christopher cocca

A few days ago, I saw someone in public that I only know in a blog way.  That was a first. Has that ever happened to you?  This wasn’t a famous person, just a person I recognized (from some context) as a blogger I sometimes read and follow on twitter.  This reminded me of Nick Currie’s supposed recasting of Andy Warhol’s  fame meme.  Currie (you may know him as Momus) is apparently among the first to say something like “in the future/on the web, everyone will be famous to 15 people.”

I missed this post in my roundup of writer/blogger friends recently talking about twitter.  Richard offers yet another insight into the utility of the platform.  And it’s his areoplane.

Two blog friends have recent posts (here, here, and here) about the usefulness of Twitter.  Tara Lazar’s posts focus on Twitter as tool for writers, and Dan Scott is talking about professional/personal networking and idea sharing (and of course, these things all overlap).  A few months ago I explained how I’m using the application:WordPress updates Twitter whenever I post a new blog, and the subsequent tweet automatically updates my facebook status.  I also use the account for occasional microfiction and micrononfiction (TwitLit).  

Dan has a cool video by Common Craft that explains the basics for the uninitiated.  While this focuses on Twitter as a sort of social glue or digital third place between blogs and emails, creative approaches (like the ones being used by wirters) abound.  Even though Twitter’s been around for a few years, it seems like it’s everywhere right now.  It think it’ll get even bigger this year.

I won’t get the time I spent retooling my myspace page back, but that’s okay.  Almost making up for it is my laterally connected discovery of TwitterFeed.  (Specail thanks to Laura G).

I originally set my twitter account up to tweet extremely short original material (twitlit) to followers.  That’s still a goal, but I’m also using TwitterFeed (a free third party service) to tweet every update from this blog, which also automatically updates my status in facebook via the facebook twitter app.   So, by hitting the “publish” button here on wordpress, I update twitter followers and facebook friends about new blog content without having to do anything else manually.  I can also write wordpress posts from within facebook using the wordpress app, making facebook that much more worthwhile.   I can update wordpress, twitter, and facebook all in the same second and from the same interface; this is what I mean when I say facebook is the lived-in house to myspace’s observational gallery.

Also, I love Chinese Democracy.  Expect much more on that later.   “And to those opposed…,”  just remember that Appetite II would have been just as ridiculous as Use Your Illusion III. And we’ve already had Contraband and Libertad…

Taking a page from Nathan Key, I’ve set up a top-level domain that I’m managing through Weebly.  I wanted something simple and elegant that had quick links to my work on the web and to my social networking profiles. The result is christophercocca.net.

This WordPress (christophercocca.wordpress.com) blog will continue to be my main blog, and “Writing Like It’s 1980” is a chance for me to use other parts of my brain.

Become a fan of this blog here. 

It’s cool that facebook has something like this; there often aren’t good options for writers from a social networking standpoint. the Six Sentences network on ning is also an exception. 

Rob McEvily might be the hardest working man in micro lit.  His Six Sentences project has taken off to some very cool levels, including a print anthology, art work based on various sixes and now a social network for 6s writers and their fans.  Check it out.