This summer, there’s a veritable cavalcade of films coming out which take preestablished properties, and takes them to places seldom imagined by the original creators or fans. Two of these films, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Trek, look to take their respective franchises to heights yet unimagined. In the case of Star Trek, the series is being rebooted and reimagined for a new generation of audiences, with the hope of reigniting interest in the franchise beyond the hardcore fans. But, in the end, it’s still ultimately Trek: Kirk and Spock and Bones, transporters and phasers and warp engines. In the case of Transformers, the franchise bears nearly no resemblance to the cartoons and toys which inspired it. And that is a major problem.

Lately, there’s been serious discussion of a Robotech film, headed by Tobey MacGuire, who somehow obtained the rights to the film. You might recall this being discussed during a previous episode of the podcast. There’s been some traction to these rumors of the past few months, though nothing solid has formed. But the mere concept of a Hollywood version of a Robotech (Macross) adapation makes me shudder based on what Hollywood has done to franchises of the past.

Case 1? Transformers, as I alluded to earlier. A franchise beloved by twenty to thirty somethings, the ultimate result of Transformers on the big screen is something of a betrayal to the legacy of the cartoon. No longer were the Autobots simple vehicles, but crazy, over the top, overcomplicated transforming devices which transformed not for the sake of going in disguise, but for blowing out a CG budget. Optimus Prime went from being a noble leader to an overgrown, clumsy giant who used outdated slang.

Case 2? Speed Racer. While Speed Racer was never exactly realistic, it at least kept to an idea of racing that was somewhat familiar. The Wachowski Brothers took the kernal of the television series and turned it into…something else. No one was quite able to decipher what was going on, much less me.

Hollywood seems to be incapable of comprehending what made the franchises they adapt so endearing and engaging in the first place. The reimaginings seem to be more for the purpose of presenting a package to an (assumed to be) idiotic consumer with no idea of what the source franchise is or what made it great in the first place.

An example of a reimagined property done right, which several point to as one of the best franchises of all time, is Battlestar Galactica. While the creators of the new television series didn’t necessarily adhere closely to the source material, much in the same way Michael Bay didn’t, this was overlooked for the fact that the new franchise was excellent. It didn’t dumb down the roots of the franchise, but rather smartened it up, made it mature and gritty and worthwhile in its departures from its roots.

If Hollywood has anymore childhood franchises it looks to acquire, it must be painstakingly clear to everyone involved: make it clear you understand the audience of the franchise you’re pulling from, and if you make dramatic changes to the franchise in question, don’t dumb things down, but play up the intelligence factor. We’re not dumb.

CommentsArticles, Feature Article disaster, Hollywood, idiocy, movies, reimagine, remakes, Speed Racer, Star Trek, Transformers

Over the weekend, a post was made over at io9 asking what happened to the cheerful optimism of science fiction past. The essay points out that, indeed, in order for science fiction to viewed as “high brow” and serious, science fiction must portray the future as a dour, bleak vision with no concept of the clean, sterile vision the Star Trek’s of years past held. A key component of to these visions of the future is the period when they were conceived. Star Trek is a product of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear war threatened daily life. Yet, there was endearing hope and optimism about the future, and that permeates throughout the entirety of Roddenberry’s vision of the future.

Fast forward nearly fifty years, and optimism and hope seem like worn out cliches. The advancements so craved in the Cold War never came, and humanity still struggles with nearly all of the problems presented before us decades earlier. Battlestar Galactica acts as a barometer of where we stand as a culture, with no possibility or hope for a clean, sanitized future.

Science fiction as a cultural artifact also allows for analysis of broader cultural attitudes. Consider the Western and Eastern views on a touchstone of science fiction: robots and artificial intelligence. In general, Western civilization regards these topics with fear and suspicion, as reflected in films such as Terminator and A.I. Artificial life is regarded as something be suspicious of, since it is unnatural and different from us. In contrast, Eastern civilization, specifically, the anime of Japan, take a diametrically opposite stance on robots and AI from Western counterparts. Consider giant mecha shows such as Gundam and Macross: robots in these series are regarded not with malice (specifically), but as tools for furthering the progress and enhancement of lifestyle for man. It should come as no surprise that many of the advancements for the practical implementation of robots in our daily life are in fact, coming from Japan.

At the end of the day, it all comes back to a single central tenet: science fiction is the best method for describing life and times during a single snapshot of history. The Day the Earth Stood Still demonstrated the absurdity of the Red Scare of the 1950’s, Star Trek conveyed the optimism and hope of the 1960’s, and Battlestar Galactica encapsulated the doom and gloom misery of the post-9/11 era. Science fiction remains the enduring barometer for where our culture has been, where it is at the current moment, and where it’ll be heading in the future.

CommentsArticles, Feature Article battlestar galactica, commentary, culture, hopemania, science fiction, Star Trek

This past Friday, I, as many geeks did, tuned in for the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. It’s a seminal show in the history of science fiction, and television in general. It possessed a message, and narrative style which few shows like it have been able to achieve. It deviated from previous portrayals of science fiction with a gritty, dirty environment (much in the way Firefly before it did, but that’s another discussion for another day) and characters who were more human and emotional than what is found on “reality” show which dominate the airwaves today.

Battlestar Galactica drew much ire from fans of the original 1978 series, having little to do with it beyond common names and beginning narrative structure. The miniseries was criticized for being a bit too brutal, and at various points throughout the series, some moments were called upon as being far to gruesome/black for what was necessary from the series at the time.

But when Galactica shone, it was brighter than any other show on television. BSG and its writers were able to take the stories and themes of the current day and were able to apply them is a timeless, intelligent manner is something which is not done very often in television. While at times some of BSG might have gotten roundabout and nonsensical (Kara Thrace can’t die? Head Cylons?), there was always the strong base of great writing and great acting to fall back upon.

Battlestar Galactica accomplished something truly rare for science fiction, by making it appeal across the board to nongeeks and geeks alike. I will miss watching it weekly, sharing it with others (the night of the finale, I was in a UStream chat room, watching people watch BSG while I was watching BSG), and indulging in the end of a fantastic show which had become significant to me.

So say we all!

CommentsArticles, Feature Article adama, battlestar galactica, cylon, finale, head cylon, science fiction, sexy robots, so say we all, television, toasters, vipers

I’ve found that there are many different kinds of consumers out there. There are the consumers like my dad: slow to make purchases, constantly researching and studying the safety issues and mulling over his purchases. Then there are consumers like me: quick purchases, few possessions, but once I find a company or brand I enjoy I stick to it with a jealous loyalty.

There are a few brands and companies that I live by and try to evangelize on a daily basis. One of them is Zappos which I would consider to be the absolute best online shoe/clothing retailer I’ve ever used. Their customer service is amazing and their selection is fantastic. I love interacting with any (and every) employee I’ve had the chance to speak with. The company really gets what makes customers enjoy the experience of online shopping (speed) and what makes customers enjoy the instore shopping experience (excellent/quick customer service). Because of my past with Zappos, I’ll promote them until they’ve really messed up. I’ll choose to buy shoes there even when they might be a little cheaper at a store (rare). That’s just the kind of consumer I am. I love Zappos and I want you to know it.

I’m a diehard brand loyalist. There aren’t many of us around these days. My mother wasn’t one. She would get the sales papers from ten different stores if it meant she got the best deal for whatever it was she needed, regardless of the sliding scale of quality that sometimes accompanied the cheaper price. My friends —mostly college students— buy what they can afford and do so on a whim. They are also easy to sway.

I regularly evangelize brands to my friends and they easily take heed of my advice. They are easily swayed because they have no definitive opinion on the subject…and I am convincing. I am the type of consumer that brands should target much more often. I have the benefit of trust that big companies and corporations don’t and I exercise that trust to push my brand loyalty agenda. Is this wrong? Am I straddling some invisible moral line or am I just helping others find value in the things I value?

CommentsFeature Article brand loyalist, brand loyalty, branding, customer service, online shopping, shopping, zappos

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Hereby referred to as Terminator, T:TSCC or TSCC to save my fingers) was a pilot which was poorly received universally. By Terminator fans, by The Totally Rad Show guys, and me. The plot seemed cheesy, the acting and casting seemed awful, and the writing seemed convoluted and boring. So, I gave up on the show, and moved on to other pursuits.

Then, this past winter, I found myself languishing with nothing to do, and nothing to watch. Battlestar Galactica was coming, but it was a few weeks away yet. Dollhouse was coming, too, but I was unsure about the prospects it held. Digging into Hulu, I saw that episodes of Terminator were still up. So, I decided, why not, I’ll give the show a chance, I’m a fan of the Terminator franchise (mostly).

I am so glad I went out on a limb.

The Terminator franchise is one which has a lot of complex ideas occurring simultaneously. First, the idea of a killer robot which is unrelenting, unyielding and unstoppable at accomplishing its mission. Next, the time travel mechanism, which brings all sorts of questions of causality and impact which are deliciously complex. And finally, the very human stories of unrequited love, relationships and family. While the films do an excellent job of demonstrating these themes, they can never really be properly explained in a two hour film format. This is where TSCC really shines.

What we are faced with in TSCC is Sarah Connor, a mother who has spent the better part of her adult life living in fear of an enemy which doesn’t exist yet, which she spends her life preparing her son for. John Connor, who is destined to become a great leader and savior of mankind, but right now exists as a petulant teenager living a lonely life where his only company are those who know the man who he will become, but not who he is now. Derek Reese, a man who has seen horrors and suffering, and spends his days trying to steer the world away from what he has lived through. And Cameron Phillips, a Terminator in the vein of the Arnold Schwarzenegger character in Terminator 2, a machine designed to kill the people she is now assigned to protect, a variable and wildcard who might be set off at any time.

TSCC is great because it takes what makes the Terminator franchise so good and stretches it out into a medium which is better suited for its type of story. The films dealt with moments in time, when Skynet decided to alter its future by sending back implements of destruction. TSCC deals with Skynet going beyond simple killing, and using subterfuge to ensure its survival and strength in the future. It deals with elements of time travel and causation that make the geek in me giggle with glee. One particularly great episode takes a Terminator who traveled too far back into the past, killing a man who was supposed to build a tower where Skynet planned an assassination. So, the Terminator takes steps to ensure the tower will be built so that 80 years into the future, it can kill its target.

There are wonderful stories to be told in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and there is real potential to get one of the best series of all time, drawn from one of the best franchises of all time. It starts with people being willing to take a chance. So, I make my plea, here, to the Geek Troika audience: get your hands on whatever TSCC stuff you can and watch it. Tell your friends. Watch TSCC, and, I promise, you will NOT be disappointed.

CommentsArticles, Feature Article film, machine, schwarzenegger, series, SkyNet, television, terminator, the sarah connor chronicles, tv

Last night was the Super Bowl. A spectacular Super Bowl at that. And while we here at Geek Troika don’t necessarily always cover sports with any sort of regularity, sports still falls underneath the category of “entertainment”, which does mean we are somewhat obliged to cover it. I know I am probably the biggest sports geek of the bunch of us, following everything from football, football (or futbol, depending on where you’re from), baseball and basketball. I know Mattie is a big fan of hockey and baseball (as she has stated previously on this very blog!), and I’m not entirely sure where Jon sits on the scale of things.

Anyhow.

The Super Bowl has always struck me as an anomaly in regards to sports from the global scale. Effectively, every other major sport covered in the United States has a sizable to huge following other places in the world. Baseball, the national past time, has taken a feverish grip in the Latin American nations, as well as Japan. Hockey, while not a purely “American” sport, still has its largest venue in the United States, but is prolific in Canada and the Slavic nations. And, basketball has spread on a global scale to where serious discussions have been held for establishing an NBA team in London or China.

Which brings us back to (American) football and the Super Bowl last night. The Super Bowl is a remarkable event because it regularly is among the highest screen share ratings of any other day, making it a magnet for advertisers seeking to display a product. Despite the fact that football is a largely American focused and American digested sport, by the time the Super Bowl rolls around, it is broadcast to nations across the world, and followed with a fever pitch.

I’ve considered many times exactly why this is, and I’ve determined that the Super Bowl is more than just a simple football game. From m own experiences as a child, I hardly knew what football was outside of the Super Bowl. Coming from a family where the concept of sports is incredibly foreign, I spent at least until the age of 10 thinking that the only football game played all year was the Super Bowl. What draws people with such an explicit lack of knowledge to what amounts to a highly regionalized, highly specialized form of entertainment?

Several factors, I would say. First, as I mentioned previously, the advertising. Because advertisers are aware of the eyeballs they hold under their sway, more effort is put into creating a memorable message which drives people to products. Secondly, the event which surrounds the Super Bowl supersedes the game itself. It’s almost like a holiday, bringing people together and all of that warm happy stuff. Sort of like Thanksgiving, but with fewer birds, a lot more alcohol, and some chillier weather thrown in.

So, I’m sure you’re wondering after reading all of this, what the HECK does any of this have to do with geek culture or anything at all? Well, looking back on the Super Bowl party I went to yesterday, half of the game playing Rock Band, going nuts over the movie trailers which played (Did you SEE the Transformers trailer?!), and generally having a good time. You see, the Super Bowl is a great unifier. It’s not just for sports fiends, it’s for geeks, kids, mothers and fathers and everyone.

Hope you all had a great Super Bowl Sunday!

CommentsArticles, Feature Article advertising, Canada, football, futbol, globalization, party, sports, super bowl, Transformers, US Sports

Recently, it has come to our attention here at Geek Troika that people enjoy having things read to them. Why exactly? Is there some root in childhood memories of your parents (or grandparents, or any sort of beloved adult figure in your life) reading bedtime stories to you, or the story time circles from kindergarten? Bah, look at me, I’ve started describing things from the second person position, that’s never good. The point here is that people absorb information in a wide variety of methods. Some pass by fine with text on paper or screen. Others make due with pictures and video. To date, audio has been sort of an outmoded medium of conveying current events and news, especially with regards to highly segmented interests which the Internet has become especially famous for catering to, via news feeds and other methods.

Obviously, it’s impossible to expect a monthly, daily, hourly audio summary of current events, especially with the manner the news cycle has evolved to with updates and reports coming in virtually every second. A few possible audio solutions have come to the attention of us here at Geek Troika, and we thought that a brief introduction to two of these methods would be an insight to where we might be headed with how we consume our news. The main differentiator of these two services from other types of news aggregation methods is that both utilize computer generated audio to read information to you, some more commonly used to say funny phrases like “U R HOT” or any number of cuss words back when computers could first do that sort of thing. Or, at least, I did.

The first service for review purposes which I investigated was PimpMyNews, which takes various news feeds and blogs of your specification, bundles them together, and has a synthesized voice read it to you in a daily podcast. This recommendation came to us by the way of Geek Troika listener Phillip (aka @infoliberation), a user of the service. So, going by his info (har har, I made a pun) I proceeded to sign up for the service and subscribe to some feeds. The selection of news offerings was rather impressive, from many I knew, and several I did not. Most mainstream news sources are supported, and many blogs which I follow on a regular basis were also included as part of the selection process.

The first stumbling block, for me, came in the limit PimpMyNews sets on how many news sources you can subscribe to at once. For your given feed, you can only select ten news sources to hear from on a daily basis. Furthermore, there isn’t any ability to really parse down the content from these sources on your own, so you are completely reliant upon what PimpMyNews chooses to put in your feed. A feature I would like to see the service develop would be subscribe to any number of feeds, and perhaps rotate what sources your hear from each day. For example, I always want a mix of tech, headlines, politics an celebrity news, but the ten sources for this topics would rotate between a predetermined set which I would have specified. Or, the ability to subscribe to tags from certain sources for a particular area of interest (PS3 news, Apple, etc.).

Second: the interface. Ideally, you’ll only have to interact with the interface of PimpMyNews once, because it is very, very annoying to use. Each time I clicked to navigate to a different topic to see which blogs and websites were included, the page refreshed and collapsed the previous topic I was looking at (even if I didn’t want it to). This was annoying to no end to me. I wanted to see if the same blogs under “Gadgets” would also be in “Tech”, and there was no efficient method of doing this! Worse yet, everything I clicked to “subscribe” to a new blog, the entire topic list collapsed down and I was forced to dig through to find exactly what I needed.

Finally, once I had selected all of the blogs I wanted, and subscribed to the iTunes feed PimpMyNews has prepared for me, I waited and was delivered my news stories. And, here’s the surprising fact after all was said and done: it was a pretty damn good service. I thought my biggest problem with PimpMyNews would be the awful mechanical voice which would mispronounce things and speak with the sort of awful cadence that AI voices tend to speak with, but, I was wrong. The narration came out pretty smoothly, and there were very few mispronunciations. The problem, of course, with PimpMyNews, is that there is always something lacking when it comes to getting across written humor into spoken word by something which doesn’t recognized wry wit, sarcasm, and just plain silliness. A sarcastic point which garners a few chuckles while reading text comes across almost uncomfortable when recited by the PimpMyNews audio bots.

Ultimately, I would recommend PimpMyNews to those who don’t really like podcasts, because discussions get tangential and they don’t agree with the personalities of the hosts (Tangential? Personalities of hosts? What does that sound like?) but still enjoy hearing news in the spoken form. I know that sounds contradictory, but it makes sense when you consider that most podcasts are limited in their focus, cover a limited amount of news, and in most cases are released on an infrequent basis (for the pace of the current news cycle, anyway). PimpMyNews allows you to be current, the best advantage of text services, while still retaining the ease of hearing spoken word (you can’t always read when driving, for instance).

The second spoken word service which I checkout was HearPlanet (iTunes store link), an application for the iPhone/iPod touch. HearPlanet combines a whole bunch of things together in one app: location based services, Wikipedia, and spoken word. Basically, the way it works is almost like one of those personal speakers available in museums, which explains the history and details about the various items in front of you. HearPlanet works much in the same way, but with location allowing for different experiences every time you use it. The marketing for HearPlanet plays it as “the world’s first talking travel guide for your cellphone!” I can easily see HearPlanet for this application, especially since it works worldwide. I used HearPlanet just sitting in my house, and I learned all sorts of cool little facts about the immediate area. I’m looking forward to taking it to a city with a little more historical depth (New York, Philadelphia), taking a bus ride around town, and just digging through HearPlanet to learn facts I didn’t know before.

The drawback to HearPlanet is that the mechanical voice is worse then that on PimpMyNews, which can make it much more difficult to sit and listen to things as local roads and monuments which this voice butchers. HearPlanet needs much more refinement on the specific spoken word program they utilize, or perhaps that’s something at a high level which needs to be corrected, but for now, it’s bearable considering how well HearPlanet it able to integrate location with relevant information. It’s reasons like this I’m happy my phone has GPS. HearPlanet WAS a paid application, but since MacWorld 2009, it has been free. If you have an iPhone/iPod touch, I would recommend you snatch it up while you have the chance.

Overall, spoken word services boil down to how good the mechanical voices speaking to you is tolerable or not. Obviously, I have some problems with these voices, but I can bear through it. Before you delve too deeply into any service like this, take the time to see if you enjoy the way these voices sound. It takes a lot to jump from naturally spoken word to mechanically spoken.

CommentsArticles, Feature Article app, audio, computer generated, Hear Planet, iPhone, PimpMyNews.com, Podcast, review

A quick side note before I post: whew, new name, new focus, new everything! How exciting!

Anyway.

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding “touch screens” for the last few years. Obviously, when the iPhone came around, there was nothing but chatter surrounding touch screens, and every cell phone company and their mother attempted to compete (read: clone) the same type of touch screen interaction. At the same time, the hype surrounding massive touch screen devices (read: Microsoft Surface) has also started accumulating, with mostly commercial scale deployments being the focus of these types of devices. Touch screens have seemingly become the new way people search to interact with technology.

Which brings us to today. HP has recently launched their line of TouchSmart computers, which have fairly large touch screens, with a few layers of polish laid on top to allow for some neat tricks with a touch screen interface. And while reviews have been positive, the TouchSmart hasn’t really been a hit. Along the same track, Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has been in development making a low cost Internet tablet, 12″ large, to view web pages, stream music, and generally allow users to engage in day to day activities. But I’m feeling indifferent to the presentation of the device which has been documented thus far.

Why is this a problem? Why is it there is resistance to “touch” devices which we don’t carry in our pockets or use in a large room? I think there’s a limit to the scale which touch screen devices can be implemented. Either devices have to be small enough that they can be operated with the lowest amount of input possible, or they have to be large enough that input is not a significant chore. In the case of small form devices like a phone, input can be done primarily with two fingers, which is easy and intuitive enough that users aren’t hampered by the size of the device. The main type of input is obviously typing, which, on a small screen, is relatively easy. To simulate a full blown qwerty keyboard, to be used by all 10 fingers, is a much more difficult task, especially depending on screen size.

Some of the worst experiences I had with the HP TouchSmart computers was attempting to use the on-screen keyboard to accomplish anything. It was just impossible. The keyboard was too small, too impercise, too kludgy to be useful. Yes, the TouchSmart had a keyboard, but with the idea of the device to be that you’re primarily using the touch screen for interaction, it seemed counter intuitive to me.

This is probably where a large scale touch screen device like the Microsoft Surface would come in and become a winner. Because the screen is so large, it demands that it cannot be oriented the same as the TouchSmart. Every Surface demonstration has been on a horizontal axis which the user looks down upon. This allows the user to use the touch screen to enter input, while keeping focus on the other information on screen. This is the most important consideration which must be given to touch screen devices: the largest and smallest of these devices are best used not from the traditional vertical angle we are used to seeing screens from, but from the horizontal angle, looking down upon them.

So, if the world really is to become a touch screen only world, I think we had all better get used to sitting with our eyes down, hunched over, and developing some humps in our backs. Otherwise, the good old keyboard and mouse combo will be sticking around for a long time. Postures across the world depend on it.

CommentsArticles, Feature Article HCI, human computer interaction, Microsoft Surface, tablet, touch screen

Palm’s spiffy new smartphone, the Pre, has been the real buzz device of CES this year. What a surprise for Palm who has been slipping further and further into obscurity in the smart phone game! There are only a few factors I can see that will be major roadblocks to the Palm Pre becoming a popular smartphone. The tarnished brand identity of Palm will surely make your average smartphone user a little dubious of the device and with the new Blackberry Storm, iPhone and G1 is there room for another device? Especially one with a brand new OS?

Palm was once the great powerhouse of handheld devices. The term “Palm Pilot” was a ubiquitous term for pocket computer. Now Palm has faded to the background with devices from Apple lording themselves over all the other smart devices. Palm’s brand identity is that of an old and tired company that’s behind the times. Palm’s OS has not really stood the test of time. Its application marketplace is limited and new apps aren’t being written for the Palm OS very much. User experience is not as peachy as with other devices that can do more because of their own app market. The Palm OS is dead.

But now Palm has a new OS! (Yay!) One with nifty new adjective attached to it: Open Source. Opening up the OS could be a last ditch effort by Palm to make itself desireable to the market or it could be a strong move toward better business waters. Either way, I’m happy. As Mike mentioned, this new OS has a fantastic new feature called Synergy. Synergy pools contact info from multiple locations (Facebook, Google, Outlook) and lets you view it in one central location. I’m surprised it’s taken THIS LONG for a feature like this to come around. So much for Apple knowing what everyone wants before they want it…

Palm has an uphill battle and it’s not going to be any easier than it is right now with all this CES hype surrounding it. Good luck to you, Palm.

CommentsFeature Article CES, gadgets, palm, palm pilot, palm pre, tech

In Episode 8 of the podcast, I brought up Mr. Tweet as my pick of the week. I explained how the service worked and then ended my spiel unsure of how useful the information presented actually was. It seemed like data I could use, but it didn’t really strike me as all too integral to my twitter experience over all. And then I read some others’ comments on the service and how it really only gave them twitter celebrities to follow based on their information. After futzing around with the site some more afterward, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s usefulness really “depends.”

From the get-go, Mr. Tweet claims to look “through your extended network to help you build effective relationships on Twitter” by making suggestions on who of your followers you should be following back, as well as the influential people you should be following. When you get the data back (after a fairly lengthy time frame), you’ll notice that the most useful information is on the right hand side. The “Characteristics” section quickly explains whether or not the people listed are “worth following.”

For example: If I see that someone barely replies or follows back, I assume that they’re using twitter just to get follow numbers or they aren’t really using the service the way it was meant to be used. So, I don’t follow them. If I see that someone posts on average one to two posts a day, they’re probably not someone I’d be all that interested in following, either. But I’m not entirely sure, and that’s where another feature of Mr. Tweet becomes real handy.

Underneath the person’s username, there’s a list of people who follow said user. Usually this is a list of twitter celebrities or important people within your own network who find this person interesting enough to follow back. Clearly, if they think this person is worth following, you might think so too. This is essentially how Mr. Tweet operates. It gives you a bunch of information in the hopes of connecting you to more people based on your network.

And this is where the “depends” comes in. Based off of my experience with the service, unless you have a varied group of people you follow, the results might not be all that helpful. Before I signed up for the service, I was following roughly 320 people or so. After the report came back, I started following a “few” more people, but not all that many. A lot of my results were people claiming to be SEOs, or marketers trying to make it in the “business.” I had to weed through a lot of that to find people I was interested in following. Chances are, you’ll have more or less of that.

There’s another part of the site that tries to show you if there’s followers that you should be following back, but it does nothing to explain whether or not they’re spammers or not. In fact, one of the people they suggested I follow had their account suspended, so I couldn’t follow them back even if I wanted. And I couldn’t decipher, based off the data they returned, whether some of the other people that followed me were worth it.

It should be noted that Mr. Tweet is a relatively new service. Naturally, things will change over time. If you plan on using it, just keep what I said in mind. It might help you find a lot of new and exciting people to follow, or it might just give you a copious list of SEOs to follow. It might help you sniff out the spammers versus the genuine people, or it might not. It all “depends.”

Did you try the service? What do you think? E-mail me or join the discussion in the comments.

CommentsFeature Article extended network, Mr. Tweet, twitter, twitter celebrities