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A lot of people don’t know this story, but it’s mentioned in an interview I did with the Albany Times Union today. I thought now was as good a time as any to address it.
At the end of 2008, Amanda and I moved back in with her family. We tried living in Albany off of my graduate student loan and substitute teaching in the city to help pay the bills. Ultimately, as much as we loved the apartment (it makes me sad every time the plane flies over it leaving Albany International Airport), we just couldn’t afford to live there.
So when we moved in with her family, I started looking for jobs anywhere and everywhere. One of those places was Twitter. I figured it was a long shot, and the job (as far as I can remember) was low level stuff, but it was an open position. I went for it. I won’t lie, if Twitter was hiring for something I could do today, I’d send them my resume. I love the service that much.
I wasn’t successful applying for the job, and had a brief exchange with Twitter Human Resources that went like this:
“Thanks for letting me know you found someone else to hire. Hey, uh … I hate to ask, but there was a couple of times in the past Twitter featured my account on the public timeline while we were working on a charity initiative in Potsdam, NY. I just took this volunteer position with a breast cancer foundation, and we’re doing this tour, is there anyway we might be able to team up and help promote the project? We’re promoting the early detection and prevention of breast cancer.”
Twitter’s response: “Sounds awesome. We’ll pass it on and get back to you”.
Now, keep in mind: This was before there was an Suggested User List. So I had no idea what Twitter had in mind, and I was really surprised to see my account on there. I thought for sure they had no interest in the project as it had been some time between hearing from them and the list debuting.
So, that’s the story of how I got on the list.
As some of you might know, I also offered my Twitter Suggested User List to Jason Calacanis if he was willing to donate the $250,000 he offered Twitter to the 1 in 8 Foundation. Ultimately that didn’t work out, but I mention it here because it’s the first and only time I ever heard from Biz or Ev about anything, so I don’t want people thinking I know them or have some sort of relationship with either of them or have any sort of “juice” with the Twitter people.
I don’t. I’m just a regular guy. Twitter liked what I was doing (I think) and there I was on this list with the celebrities.
Two weeks ago I received a friendly note from the folks at Twitter that said, “Hey, you’re awesome. Don’t ever change, but we’d like to take you off the list to give someone else a chance to be on it”.
My response: “Thank you so much for having me. Hey, we’re doing this laptop collection drive. Do you think there might be any chance you might be willing to work with us in promoting it in some way?”
I couldn’t resist …
Defending Team Twitter
I’m posting this to defend Twitter. I saw the line in the Times Union article and I had a concern that someone might use it to beat up on the service. They did a great thing in helping us and they had no obligation to do anything.
Twitter’s assistance made the #AMHF pilot possible, and so in a lot of ways, we have Twitter to thank for A Million High Fives.
I’d hate to see someone take a shot at Twitter for helping a project that was designed to raise awareness about the early detection and prevention of cancer. And a project that will help a lot of people in need across America, not to mention charitable organizations and schools in need like the schools Amanda and I substitute taught at.
By the way, the laptop collection drive is named for Twitter as my way of saying thank you to them for their support since 2007.
But In The Event Someone Does Take Shots
I’ve defended the Suggested User List before, but I want to add something else:
I’m pretty sure I see plugs for celebrity Facebook pages every time I log into the service. And I’m also sure I’ve seen an advertisement running that asks me to join a Facebook page about Celebrity Facebook pages. Google now promotes Power Readers that use Google Reader. An addition that I enjoy, but is similar to the Suggested User List in its own way. Especially as Reader replaces Friendfeed for many users.
And do I really need to get started on Friendfeed’s Suggested User List? You know, the one no one dares to bash because some of the people who complain about the Twitter Suggested User List are on there.
Also: Youtube throughout its history has featured users, sometimes for great lengths of time (see: Chad Vader), which brought the videomakers a lot of success. These placements were selected by editors, much in the same way Twitter selects members for the Suggested User List.
Oh, and let’s not forget Posterous which proudly features the usual suspects and Alltop that does the same thing. No one calls them on that. But Twitter gets picked on because some of these guys thinks Twitter owes them for using it first?
So, the next time you see someone whining about the list, or if they take some time out of their “busy” day to mention this post and the article in an attempt to knock Twitter, take a careful look at who is doing the complaining. You’ll find someone’s complaining because they didn’t get what they wanted, not because they think the list is bad news.
