The Industry Review

Ancient PC

This post was partially inspired by Darren Williger’s keynote speech at Social Media 201.

 
Despite the fact it’s a common perception that social media is a new phenomenon, it’s actually far from. Both Darren and myself have been using the Internet since the 80s. We ran a small competition: turns out that if you Google us, the earliest result is mine (from 1989!) though Darren was active online about 2-3 years before I was. So it’s a draw ;-).

 
Back then the online world was very different. In the mid 80s BBSs (Bulletin board systems) were what we all used. These were phone-based systems, usually run by individuals, though some companies had their own, that enabled people to connect using dial-up modems. They were infinitely slower than today’s internet, and all text based, but they were awesome!

 
BBSs included forums, multiplayer games (though not real time ones), downloadable computer games (yep, some two decades before Bittorrent) and a lot more. In other words, we all interacted, and much of the content was user generated. Sounds to me a lot like…social Media and Web 2.0. Of course, this wasn’t Web 2.0 because this was almost a decade before the World Wide Web (Web 1.0?) was created! Though BBSs weren’t a part of the internet, they offered much of what the internet could offer at the time.

 
When I first starting using the internet, in 1987 or 1988 (I need to figure this out one day…), I stopped using BBSs. The internet had so much potential! My friends and I actually didn’t refer to it as the internet back then but rather as the Bitnet (which was always a subset of the internet but was separately accessible at the time). When I look at old emails that are archived online, we actually referred to the internet as the InterNet. How quaint! Amusingly, there was a local news story about us at the time: “Local teenagers chat with people all over the world using computers”. It sounds ridiculous now, but it was very “exotic” back then.

 
Bitnet email accounts were very simple: mine was nyschles@weizmann (yeah, no .com, .net or whatever). The internet equivalent was nyschles@weizmann.weizmann.ac.il though I rarely used it at the time.

 
Not long after I had my first chat (using Relay – the ancestor of IRC which itself had a multiple offspring from multiple “wives”: chat rooms, various messengers – even chat roulette). I was introduced to a radical concept called MUDs (Multi User Domains). MUDs are the prehistoric ancestors of massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest and Ultima Online. There were several variations of the concept: some were created for social interaction (the modern equivalent is Second Life), other for gaming, etc.

 
MUDs were just as fun as modern games, despite the fact that the vast majority were text based. However, in a way they were far superior to even the most modern of these games. How so?

 
The type of MUD I used was called an LPMud. This was a classic multiplayer online game: once you registered, you were given a character that would have to fight monsters and get experience points to advance in levels. Depending on the MUD itself (there were hundreds, all run by individuals and as far as I know, hosted at universities), you could choose a class (i.e. a wizard, a druid, a fighter), have spells, and a do whole lot of different things. I’m sure this sounds very similar to anyone who has played World of Warcraft or similar games.

 
The difference is – and that is a huge, enormous difference – is that all MUDs were based on user generated content.

 
Once a character reached his 20th level and has done his share of quests, he became a “Wizard”. Wizards weren’t players anymore.. but were more like MUD administrators. Each was given permission to program a part of the MUD – his domain. Most Wizards created an area with a theme: I remember Castle Dracula, Sesame Street, Star wars, and basically everything you can imagine.

 
User generated content? Web 2.0? in the late 80s?! These terms were used long after these events despite the fact this was decades before they became mainstream.

 
Even today, you still can’t do the equivalent with games such as World of Warcraft (though I do remember that a few years ago, a group of people was able to successfully replicate EverQuest’s framework and protocols and effectively recreated a home-brew version without Sony’s permission).

 
It may really surprise people who started using computers when the internet was already ubiquitous, but back then, things were just as fun despite the technological limitations. There was no spam either!

 
I hope you found this history lesson interesting ;). Although this post can be read on its own, I gave it for a reason – in order to be able to share an event that took place at the time. Read my next posts for more details.

 
Here are links to the other parts.
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: The Sting (Part 2 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: Cybercrime (Part 3 of 4)
The Prehistoric Times of Social Media: Crime and Punishment (Part 4 of 4)

Turns out that in fact there was a problem with the commenting system of my blog. About 20% of the comments got through, the rest encountered an error message and are gone.  I’m not sure why this happened now…

Please let me know if you get any error when trying to leave a comment – send me a quick note to udi [at ] u-labs.net. This will be much appreciated!

As part of my attempt to resolve this, I updated all my plugins. And as a result it seems all my Facebook likes vanished. Great…

It seems something is wrong with the commenting mechanism. I already got two people telling me they were unable to leave comments. Could you let me know if this happens to you? Either at Twitter: @uschles, or by email? Udi [at] U-labs.net.

 
Seems to be working fine when I try it….

Me and my son, taking a nap

This is a bit different from what I normally discuss here.

 
A few years ago, while I was still employed, the thing I hated the most about the jobs I held was the rigidity of the work schedule. Even though many workplaces brag about their flexibility, and I worked in at least two such places, in practice neither was flexible. In fact, one was the most rigid place I ever worked at: it’s very easy for a company to claim it offers flexible hours as a perk but put so many conditions that in practice it’s impossible.

 
I remember thinking: if only I can get 2-3 hours a week where I come late to work and leave much later to make up for this time, that would be perfect – then I could go see the occasional movie without requiring a babysitter, see doctors if I need to without having to describe my ailments to my boss, etc. But even that was frowned upon. Why? I suspect because if I did this, then my colleagues would be jealous and would resent me and/or my boss. Alternatively, they would want to do this too. And if everybody did this.. well, most companies don’t really want flexible schedules… it’s just a method of enticing people to come work for them.

 
Another point: even though I heard of people working in 9 to 5 jobs, I never had such a job in my entire life. Ever. It’s probably a matter of industry, but the vast majority of jobs I held required at least a 9 to 7 workday, sometimes a lot more. With this type of work day, often there were days I would not see my son at all: I’d leave when he’d still be asleep, and return when he’s asleep. What’s the point of working if you don’t get to enjoy the after hours?

 
Therefore, when I started my own company, one of my primary goals was to work when I want to. If I want to go see a movie, then I go. If I want to take a nap, I can. Of course, there are always limitations (clients, meetings, etc) but still this was my goal. Note that this requires discipline – something that is actually harder than it sounds, but is definitely possible.

 
So I did it. I structured my entire workday in a bizarre way. Specifically, I work around my family’s hours: whenever my son & wife are at home, I am with them. When they go to sleep, I start working again. This results in two shifts: a day shift (10:30am – 6pm) and a night shift (10:30pm – 4-5am). I know I don’t have to work so much, but since there’s so many things I want to do or learn, I feel I need this time.

 
At first I didn’t like working after 1am… but I got used to it. It’s quiet.. no one calls. Now there are days I finish everything I planned to do at 3:30am but still pass time for an hour or more (sometimes just chat or watch videos). I once collaborated with a team who had a similar work schedule, so often we’d have conference chats at 4am – which was admittedly bit strange (even though I do work at these hours, I’m definitely not at my best).

 
I also nap quite often during the day. I think companies would have much more productive employees – not to mention happier ones – if they allowed an optional 30-60 minute nap during the day – even demand that employees work late if they choose this. I find that napping really refreshes me.

 
I’m curious: if you’re self employed, how do you manage your time? What do you allow yourself to do that you wouldn’t in an ordinary job? And if you’re not self employed, what would you like to have as a perfect work day?

Somehow often my best posts involve videos by Darren Williger. Darren created a “behind the scenes” video summarizing our experiences at Social Media 201 which I just had to share (my own perspective is described in this post).

 
I barely appear in this video (fine with me!), part of because Darren’s camera had a hiccup during my talk.. and when I do appear, from some reason I’m whispering (not sure what was going through my mind…). Also featured are Darren, Bille Baty, Jeff Dance, Joe Kennedy, Eric Weaver, Kris Ruby – and even the SeattleWineGal.

I’ve been doing internet marketing for quite a while, and I can say, I’ve never seen an industry that changes so quickly. Every month there is something new, every month brings a big – sometimes a game changer – event.

 
Unsurprisingly, there is always a wave of internet marketers, product creators, that attempt to benefit from it. Although many marketers create products that genuinely provide value, there are the others who just create something, often without any meaningful understanding of the topic, in order to benefit from the wake of the fad.

 
What both frustrates and excites me is that these changes tend to affect the behavior of online marketers, and in turn, this usually affects the market itself… which affects marketers once again. This is probably why these new fads emerge in the first place. (Ok, I don’t want to lose you now, but this actually relates to my Ph.D. thesis which dealt with interactions that take place between various levels of complex systems… in this case, the market is a hierarchical complex system. But never mind..)

 
Forgive me if I got the time-frames slightly wrong.

 
In October 2009 it was all about PPV (CPV – cost per view) advertising. I don’t know how many courses and products were released in a short span. The result? Not only a large number of people started doing PPV advertising, but also, the biggest PPV network, TrafficVance, became extremely selective about accepting new advertisers, despite the fact its policies already required that new advertisers bring 2 referrals (!) and a minimum of a $1,000 deposit. It’s funny when one thinks about it: they’re literally saying no to advertisers who are willing to pay at least a $1,000. It’s been a while since then: as far I know they are not as strict anymore.

 
Then in December 2009 it was all about site flipping. In the span of three weeks I must’ve seen or heard of at least five products, each suggesting people build quick sites and flip them for a quick buck. I’m sure this could work, but not after releasing all these products… there’s a limit as to how many people can sell sites simultaneously, after all, the number of buyers did not change. Supply and demand and all that.

 
In January 2010 it was Facebook advertising. I don’t remember the exact phrases used but “Facebook loves affiliates” and “a goldmine” got stuck in my head. This resulted in many people trying Facebook advertising, and not long afterwards (April 2010), Facebook coming down with very, very strict guidelines that effectively eliminate most affiliate products from its network.

 
In February-March 2010 it was all about mobile. Mobile advertising. Mobile sites. Pay per call courses. A few courses created by very big marketers in a short span of time. Now, I don’t think mobile is a fad. I think mobile will just get bigger. But it was interesting that these were released at such a close proximity.

 
April-May 2010 were the months of local advertising. I saw several classes touting that “these are the biggest markets left unexplored” or so. Some of these classes seemed like the real deal, but others seemed almost like a scam (at least in one case, I’m pretty sure it IS a scam). What’s going to happen as a reaction to that? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out very soon.

 
Don’t get me wrong, I’m guilty of trying some of these as well. I’m not trying to say “look at these idiots, trying one fad after the other” since often I was once of “these idiots” ;-). I’m also not trying to say that none of these forms of advertising worked. In fact, I believe all of them worked prior to the release of the courses/products… by then the market had reacted and it became considerably harder, and at times, impossible, to benefit from the lessons taught.

 
While I love these dynamics, it’s virtually impossible to predict what will be next. What will be “the next big thing” in June? August? October? I don’t know. From an intellectual perspective I am really curious, though I know that whatever is promoted then, now is probably a good time to do it because by the time we hear of it, it will most likely be too late.

 
Edit: by the way, any guesses? Obviously Plenty of Fish (POF) is becoming increasingly popular as well as other traffic methods. I’m curious what you think.

 
If I could do it easily, I would run a poll: “how many of you use a Smartphone vs. a traditional, old-style cell phone?”. I’m sure the vast majority would be using the former. Not that the readers of this blog represent, in my opinion, the phone user demographics properly, but that’s not my point.

 
Well, I’m not. The last time I switched phones was almost two years ago. Back then I intended to migrate to a Blackberry. But when I reached the store, it just seemed unnecessary. All I wanted was a phone with a big keyboard so that it would be easy to write emails and send text messages, which I got (the image above is the type of phone I’m using).

 
I would be lying if I said I regretted this decision. Though as time passed, I kept missing some features that others had. For example, I had no easy way of accessing my email or Twitter: I had to open a browser and type the URLs. I also had no way of uploading photos directly to email, Twitter, Facebook. Nor could I use applications like Foursquare – I’m not sure I would, but I’d definitely give these a try.

 
A few months ago I decided to upgrade: in 2008 all of my urgent emails were work based, so were answered at work. Now that I am self-employed, I really need to answer some emails when I’m away. I already do it if I really have to, but my phone really isn’t designed for this, so it’s not very convenient (purely in terms of interface). In addition, my phone has reached old age: it has an annoying habit of turning off in the middle of conversations – somehow, always when I’m trying to meet someone outdoors – or turn itself on in my pocket and dial random people (if one is reading this: my apologies!). It clearly needs to be retired (possibly even put down. It will be humane, I promise).

 
What are my choices?

 
iPhone: I know most people just looooove iPhones. I respect that. However, I have an iPod touch I’m not using at all. I can’t stand the touch screen interface, I don’t like the navigation interface… I just don’t like it. My iPod sits and gathers dust and I really need to just sell it.

 
Android: I decided I’m not getting one because it’s Google based. They already have too much information about me and the rest of the world, I’m not about to give them more. I imagine a scary scenario: it’s the year 2020 and Google can suspend/ban you from its applications if you go into certain areas: “You’ve been to MICROSOFT’s HEADQUARTERS? No GMAIL FOR YOU!”. Ask any affiliate marketer and they won’t deny that this is a plausible scenario (even if a bit exaggerated). We’ve seen Google at its worst (at least I hope that this is its worst).

 
Palm: I have heard good things about the palm, but when I saw it, it looked too similar to the iPhone for my taste.

 
Blackberry: that was my original choice. I know they are convenient for email management, they do hold the largest share of the Smartphone market, and I like the fact you don’t need to touch the screen on most of them.

 
So a quick summary of my goals:

1. Get a phone experience that’s better than what I have.
2. Be able to manage emails/Twitter/Facebook much better than I currently can.
3. Be able to use apps – and I honestly care which app store, whether the Blackberry app store or Palm’s, etc.

 
Today I went to the store determined to make the transition. I left – pretty disappointed – without making one.

 
I played with all the phones. Most of the touch screen interfaces weren’t so inconvenient as I thought they’d be, so I decided to reconsider those. Some of the Androids had a physical keyboard, so I decided to risk the doomsday scenario I described (I deserve the criticism, I know) and include those as well.

 
Most seemed like good phones. But none, not even a single one, was as good for typing as my old style phone. Even the phones that included a keyboard were too small, or were designed in an inconvenient way.

 
People used to to tell me “Oh, you’ll get used to X’s way of entering text” (usually X was the iPhone). But no, I don’t want to! I don’t want to get used to a bad thing, I want to upgrade! When I switched to my current phone, typing immediately became pleasant and easy – I didn’t have to get “used to it”. Particularly now that I intend to use it for email much more, I don’t want to start hating my (new) phone! Not to mention, switching to a Smartphone increases one’s phone bill (though that’s not and never was the issue).

 
I’ll also state I have carpal tunnel syndrome (well, not exactly – something similar) – as a result of almost 30 years of typing – so typing on a small keyboard is always an unpleasant task for me.

 
I tried one after the other. They all sucked in this respect. I don’t get it: why can’t a single Smartphone manufacturer include in its device a keyboard that opens like mine? I’m not going to get a Smartphone just to be “cool” if it makes my life harder!

 
I started looking at the new models of my existing phone… these definitely improved in two years. But I didn’t feel I could make this decision, staying with a “stupid”, “moronic”, “clueless”, phone (i.e. not a Smartphone) without at least getting more information on the alternatives.

 
Therefore, I wrote this post.

 
Any ideas? I’m hoping someone would say that there is a mythical model, offered by company X, that does exactly what I want. And it’s either too expensive to be sold (I’ll pay the price!), or no one likes it so it’s almost free (even better). If I need to travel to China to get it, I’ll go there. If I need to sacrifice a small goat to the God of mobile phones, I’ll even do that. It is time to move forward. But really move forward.

 
Help?

Ashton Kutcher with 0 followers

Yesterday, I logged on to my Twitter account and was horrified to discover that all my followers have gone – and I’m not following anyone else. Shouts and screams all over Twitter – well, I imagined them as shouts and screams – confirmed that I am not alone. I went to the page of the King of Twitter, the mighty Ashton Kutcher, and it seemed he too was afflicted with this disease.. this..illness…

 
At that point, I realized that it is not an illness but rather a blessing, that finally, finally we are all equal on Twitter. Ashton, Britney Spears, me, Joe the plumber – even the spammers. We were all equals. None was above the other. In many ways it was truly an utopia.

 
Later I found out this was merely Twitter’s clumsy attempt of fixing a long time bug which allowed users to add themselves to your follower list without your approval (a bug I was aware of, then again, there are many other bugs I’m aware of Twitter is not fixing).

 
After a while this was resolved, Twitter returned to its normal rhythm, and Ashton was king once again.

 
I’ll always remember – even treasure – these precious few minutes (more like hours, actually). The time we were all equal. Perhaps one day this will happen again.

(The image above doesn’t really relate to the article – I just found it amusing).

A friend of mine sent me a link to an article that discusses Twitter and influence. It argues that number of followers isn’t the best measure of Twitter influence. I think he expected me to argue that the article is wrong. However, I fully agree with the article’s premise. Here’s an anecdote: there is a Twitter user I recently stumbled onto who has – if I recall – ~135,000 followers and 0 tweets. Clearly that user is not influential in any way. How he got to this number of followers is a mystery.

 
An additional commonly regarded measure is number of times a user is being retweeted. While I think there is some merit to this idea, I think it fails too. There are quite a lot of users – I can name 5 off the top of my head – who have an auto-tweet mechanism that just tweets quotes and/or facts and/or news all day long. Some are bots – there isn’t even a real user behind them. Personally, I find them somewhat annoying, but manage by mainly ignoring them – though a few friends of mine detest those passionately and argue that these are what will bring Twitter’s downfall. I do have a problem with the quotes being repetitive and cliche, as well as the facts being erroneous and misleading, but that’s a different matter.

 
My point is, these users get retweeted lot. This is unsurprising: corny, cliche quotes would be retweeted since they appeal to the lowest common denominator, particularly if they are repeated countless times. It’s like popular commercials: the jingle sticks in your head no matter what, simply because you hear it all. the. time.

 
Another aspect I haven’t read about and yet would consider relevant is the number of lists one appears in. This appears to be somewhat correlated with influence. However, the more followers and/or the more active a user is, the more lists a user tends to appear in. I wouldn’t say that the more lists a user appears in, the more influential he or she is. However, I would say that a user that is not listed a lot is probably not influential.

 
Yet another aspect is interaction: how much a user interacts with fellow users. Why is this relevant? Because interaction creates relationships, relationships result in paying attention to what one says, and that is influence.

 
Ok, now that we’ve seen this is problematic, how would I measure influence on Twitter? As the article argues, it’s not easy.

 
If I had to devise my own algorithm, and a few months ago I actually considered doing just that, I would take several factors into account. The following are not sorted in order of importance:

1. Number of followers.
    
2. Number of followees.
    
3. Number of tweets.
    
4. Number of lists the user is included in.
    
5. Number of retweets.
    
6. Number of interactions a user has with other users (responses) – both the number of users he/she interacts with and the actual number of interactions (i.e. 100 responses to many different users vs. 100 responses to a single user).
    
7. The characteristics of those who retweet the user’s tweets (i.e. their number of followers, followees, lists, tweets, and retweets).
    
8. The characteristics of those who interact with the user.
    
9. A measure that will indicate whether a user is real person or not. If a user tweet 24 hours a day, in set intervals, and never interacts in any meaningful way (i.e. it may say “thank you for the RTs” in a mechanical manner) it’s not a real person, period. I would remove those from the list completely.

What will this show me? I believe it will – generally – demonstrate who is an influential presence in Twitter. Of course, some people are exempt from this. Conan O’Brien doesn’t need to respond to anyone to be influential. But he’s influential outside of Twitter and this influence carries into Twitter.

 
Why is Twitter influence important? The article stated that companies are paying users with many followers to tweet. This is true to a degree. Companies such as SponsoredTweets and ad.ly (I believe) do factor influence measures into the decision whether to pay a user to tweet. It’s not just number of followers.

 
I don’t intend to do a full survey of Twitter influence tools, but here are three I’ve used.

 
Twitter Grader used to do an adequate job in my opinion, but it was changed so much its results are completely meaningless nowadays. I stopped paying serious attention to it a long time ago, as it is so fundamentally flawed.

 
For example, if you look for major influencers in the state of New Jersey, the #1 – consistently – on the list is a bot (it RTs useful pieces of information – but a bot, nonetheless. Until I see it interact with anyone I won’t believe otherwise). Clearly it assigns excessive importance to retweeting. Also, strangely it includes users that have tweeted a ridiculously low number of tweets and don’t have a lot of followers either (i.e. one user tweeted a total of 172 tweets – seriously, that user is a major influencer? I’m not buying that). Twitter grader also doesn’t explain how it works – it feels like a random generator of numbers. There are more issues but I’ll stop here.

 
Twitterholic (which seems to be in the process of changing its name to Twitaholic) simply shows the number of followers, followees and tweets for a specific area. That, as stated, is not an accurate measure, but it is far superior to the Twitter grader whose results are meaningless. Even this limited number of characteristics says a lot about the user.

 
Klout, I believe, does the best job. What I like about this tool is that it takes a lot of the above factors into consideration and even explains its reasoning why a user is influential or not, and classifies it into one of several categories. It’s really the only tool that does an adequate job in my opinion.

 
And there are many more. Many more. More seem to appear every day.

 
Any thoughts?

 
I keep wavering back and forth whether to publish this post. This was originally written in November 2009 – half a year ago – and I have hesitated whether to publish it since then (and like I said, I’m still not sure I should’ve). But it’s almost 4am and usually my judgment is a bit clouded at these hours… and I can always remove it later (if you think I should: please comment below? I won’t be offended).

 
Most people who know me realize I have an unconventional sense of humor – though I usually tone it down depending on circumstances. I’d like to think most people “get” my sense of humor, but not everyone do.

 
The following events took place when I was trying to work and do something very hard and very important and just felt I couldn’t concentrate. Sometimes in similar situations, I need something sweet… badly. That day, there was nothing at home, and I felt I would go crazy unless I get something. I felt I need cupcakes.

 
So I let loose… didn’t tone myself down at all.

 
You may ask why am I posting this in my blog? Good question. This, in my opinion, is the perfect example of Twitter for people who don’t use it (in a non-business context). It demonstrates.. the appeal.. of this medium: the fact you can have group chats in real time and people can jump in and out of conversations without you knowing them beforehand. You couldn’t do this in Facebook or Google. Only a real time social media network would enable you to do something similar. Even a chat room wouldn’t enable that, as the number and diversity of people listening would be far more limited.

 
Interestingly, I lost some followers during these events, but I gained many more. This later encouraged me to do much much more of these on Twitter. Yet I haven’t published any of these (mis)adventures on this blog. Note that people kept sending me pictures of cupcakes for months after these events.

 
Hopefully my readers will think it’s both amusing and relevant.

 
..and like I said, I reserve the right to remove it..

 
Thus started the cupcake saga. Here’s a summary of the twitter messages that took place on that day. It started like this

 
(each line is a tweet)

 
me: Anyone has cupcakes they can send me? I really need some #cupcakes #goodpeople #please

lefinley: in the oven now…..address please? 😉

me to lefinley: #chocolatechipcookies will do too. How soon can you make it??? This is an emergency

me to lefinley: you aren’t serious, right? :((((((

lefinley: sorry – can’t get 2 NJ in time….plan ur emergencies in the future please! 😉

me: Where do I find cupcakes in Jersey City on a Saturday? The place is desolate on the weekend. ARGHH!!! Help!

ColleenBurns: found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery”

Me to ColleenBurns: RT found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery” -> probably closed and far from my place, but if I start

Me to ColleenBurns: RT found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery” -> running like a madman, I may make it. I need cupcakes.

Me to ColleenBurns: RT found it on @yelp they are open till 6 “Made with Love Bakery” -> Oh, and forgot to say: THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me to lefinley, heykim: Thanks for trying to help, much appreciated!

Georgia_Teacher: Why in the world are you in Jersey City on a Saturday looking for donuts?

Me to Georgia_Teacher: Not donuts. Cupcakes. Donuts would be like giving Tylenol to a terminal patient. I need cupcakes.

Me: If I don’t get cupcakes soon,something terrible will happen, not just to me, but to everyone in the area, if I don’t get cupcakes soon.

Me: I suspect I’ll implode and start sucking everything around me, kind of like a mini-black hole. But that’s just an unproven theory

 
[noticing people are unfollowing me]

 
Me: Nice to see my cupcakes threats are make people unfollow me. This is not an idle threat. Bad stuff will happen. I need cupcakes!

Me: Even my English is breaking down as apparent in my last few tweets. Ok, that’s it. I’m going outside

lefinley: no problem – good luck on your search = YELP rocks!

Me to lefinley: As things should. I’m sure some disaster movies have started with a guy desperately needing cupcakes.

Me: Ok, got the address of a cupcake place. Leaving now. If this works I’ll tweet a picture. If this doesn’t, you’ll hear about this

Me: “Man mysteriously implodes, police are investigating. Looks like a cupcake deficiency caused this natural disaster”

 
[Walking for an hour randomly]

 
Me (through cellphone): I must be miles from home. Found a Dunkin Donuts place. No cupcakes. Danger now spans NYC as well.

 
[Walking for 2 hours, bypassing my house by at least 25 minutes, half delirious, eventually I got home with some loot]

 
Me: So here’s what happened (BTW, I think this episode cost me quite a lot of followers. Have mercy people, I was in distress)

Me: I walked for miles and miles and got completely lost (no shoprite). Every place I asked, no cupcakes. I could tell people were afraid of me.

Me: Eventually I got to a shop. By then it was really bad. I asked for cupcakes but all that came out was grunts. I must’ve appeared deranged

Me: I tried to say “I have a Ph.D., I won prestigious awards, I used to work for Goldman Sachs”. But nothing coherent came out of my mouth

Me: Eventually I pointed out at the hostess cupcakes and paid for them. I knew by then this would not be sufficient to prevent the upcoming doom

Me: The poor people of NJ and NY didn’t realize what will happen unless I eat quality cupcakes.

Me: So I got hostess cupcakes, 16 brownie bites, ice cream, marshmallows and an Oreo cake.

Me: I hope this will save us. May god have mercy on our souls.

 

Aftermath

 
me: I’ve eaten them, feel much better now.

carribean_skye: were you looking scary too?

Me to caribbean_skye: I think I looked a little bit like when Bruce Banner starts the transformation to the Hulk

Me: Well, I’m back to work. I think the disaster has been averted thanks to my heroic efforts. Unsung heroes, now I understand the meaning.