Recently in Twitter Category

Kanye West is dead. Long live Kanye West.

Or so some Twitter prankster would have you believe.

Early today, Twitter became abuzz with rumors that Chicago's most notorious rapper had passed on. The phrase "RIP Kanye West" began reproducing in tweets throughout the service, becoming a trending topic that's still No. 1 on the site as of this post.

West is, however, still alive and kicking. As The Daily Swarm put it in its round-up of news reports about this, he continues to not be dead.

How the "rumor" began remains unclear. But we're looking at you, Taylor Swift.

UPDATE: Two reports on how the hoax began -- first, Idolator traces it back to a phony Fox News page posted with a giant Kanye obit; or, Daily Swarm tags it to these meatheads.

The moral of the story: It's ridiculously easy to start rumoriffic mayhem. We propose some new hashtag heard-its ... #mileymising, #Tribuneshutdown, #daleyretires. Your suggestions?

Can you put the iPhone down without freaking out?

From the utterly obvious file: A study has found that most people get very, very stressed out when they don't have an Internet connection.

But it's more than that. The study -- from The Future Report and commissioned by British Internet service provider Virgin Media -- coins an acronym for people who are slightly hooked on their wifi mainline. Those who not only love their tech but experience great anxiety when they are disconnected are SOSOs. They "switch on to switch off" -- that is, they experience less stress as long as they see this:

More than 35 percent of those surveyed said they kinda freaked out if they were unable to stay in relatively constant contact with friends and family via email, Web sites or social networking services.

In addition, the SOSOs don't care if you find their anxiety ridiculous. The same percentage reported that they don't feel guilty about always having a computer or Web-activated cell phone within reach.

The numbers were higher for stay-at-home parents.

"An 'always on' lifestyle may not be for everyone but there is a significant number of people for whom always being connected actually increases peace of mind," says Mark Schweitzer, COO of Virgin Media.

How about you, Yanks? Do you get the shakes when you leave the bars, as it were?

Share

tweetmeme_style = 'compact';

Steven Seagal is not above the law ... he IS the law. Thank you, A&E, for finally putting something good on the air.

Seagal, the action movie icon, accomplished blues musician, aikido expert and international man of mystery - he's apparently even a tulku, the reincarnation of a Buddhist Lama - is on tap to star in his own reality series this December: "Steven Seagal | Lawman." But he's not looking for love or cooking - though Chief Ryback could whip up a mean bouillabaisse, or creating fashion. Nope, he's a cop in Jefferson Parish, La.

"I've been working as an officer in Jefferson Parish for two decades under most people's radar," said Seagal, "I've decided to work with A&E on this series now because I believe it's important to show the nation all the positive work being accomplished here in Louisiana - to see the passion and commitment that comes from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in this post-Katrina environment."

As if Deputy Seagal wasn't enough to make you tune in, there's after-hours footage of the man just hangin', like he does:

Until now, Seagal has never sought publicity for his work with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. However, over a span of almost two decades, he has regularly gone out on patrol and worked major cases. The series will allow fans to ride shotgun with Seagal as he and his hand-selected elite team of deputies respond to crimes-in-progress. Then, when Seagal goes off-duty, the cameras will continue following him as he pursues his many ventures - including musical performances and philanthropic efforts - in Jefferson Parish and New Orleans.

To be clear, without ever having seen a second of footage outside this commercial, this is the greatest show ever made. TiVo, consider yourself set on Season Pass, my friend. And I better not find any "Dancing With The Stars" overriding!

Can't wait to watch? Seagal is on Twitter and promises to be chatting about his show - and his music, lifestyle and general awesomeness - so give him a follow. And be patient - December will be here soon enough.

So on Monday, Labor Day, when you're not grilling or whatever is expected of Americans on a three-day weekend -- first, check to see if anyone's showing any Kevin Smith movies.

Then, dial up Twitter and follow Smith himself, @ThatKevinSmith, and ask him a question. Smith will be online for 24 hours on Monday, hosting his own marathon Q&A on Twitter.

Whatever you think of his movies, he's pretty funny in interviews (warning: strong language) ...

So think up some questions. We'll start with:

Really? That's the best you could write for Green Arrow?

Really? "Clerks II"?

Is that the Twitter birdie, or just Andrea Baker as a Bird of Night in a scene from the Royal Opera House's production of Dominique Le Gendre's "Bird of Night'' in London in 2006?

For those of you convinced that the downfall of civilization is being spread 140 characters at a time on Twitter, fear not. The Royal Opera House is looking to class things up with an opera authored by the people ... via Twitter

It probably won't be "Madame Butterfly," but it should be fun.

In an effort to get more people involved with opera, which sometimes suffers from an elitist, highbrow reputation, London's world-famous Royal Opera House is turning away -- temporarily -- from classic talents like Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini and giving the composer's pen to ... just about anybody.

We're working with the Twitterverse to create the storyline for a brand new opera, which will be performed throughout the weekend of Deloitte Ignite (4, 5, 6 September 2009). We're investigating how short, 140-character contributions can build upon each other to create a non-linear narrative - like a Choose Your Own Adventure story or a game of Consequences. Our mysterious opera director will be regularly blogging here with updates on the story, and as well as offering his thoughts on how the story can combine with some music and acting and marvellous singing to become a finished piece.

It's a very democratic approach -- the plot will be worked out by twitterers contributing one line at a time, then put to music by professionals -- but some harbor doubts about the quality of the work that will be performed in September.

"It's a gimmick, but not a malign gimmick" London music critic Norman Lebrecht said. "I wouldn't put too high hopes on it. It won't produce great opera." He said the use of Internet technology to concoct a collective work of art is not new -- but that success stories have been very rare.

That doesn't necessarily mean he's predicting a Fail Whale of operatic proportions, but he's certainly thinking a work of tragic proportions my be in order:

"In the earlier days of the Internet there were a number of collaborative novels, including some started by major writers, and none of them worked," he said.

Royal Opera House officials claim it will be the world's first "online opera story." Fans are contributing to the libretto line by line, their imaginations limited only by the Twitter format, which allows a maximum of 140 characters to be posted at a time.

Alison Duthie, director of ROH2, the Royal Opera House's contemporary program, said the use of Twitter is part of a wider effort to get more people interested in the art form.

"We wanted to engage with audiences in the creation of an opera," she said. "We felt it would be a good way to be interactive with the public and with audiences. We wanted to explore how to get people involved at a creative level."

"At the end of act 1, scene 1, our hero had been kidnapped by a flock of birds and is in a tower awaiting rescue," Duthie said. "That feels extremely operatic, people are really getting into the story line."

There is also a talking cat.

You can follow the submissions, cat and all, here.

"The Tonight Show" guru had a run at the banality of Twitter when it meets the mundane life of the stars on the microblogging service. Pretty great stuff - especially the SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY excitement level.

If you're on Twitter, you're probably familiar with "Follow Friday," or, more accurately, #followfriday. It's a nice way for people to get the word out on some good follows on the microblogging phenomenon.

Our Sun-Times stream, @suntimes, is always fortunate to get recommendations from many fine folks, but we usually don't do our own list for a couple of reasons:

At 9,000+ being followed, it would be impossible to do it well ...

It would take forever and require numerous, annoying to some, posts ...

There are only so many hours in the day.

So, with that in mind, I'll try to compile a weekly list of sorts in this space of some good streams, in no particular order. If you don't see yours, nothing personal, you probably just got lost in the shuffle. Shoot me a DM - or leave a comment here - and you'll likely get added.

So, without further ado ...

The race is on for another celebrity trying to rack up the hollow honor of reaching a certain number of Twitter followers. But this celebrity is different. This one craps in a litter box.

Sockington is now a full-fledged media star, having gathered 500,000 followers on Twitter and declaring a goal for 1 million. He tweets about his daily adventures in his Boston condo, about his cat naps, about the other cats who are clearly soooooo jealous of him.

Sockington, or "Socks" for short, is the cat of Jason Scott, a 38-year-old computer historian and computer administrator from Waltham, Mass. Since late 2007, Scott has been tweeting from Sockington's perspective -- and finding a "Socks Army" of followers. (Many of his followers are pets, too.)

Dogs and cats in social media isn't anything new. Many have made Facebook pages (there are applications for both "Dogbook" and "Catbook") and Web sites for their pets. The difference on Twitter is that the running thread of Sockington's feline commentary takes on the dimension of a comic strip. Scott has created a character with a particular voice by tweeting messages from Sockington's point of view like: "I must say no comment to the whole dining room incident. No questions please." "He's kind of functioning like a 'Garfield' comic," says Scott. "He's like the 21st century Garfield."

If you like tweets from crceatures who don't talk, try this one, too.

(Contributing: AP)

Looks like the folks at Super News on Current.com have come up with a sequel to their popular Twouble with Twitters video (THE FAIL WHALE!!!).

This time they take on the influx of celebrities on Twitter, particularly with Ashton Kutcher and Shaquille O'Neal hitting the million follower count recently. There's also a particularly funny shot at Jimmy Fallon, particularly if you just don't get his appeal. And there's a fun Diddy drinking game that only adds to the celebrity appeal.

And, of course, we can't forget Oprah has blessed the Twittershpere as well.

But aside from showing that their lives, at least on Twitter, are just as banal as the rest of us, what can we learn from really popular, rich people who reach down from the heavens to bless us with their wisdom - without the courtesy of a followback?

It goes beyond celebrities a bit and touches on the questions of popularity, usefulness and saturation that a lot of people are asking about Twitter now. Nevermind whether it can make money, can it be integrated into our society of communication and tweet on the fine line between essential tool and overkill?

The cover of Wilco's seventh album, "Wilco," streaming now on the band's site.

Update, 7:20 p.m. Stream of "Wilco" seems to be flowing again and the band releases a statement on the album leak.

Ahh, rainy days in Chicago. Perfect for zoning out at work and listening to some chill music, right?

What? You say you don't have any music for the day? Bored with all your current stuff? Well, lucky you.

It looks like Wilco's new album, Wilco (the Album), is now streaming for free on the band's Web site - though be patient as the whole world is trying to log on at this writing.

Wilco has long been a pretty fan-friendly band, but this is not a stream born of altruistic fan appreciation, apparently. It seems that the band is trying to thwart an overnight leak of the new album, controlling the release in a brilliant, lightning move that has them in charge of their content.

Late Wednesday they released this statement on the incident and their response:

Well, we made it nearly a month with copies of Wilco (the album) floating around out there before it leaked. Pretty impressive restraint in this day and age. But the inevitable happened last night. Since we know you're curious and probably have better things to do than scour the internet for a download (though we do understand the attraction of the illicit), we've posted a stream of the full album at http://wilcoworld.net/records/thealbum/ . Feel free to refer to it as "wilco (the stream)" if you must.

We also have our usual guilt abatement plan for downloaders. If you have downloaded the record, we suggest you make a donation to one of the band's favorite charities, the Inspiration Corporation -- an organization we've supported in the past & who are doing great work in the city of Chicago. Information and donation button here: http://inspirationcorp.org/.

That's all. Enjoy the stream. Tickets for summer shows, etc. http://wilcoworld.net/tours/ Note that we'll be holding a free online midnight screening of the "Ashes of American Flags" film this Friday night (at both midnight US Central time and again at midnight Pacific). So get the popcorn or whatever together and be sure to log on and tune in on Friday.

The news was broken on Twitter and even had at least one livetweet to a first listen of the album from @crumbler.

The physical album release is still tentatively scheduled for June 30 on Nonesuch and features a collaboration with Leslie Feist.

Here's the track listing, released Friday by the band for its seventh full studio album, 10th if you count the Woodie Guthrie-inspired "Mermaid Avenue" disks and the live "Kicking Television: Live in Chicago" album.

Deeper Down

One Wing

Bull Black Nova

You And I

You Never Know

Country Disappeared

Solitaire

I'll Fight

Sonny Feeling

Everlasting Everything

If you're having trouble getting the streaming album to load in the deluge of interest, here's a little 5-song set shot live at the Riviera in Chicago in December of 2007 as part of a benefit concert for then-candidate Barack Obama.

Wilco Live for Obama from Craig Newman on Vimeo.

Image from crunchgear.com.

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you!

It's not quite Cinco de Mayo. There's no special Corona beer ads and the level of boozing and vomiting in the streets is somewhat less pronounced, but there's still a holiday to celebrate every 4th of May when we all don our finest capes and channel the Force, best we know how.

There are movie marathons, costume parties and deep discussions of the Star Wars mythos and canons. Some people even get nerdy with it.

And, of course, you can get your Galaxy Far Far Away fix via Twitter. The The Force itself does not have a Twitter page yet - not a meaningful one, anyway - but you can get a joke a day from @starwarsjokes. Or, better yet, probe the mind of Darth Vader who has a wickedly dark (side) sense of humor tweeting as @darthvader. Here's a sample:

@LindaMcDoniel - The path to the Dark Side isn't a cake walk. Bullying kids out of their lunch money would be a good start though.

Can't tell if I have the swine flu or just need a fresh air filter cartridge

Just be glad I don't celebrate Earth Day the way I celebrated Alderaan Day.

Aaaah, I love the smell of dead rebels in the morning!

You can always figure out which character you are in real life - Jedi, Sith, bounty hunter or bantha fodder?

Or you could just sit back and enjoy Eddie Izzard's classic - and NSFW - take on life on the Death Star:

Naughty, Chewie! But, hey, according to the Supreme Court today, wardrobe malfunctions might be OK ...

Sure, it's Monday, and if you have a bad feeling about this, take heart: it's also "Star Wars" Day. This is a very unofficial holiday that grew out of a very bad pun -- declaring May 4 as "Star Wars" Day so lisping geeks could say, "May the fourth be with you."

To celebrate:

• Flip through our photo gallery of "Star Wars" stars ... where are they now?

• Staying home today? The president told you to call in sick, after all. Pull a hat down low over your face and head to the corner video store (we still have those, right?), and load up of the entire saga. Make a day of it. See how far you get into the prequels before feeling actually sick.

• Killing time at work? Bone up on your knowledge of "Star Wars" species, planets and various ephemera by perusing the Wookiepedia. Sample entry: "Lady Valarian was a female Whiphid from Toola who became a crime lord and Jabba Desilijic Tiure's main competitor on Tatooine." Score one geek point for each proper noun in that sentence you understand.

• Geek out on Twitter. The 'sphere is alive with "Star Wars" Day tweets.

• Stock up on party supplies for a "Star Wars" party. (Dig the Yoda-riffic thank-you notes -- "Thankful I am!")

• Fans of the Pawtucket Red Sox, Boston's triple-A affiliate team, celebrated "Star Wars" Day yesterday by attending the game in costume and watching Darth Vader himself throw out the first pitch.

• Start planning your vacation around another "Star Wars" day: On June 27, "Star Wars" fans will invade Disneyland, gathering for a group photo in front of the castle. All together now: "It's a Death Star, after all ..."

Relax. If you haven't seen the "Star Wars" films (all six of them) -- or, more likely, if you've only seen one or two or snatches of them on cable -- you're not alone. Enjoy this summary of the "Star Wars" saga by just such a person ...

Or, enjoy this video which retells the plot of the first "Star Wars" in 30 seconds ... and acted out by bunnies. (True geeks will notice that the laser and starship sound effects sampled in this video actually come from the original "Battlestar Galactica" TV series ...)

You could probably use a little music to get your day started right, maybe even some Twitter references since there's never enough mention of Twitter in the news these days.

Any reason we can't do both?

This tremendous bit of Twit Hop comes to us from Andy Milonakis and his musical collaborator K000l K0jak. You may remember Milonakis from his MTV show a few years back or from a few random sightings through the underbelly of pop culture. Anyway, he's gone to the trouble of making a halfway decent video slamming the ubiquity of Twitter, so why not watch? And don't worry, there's no mention of @Oprah.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go tweet about this because there's nothing I love more than being meta.

Friday night seems like the appropriate time for this soothing photo. It comes to us courtesy of Louisville, Ky.-based, graphic artist Lance Wilson. There's loads more of his vintage beer can collection available on his Flickr stream if you're interested. In fact, according to this post at the package design blog dieline.com, Wilson and his classmate, Dan Wilson, have about 2,000 of the things spanning 70 years of pop-top glory.

Here's to you, fellas!

Oh, and cheers to Oregon tweeter @jessefelder for sending an item on this.

Live Videos by Ustream

So you know how sometimes you'll be trolling the Internets, searching for the answers to life's deep questions? Well sometimes, friends, the Internets provide.

Snoop Dogg has a NSFW live show on Ustream - his wake-and-bake blowout. He sparks up, plays tunes, smokes weed, chats with his Twitter followers, hits the chronic and even does some occasional free-styling.

There's so many reasons to check this out - Snoop's easy humor, the fan questions and comments, the music - that you almost lose sight of the constant smoke billowing around the room. It's like being in the middle of a forest fire as the D-O-Double-G ceaselessly and unapologetically tokes on fat splifs.

And the vibe of the show? L-A-I-D back, of course.