Forget all the incestuous top Tweeter lists, the rankings of the most re-tweeted, the scores for the most influential, the “find a MLM spammer to add to your follower cool twitter application” lists and the “Twitterati” glamour gurus vying for rights to the title of most vapid… So, I thought “How about a list of the top 20-30 nicest people to meet and tweet on Twitter? ” Here are my first picks for Blue Feather Friends–who actually talk to you….

I follow a lot of folks because I am a student of anything and everything on the net. I have used hundreds of Facebook and Twitter Applications, joined  (and un-joined) groups with great names like “Ban the Racist Bicycle Bells,” My life is a musical” and I’ve been bought and sold hundreds of my friends in and out of slavery and then raced them in cars that don’t move. I have crashed my site dozens of times with new WordPress plug-ins and I have tried virtually  (and to the lament of my twitter stream) every mobile and fixed Twitter client around. And aside from the auto-generated DM’s that say “Thanks for the follow >”  via folks in a race to catch Obama in the followers count, and that big breasted bot with 450 different profiles, I have become grateful for the many people who have enriched my life and replaced my blogging, RSS reading and shower time (phew) with interesting stories that I will no doubt re-tweet one day to my grandchildren.

Following are a few of the nicest people you’ll ever tweet. I don’t know how many followers they have, whether they won shorties or longies or what their Hub score is… And this is not a list of my favorite charities, business folks, incredible journalists or people you need to suck up to to get them to add you (Brian Solis, Mashable, Winer…)…I will do those lists one day as well…

These are just  people who aren’t so impotent (sp?) they only follow and/or talk to themselves…

Maybe in a day or two I will post my top financially useless, but great smile-making Twitter applications and add a few more suggestions for people to chirp with…. Feel free to add your own BCTs in the comments section…..

• from London. Warm, generous conversations with a truly nice and well informed guy.

• is from California. He is writing a book on Twitterville and is a bit of a celebrity, but his bio’ is right: he is a nice guy who actually talks TO, not at, you. And he is his own virtual assistant 😉

• He is a lawyer but don’t let that put you off. This is the most tireless guy on the net. He actually reads and comments on dozens of blogs, runs the best law blawg on the planet ( http://chinalawblog.com ) and still has time to go to his family’s sporting events in Washington, root for the Cubs and then Tweet about it! Caution: Do not try to sneak a knuckle ball by him–he will hit it out of the park.

• A world-class Chinese medicine expert from Illinois and one of the nicest people on the net. We met on Facebook when she suggested pointed me toward W.H.O research on a medicine that cured a recurrence of malaria that had hit a visiting guest–and it cost us less than a buck.

• A growing celeb’ on the small screen here in China. He posts great culturally entertaining pics, fun and informative links and actually takes the time to answer his tweets.

• An Aussie coach and consultant who has forgotten more about social media, blogging than I will ever know. He and his “girlfriend” (sorry, inside joke) artist  http://twitter.com/suziecheel  are an endangered species: kindness, wisdom and humility abound…

• Did you ever get a growing gift on Facebook? This is one of the team that built that application. He is a cross-cultural commentator and shouts out some very sensible answers about life and tech from farther inside the matrix than I have ever traveled….
• from London he runs one of the coolest and most purposeful blogs around and remains as authentic and likable a personality as you can find in the Twittersphere….

• when you think David Feng you think War and Peace, Ulysses, Everything You Wanted to Know About Beijing Subways Even if You Didn’t Think to Ask…The only guy on Twitter who HAS to have a David Feng Lite stream…I met this Swiss master at the first Beijing Tweet-up–there were three people and 10 electronic devices present….

• from Charlotte. Personable, but not afraid to call out the thought leaders. His profile says it best: “Innovator, Leader, Strategist, Executor, Mentor, Smartass, Kiteboarder, Dad, Husband”

• It doesn’t get more positive and conversationally enjoyable than this….

• An American gone Hongkese whose blog features impromptu camera phone interviews with the likes of Oliver Stone….He is an old-school journalist (small stuff like the NYT and IHT) who, despite his celebrity, is engaging social media with the heart and curiosity of a child combined with the shrewd thoroughness of a trained  reporter–No small feat, that…

• A die-hard social media fan with his own travel company. The ONLY one of the 8,000 Tweeple I reached out to for help  that answered the call to rescue a newlywed–stranded in China– who had all his money and documents stolen just after his wedding.

• http://twitter.com/johningz I think Foreigner did a song about him once….He lives in GZ where I do…The whole city keeps getting younger around us….He can Tweet and eat Pizza at the same time…and does….most days….every day….

• A Dutchman studying in Britain now. He made history by beating the news wires with tweets from the earthquake zone in Sichuan China…A former Olympic caliber archer, he made watching the shooting events from Beijing a blast by live-tweeting the events…

• Delightful, spiritual ex-lawyer and biz strategist from Chicago now in San Francisco….She sometimes beats me at online Scrabble….

This is by no means an exhaustive personal list and it augments posts where I have mentioned others…And I do mean to add more later…

I am I am a Twitterholic….

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Returning in the plane from the AdTech conference in Shanghai I remarked to a colleague that I thought blogger, author and social media icon Shel Israel to be a wonderful writer. My associate replied with “As good as you?” I was struck dumb, unable to answer as I wasn’t sure whether it was meant to be a compliment or was a ping to test the depth of my self actualization. I didn’t answer immediately and instead set about reviewing in my mind the event I had just attended and tried to solidify my thinking on a number of issues raised while in Shanghai…

Robin Li was scheduled to be the keynote speaker for the annual gathering of media, advertising and PR decision makers who come to AdTech for education, networking and the renewal of ties. Li, who has canceled his appearance at the event before, reportedly called the night before the event and announced he would not be there. Rumor has it that he phoned again later and asked if he could send a second to deliver the opening address and AdTech brass demurred because the condition was added by Baidu that there be no question and answer session.

An official statement was released by AdTech later in the morning that indicated Li had called off his speech because of a sore throat and AdTech had opted to form a panel of experts on his proposed topic rather than accept a stand-in from Baidu.

What really prompted Li’s absence is less important than the absence itself: BAidu, a NASDAQ company, under fire for alledged complicity in search result suppression for money in the Sanlu Milk Crisis, puported willful acceptance of funds (15-20% of gross ad revenue) from unlicensed pharmaceutical companies, Intellectual Property battles in court regarding music download links thought by the recording industry to be illegal and constant criticism from search engine professionals and Internet publications regarding the manner in which Baidu marks (or fails to delineate) paid ads as different from organic results. The fact that Li was not available to answer in any fashion to charges levied against the company gives credence to those who, for whatever reason, look to diminish Baidu’s powerful presence in the world’s largest Internet market. Li had a chance to answer to allegations, allay fears, and rescue credibility and revenue, but did not. I would have been there had I needed an assistant to lip-synch my remarks. But, Baidu, like many Chinese companies has not always taken the management road best traveled and did not hike it at AdTech. I heard a PR industry old-hand remark that even if their PR company had the chutzpah to issue them sound advice/ultimatums they would likely not have listened. Even the hard hit Sarah Palin, stared down an army of spin doctors and managed to put a little lipstick on the face of some very ugly remarks. She did not win the nomination for VP of the United States, but she won a great many supporters by putting up a fight.

Later on at the conference I was a member of a powerhouse social media panel where I was fortunate to share the stage with Joe Chen, Ceo of Xiaonei, Jigsaw Media Partner P.T. Black, Magdelena Wszlaki the Regional VP of Agenda Corp and Jeff Lyndon a 26 Year old VP of Interzone Futeball and already a pioneer in China online gaming. One of the questions moderator Black asked of us was to answer to a P&G executive’s recent remarks indicating that he did not see the efficacy of social media over conventional advertising. All panelists were in agreement that to shunt conversation, conversation being itself the rightness and reason for social media, is to assume that consumers are less informed about their own needs than the corporation that is pitching them. Feedback and engagement are the mediums in which we will grow excellence, social responsibility and honorable brand loyalty. We are he worst judges of our own foibles and failures no matter how bright or seasoned a veteran of any professional war we might have fought in….

As for comparing myself to Shel Israel?:  I am currently reading–and I am shamefully tardy in doing so–the book, Naked Conversations, that he and Robert Scoble penned. It is a must-read for anyone in Social Media. It is a brilliant treatise that truly stands, as stated by Chris Pirillio, as an unofficial sequel to the Cluetrain Manifesto. Shel’s genius as a writer lay in his ability to take a starched white-collar idea and transform it into a blue-collar working treatise that speaks to the needs of a diverse tribe of social medians. He is a better writer than I am and I am not less of one for acknowledging that fact. I am not afraid of conversation and while my competitive self likes winning I warmly applaud mentors and masters….

Baidu, or any company, would do well to join the party (not that one…) and join in on the many conversations, those that honor AND those that harangue, which can only make us better business people, more responsible netizens and decent global citizens.

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I happened to see a note twish by me the other day by one of the new young guns in the China Blogosphere. He expressed concern that if he engaged in a ridiculously fun and multicultural exchange about ethnic differences in emoticons that it might affect his image. He had to be, as a budding new ad exec’, cognizant of his “personal branding.” Imagine that: using social media to actually socialize or have fun–the nerve!   (￣ー￣)   I do apologize if they offended anyone

m(_ _)m

I have watched the micro-musings of the people our vigilant young executive follows and subsequently “twits up to”: they are primarily people known to others obsessed by new social media tools by as the “Twitterati” or the elite and best informed new media types on the net. Poo.

Guys like Owyang and Kawasaki are pushers!!! (check out for a look at his 70’s pimp/dealer boa if you don’t believe me!) and they both pay a million virtual monkeys using a million computers to pound out a million tweets in hopes of a single retweet in the NYT. As an aside: Owyang has become a pro at slipping in tweetle doses of infomercials that lull you right into thinking you should go back to that site he mentioned and pay money to criminally investigate that anorexic retired mailman next door whose name may very well have showed up on some perv’ list–while you are in your boxers (or worse), jazzed on coffee, listening to a podcast, twittering, skyping and stalking him through the kitchen window all at once…

Now, I have a lot of respect for guys like Chris Brogan who can tweet an Irishman under the keyboard. This guy can handle his social media! And I am a huge fan of the naked conversations of Shel Israel who has the chutzpah to actually talk about enjoying a date with, brace yourself, his wife. To Jim Turner: You gotta quit writing stuff people can actually use. Someone may think you take this seriously! And ya gotta love tweets in a French accent by Loic…and it is like waiting for fake fireworks at the opening ceremonies when Captains Scoble or Arrington go in search of the Great Fail Whale…

Once, long ago, I remember wishing I was a florid alcoholic (and don’t think I did not try!) so I’d have a group I could share my joys and sorrows with…And when I got sucked into a conference net in 1978 I thought I had found a virtual home. And then Twitter–and its sophisticated and server friendly interface–came along and all five of us using it got along great! Now, with 3 million people shooting 140 intercontinental ballistic characters across borders daily its a little noisy and not a little dangerous sometimes in there…Still, as an expat it is the closest I can get to an English speaking coffee clatch, but I digress…

We need a flesh and blood group!–a tweet-up without computers!–where we can actually press the flesh (I heard that Bloggess!) and  sǝʌlǝsɹno ʇɥƃıɹ. I propose this for my advertising “friend” and others:

TWITTERONANDONANDON!

If you answer yes to three of any of the questions below you just MIGHT be a compulsive blogger and a candidate for twitterononanonandon (IF you take this post seriously, I have another group for you…):

• Do you lose time from work due to your tweeting?

• Is tweeting making your home life unhappy?

• Do you tweet because you are shy with other people?

• Is tweeting affecting your reputation

• Do you tweet and re-tweet for fear being left out?

• Have you ever felt remorse after a tweet?

• Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of your tweeting?

• Do you turn to lower companions and an inferior environment when tweeting?

• Does your tweeting make you careless of your family’s welfare?

• Has your ambition decreased since tweeting?

• Do you crave a tweet at a definite time daily?

• Do you want to tweet the next morning?

• Does tweeting cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?

• Has your efficiency decreased since tweeting?

• Is tweeting jeopardizing your job or business?

• Do you tweet to escape from worries or troubles?

• Do you tweet alone?

• Do you claim to be a “Social Media Evangelist” when you were just converted from selling adwords to dentists only a year ago?

• Have you ever had a complete loss of memory as a result of your tweeting?

• Has your physician ever treated you for tweeting?

• Do you tweet to build up your self-confidence?

• Have you ever been in a hospital or institution on account of tweeting?

• do you need just one more little tweet even when your friends say they have had enough?

I am headed to the States soon and wil be happy to meet with you about starting a group. Drop a note here or better yet:

tweet me

With apologies to my good friends at AA, NA, CA, ACA, ALANON…

This was a slight re-hash of an old post on blogging–for those of you new to the net blogging was a phenomenon from the days of Dinosaurs and Celine Dion–those of you who recognize it, thanks for bearing with me….

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