upcoming challenges they have include a Google Street View Scavenger Hunt (Hilarious!), more bingo, and most importantly, a Smack Talk Haiku competition (don't pretend you aren't interested Amy). As a person who loves haiku's, I cannot wait for that one. It's an inspired idea, and I want it now!

No less, looking for somewhere fun on the web that's new to you? Check out Color Wars. It's a blast.