Ryan Joy (atxryan)

• Waiting for the Black Angels to start at Emo’s. #
• Switched over to Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos for their last few songs. Emo’s Inside is always so fucking loud. #
• booked a flight to Palm Springs, CA w/ @TraumaNurseJade for the July 4th weekend. Quick trip to visit my uncle and his partner. #

• Attempting to recruit people to play volleyball at Ausie’s tonight. #
• Winner of fried chicken blind taste test between KFC, Popeyes, and Church’s will be announced soon. Biscuits evaluated separately. #
• On thing is clear, Popeyes wins on the social media front: http://tinyurl.com/5yglfa #
• Unweighted fried chicken results surprise all! KFC, Popeyes, Church’s. In that order. Pics here: http://flickr.com/photos/omit/ #
• eating a vegan tres leches cake from Mr. Natural for @palpatim’s birthday. #
• @jmeek: you know I’m in. Flavor Tripping party FTW! #

Mozilla is attempting to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in a single day. They’ve not announced the actual day yet, but you can pledge to download Firefox 3 on Download Day 2008 here. Pledging will also ensure that you’re informed of the date to download and also of the actual results after the fact.

I can’t seem to find any article that lists which software package currently holds the record or what is the magic number to beat. Anyone know?

“President Bush managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option,” McClellan concluded.
Source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/05/28/0528mcclellan.html

Read that statement again. Slowly.

Whether you believe Scott McCellan is just doing this to sell books (he is) or not, that doesn’t change the fact that this is someone who was very close to the President making a very candid statement. Did he come out with this information too late? Of course. Should he have resigned? If he believed then what he currently says he believes, then most definitely. Regardless, I find that single statement breathtaking in its indictment of this administration’s lead up to the Iraq war.

• @alexcc when did you become alexcc? #
• RT @cameronmoll CTRL+ALT+DELETE http://nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/05/29/technology/29compute.ready.html - Reset, please? #
• having an interesting conversation re: Twitter spam at work. #
• If a company @ replies to you based on keywords in your tweet, is that spam? I say maybe not; they engage. Others say yes. #
• I wrote a quick post re: my previous tweets about companies on twitter and spam: http://tinyurl.com/5yglfa - curious as to other’s thoughts #
• @baldman: just saw the redesign of http://silverspider.com/. Nice work! #

My coworker, Alex, posted the following tweet today referencing our fried chicken taste-off planned for tomorrow:

Setting up the rules for fast food fried chicken taste-off in the office tomorrow.

To which, Popeyes Chicken chimed in with:

@alexcc I know the winner! I know it! Do we have to wait until tomorrow to announce? (sounds like bonafide?)

Note that Alex did not mention Popeyes or @PopeyesChicken in any way. He only mentions fried chicken which must have popped up on their radar via a service like Summize or TweetScan.

Other companies such as H&R Block, Southwest Airlines, Comcast, and Zappos are actively engaging consumers, whether they’re customers or not in some cases, on Twitter. H&R Block apparently responds to people asking general tax questions, including questions about donations and the recent economic stimulus checks. Southwest wishes their travelers a safe flight as well as responds to complaints and compliments that are directed toward ’southwest’ or ‘SWA’.

Most of these tweets are unsolicited. But does that automatically make them spam?

This led to an interesting discussion among my coworkers as to whether or not this type of engagement qualifies as SPAM. I maintain that, at this point, it does not. In this case the message does not go into your timeline or direct messages, email inbox, et cetera… However, it does show up in your Replies tab (when it’s working!), but is that spam? Really that’s a recently added feature of Twitter to help you see when other people whom you may not follow mention you in their tweets.

So, what say you? If a company is being helpful, is it spam? What if they respond with some sort of promotional message? Who draws the line?

For a list of other companies on Twitter, check out this Twitter Brand Index from Fluent Simplicity.

Update 05.30.2008:
I’ve got to update this post because Popeyes is obviously very engaged online. This morning I saw this reply, referencing this very blog post, in my Twitter feed:

@atxryan Spam is pork, not chicken right? I’m respectively interested in your findings.

This is interesting because I never mention any of the aforementioned keywords in any of my tweets. Meaning that our anonymous Popeyes social media guru discovered this post via Google Alerts or something similar and now humorously engaged me via Twitter, even completing the circle with Alex:

@alexcc Good morning. I hope ya’ll have fun in the taste off today. Is Ryan a judge?

I salute you, anonymous Popeyes social media guru.

• back home in Austin. #
• Forgot to reset the phone’s time zone to central. 7:30am alarm becomes 9:30 wake up. At least i’m fully rested now. :) #
• Looks like they’re installing those 10ft guitars around Austin again. Cool. #
• @omarg: you mean like the ‘twist’ in all of his movies? Lemme guess, he reveals this ‘twist’ in the beginning but expects you to forget. #
• @omarg: well, I won’t see it regardless but you’re welcome to save others their time & money. I gave up on M. Night Shyamalan in 2002. #
• woo hoo! performing late afternoon joins in SQL. #

Andy Skelton announced that Automattic is looking into opening an Austin WordPress Professional Office. The office would be open to designers and developers who earn their living primarily through WordPress.

If this sounds like something that might interest you, head on over to Andy’s blog and let ‘em know in the comments.

• On Alcatraz island. #
• Thinking @kchee should be here for Grand Theft Memory. Wtf? #
• @codehooligans umm, did you say Web Design Meetup? Boy did i miss that on my calendar! i’m in SanFran. #
• Hoping that anyone going to tonight’s Austin Web Design Meetup enjoys themselves and forgives the host for forgetting and being out of town. #

• Enjoying jasmine tea and Pocky at the Japanese Tea Garden. Looking forward to a west coast sunset. #
• Just had an amazing meal of cioppino at Woodhouse Fish Market. #
• Just for the record, red bull really accentuates the flavor of gin. This drink tastes more like straight gin than if it were just gin. Blech #