Twitter love

First, go get a Twitter account.  Go on.  You have no opinion if you don't have one.  I'll wait.

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*sips coffee*

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Are you back?  Good.  Now let's move on...

I met @foodphilosophy (her "handle" or name) on Twitter when I first joined.  I was looking for interesting people to follow and specifically, at the time, was looking for any chefs that Twittered.  I hoped to learn a little something about the industry, see some food, maybe pick up a recipe or two.  That's how I found @ChefMark.  When I started to follow @ChefMark I found he twittered a lot with @foodphilosophy so I started to follow her to see what she was about.  I then followed others related to them.  You could say a good part of my Twitter experience was because of @ChefMark since he's who I started with. 

By the way, if you are interested in food and are looking for people who never fail to disappoint then I highly recommend @foodphilosophy @ChefMark (and @kcline and of course if you follow @kcline then you HAVE to follow @theprint ...they rock!).  If you want to see the full list of foodies I highly highly recommend then go here.

I've never met @foodphilosophy (Jennifer) in real life but we've connected some on Twitter.  She's truly amazing. I could go on about her, but this isn't really a story about her.   

On Monday I saw this from @foodphilosophy:

My fucking apartment just got robbed.

With this as a follow up:

Thanks guys. I'm OK, but my laptop is gone, with all my info. Changing passwords now. And I have no renter's insurance. Fuck me.

The outpouring of condolences and well wishes were, as you'd imagine, many and genuine.

On Tuesday I was reviewing my Twitter timeline to see what I'd missed and found this:

From @shlevy

If you've ever been inspired by the amazing @foodphilosophy, please consider donating to replace her stolen laptop! http://bit.ly/a8KDX3

@shlevy (Shea) also wrote a wonderful blog post about this as well.

I don't know who @shlevy is or if Jennifer even knows Shea in real life, but I do know that he did something amazing.  He set up a PayPal account to allow us to donate money to replace Jennifer's laptop.

You bet I donated.  Last I saw she was now able to afford a swanky new 13" MacBook Pro (though we all want her to have at least a 15" since it's her lifeline to the world.  

Wait.  Did I really just donate money to help replace a laptop for someone I've never met, who lives 3k+ miles away?  Yes.  I only wish I had more to give.  I have only a token to share, but I wanted to help.  I needed to help a friend.

When I tell you that the relationships that are forged on Twitter and other places on the internet are real I mean that they are real.  You can't debate me on this topic.  You'd be wrong.

My Twitter timeline (the list of "tweets" that the people I follow are posting in chronological order) is carefully handcrafted by me to deliver exactly the news I want and need.  It's made up of people I've now grown to know and even care for (yep, and even meet in real life - I'm looking at you @theprint and @VBalasubramani). 

I follow companies, news outlets and even the Washington State Department of Transportation @wsdot and @wsdot_traffic (by the way...THIS is how the government should connect with their people). I follow foodies and techies, gamers and minor internet celebrities.  I follow a few movie and TV personalities as well.

Social networking isn't something you can buy.  It's not something you can "force" and it's not something you can pretend to do.  Social networking is about trust and relationships and shared values.  It's about meeting and talking to people you like, at least online. It takes a time commitment and dedication.

I get frustrated when I hear that a business wants to do social networking as if it's a billboard that's really effective.  It's not and you'll fail if you approach it from that angle.  Social networking, true social networking, isn't a fire and forget advertising tactic.  If you think it is then you'd be better off just staying away.  We'd all prefer it actually.

@foodphilosophy uses Twitter as part of her business but the two are so inexorably twined together you really don't need to know.  She talks about the things she's doing for and with her business, the blog articles she writes, the videos she posts, the places she's going, who she's meeting, the food she's eating and much more.  She's a real person who loves the people in her life and those people love her in return. We love her enough to donate money to help her out because that's what friends do, even just Twitter friends.  We all want to show her a little Twitter love for all she's done for us when she needs it the most.

Oh, and no, I didn't link to anyone's websites from this article (well except @shlevy).  Get the links for everyone from Twitter.  That's your assignment and it's why you opened your account waaaaay back up at the top.