Twitter's Lifespan

Every social media site has the life cycle trajectory of a living organism: birth, moody adolescence, growth (or reproduction), aging, and ultimately, death.

Without a doubt, Twitter's popularity has exploded within the past year. It won prestigious prizes like the SXSW Web Award and has been heralded in widely circulated news outlets. Perhaps most importantly, the Twitter's preeminent seat on the web-throne appears very well-deserved. It offers nothing but perks: free publicity, immediate contact, short yet relevant information, intriguing links, .... yada, yada, yada. (I think you get the picture.)

So the real question: How long will the fame last?

Let's start with a few wise words from technology guru and psychographic prophet, Bill Wasik, who is currently a senior Editor of Harper's magazine, creator of the flash mob, and the author of a new book, "And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture".

Regarding the culture of popular social media, Wasik remarked that one "get[s] to the center of things, to the place where everyone else is, to the middle of the mob. But the closer you get, the better you understand that there's nothing at the middle -- the mob is just about itself."

True that, bro. This Bud's for you. 

With this in mind, let's dork out by explaining Twitter's rise and fall in the form of a web algorithms at a 9th grade reading level:

Twitter's Lifespan = log ((mob size + cultural hype) /(time + eFB + #)).
Where e stand for potentially powerful emerging websites;
FB for Facebook; and # for the number of unecessary hashtags that everyone uses simply to gain more followers.

Twitter's life will logarithmically wax and wane. Although I have no clue as to what 'log' would do if punched into a calculator, it's a pretty stellar mathematical metaphor. (For you English aficionados out there, let us say that Twitter is a speck of digital protoplasm, a sapling site that was fortunate enough to have budded among the infinitely sloshing sea of blogs, titillating apps, and social networks.)

Despite the fact that Twitter currently stands as tall as a California cedar, the world wide web is a mighty expansive forest, my friends. And one situated in a place with high risk of lightning strikes, clearcutting (by web-(b)loggers like me), and heavy hitting corporations that could smash it to smithereens. 

Just like the enormous bell curves of its more behemoth stories, Twitter might have to get all meta up-in-here by graphing itself as yet another "trending topic". (Tweet spikes on stories like Iran's electoral snafu or MJ offer a befitting visual). It's only a matter of time before the long-lasting titans like Facebook figure out a way to adopt Twitter's tactics -- and there truly isn't a lot to emulate here -- for their own benefit. Just look at phrases like Facebook's "What's on your mind?" Doesn't that sound an awful lot like Twitter's "What are you doing right now?" 

But until that happens, I've gotta go post my 140 characters.

Check me out @itllhappen

Madoff

I think Madoff is a good first blog post topic, yes?

Here's the rub: Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme; screwed tons of salt-of-the-earth people and rich tycoons alike; then he tried to bamboozle a short prison sentence with a gaggle of fancy pants lawyers.

I won't even attempt to rephrase myself here. Does anybody think this scum bucket deserves a trial? (The hypothetical initial sentence would have been: Does anybody think this guy deserves a fair trial?).

While the legal system could certainly use a good pat on the back nowadays, the Madoff case warranted nothing but mercy for the plaintiffs from the get-go. True, you have to be a little off your financial rocker to put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your portfolio for Chrissakes.

But still, nobody could have predicted a catacylsm of such epic proportions. How could people have known about Bernie's financial tidal wave until it had them under water?

And that's the point of a Ponzi scheme. You get stabbed from behind. Robbed blind.

The good news? Nobody expects Madoff to live until he's 221 years old. That is, unless he's a Galapagos tortoise and we just don't know it.