Hockeytown is all a "Twitter"

The night started with such promise for the Detroit Red Wings in game 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Nashville Predators, but then the unthinkable happened. I had to use the bathroom in the middle of play. (What, you thought I was going to say Nashville scored 2 goals in record time was unthinkable? Already happened twice in the series before game 4!)

I was gone for 3 minutes and when I came back to the television, the Detroit Red Wings were down 2-0 in the 1st period.

Fans were not thrilled in Hockeytown, and we took our frustrations to Twitter. Of course there were some Nashville fans there to cheer on their hard working boys from Tennessee as well.

Here's what the conversation looked like from the time Detroit scored to make the game 2-1, on their way to an eventual 3-2 loss:
(@hoopadoo is yours truly.)

@mediaphyter Boo, Detroit is on the board Link
@mediaphyter Ooh, what's that Red Wings? That's a spank. Nashville scores, 3-1. Link
@julzroguenine Osgood, please? Link
@julzroguenine Thank goodness, Dom's out! Link
@hoopadoo All I can say is about the tit for tat I just saw is haaaaaa haaaaaa take a hike old man Hasek Link
@pburleson Whoa Hasek just got pulled. That seemed kinda harsh, he had no chance. Link
@sigsegfalt YES! HASEK IS OUT! OZZIE IS IN! Link
@MissTrade @ hoopadoo even hasek is older than me @ 41 Link
@hoopadoo I hope Osgood starts the rest of the series too. I was done with Hasek after last year. Link
@dcweyh I'd trade both the Pistons and Tigers wins for a Wings win Link
@MaggieConv wtf is going on with detroit tonight?! bout time they put Ozzie in net. Link
@hoopadoo Why can't the Wings score 2 goals in 10 seconds? Oh that's right, Hasek plays for US. Link
@julzroguenine WTF? Draper was the only one who got a penalty? *grr* Link
@hoopadoo Oh man, Osgood had BETTER start game 5, he looks better in 4 minutes than Hasek has in 4 games... Link
@motownmutt @ mediaphyter Darn it, quit rooting against the good guys. Home ice is over-rated. Link
@julzroguenine Osgood keeping us in this game. Why oh why didn't he start tonight? Link
@sigsegfalt Osgood hasn't played in two weeks, and looks better than Hasek has all year. Link
@mediaphyter @ motownmutt Sorry Charlie. :) Link
@hoopadoo Oh, Osgood... We missed you. Thanks for bailing out Hasbeen. Link
@julzroguenine @ hoopadoo Amen to that! Link
@hoopadoo Why do the Red Wings make opposing goalies look so good in the playoffs? Link
@TheFitB Could the Red Wings be on the verge of another disappointing playoff run? Link
@GoodForm Defensive shell for the Predators Link
@hoopadoo @ TheFitB Well, remember we went into game 5 with a 2-2 series tie against Nashville back in '04. Wings won in 6. Link
@MichaelBeaton Bed Time . . night all . . . hope the wings can pull this out! Link
@TheFitB I forgot about that @ hoopadoo that was a rarity. Much respect for them even though I'm a Leafs fan Link
@dcweyh wings score 2-3 Link
@hoopadoo Yeah! Yeah! Goal Wings! Note to Ken Holland. Osgood, yay. Hasek, boo. Link
@motownmutt Red Wings w00t! 2, un-w00t 3 Link
@hoopadoo Ohhhhhh I thought the Wings game was about to be tied! Link
@sigsegfalt Datsyuk's gonna have to win this one on his own. Link
@MissTrade Wings in pred zone about 90 percent this peiod making ozzie seem good Link
@hoopadoo That was a bad whistle in the Wings game, puck wasn't controlled by Osgood. Link
@MissTrade Not complaining about whistle take what they give us Link
@TheFitB @ hoopadoo puck not controlled by Osgood is an understatement. Sitting in front of a wide open net and the whistle goes off??? Link
@hoopadoo @ MissTrade I don't want the refs to decide the game, that's all. Link
@hoopadoo @ TheFitB The ref will just tell you he "lost sight of the puck." Unreal. Link
@hoopadoo Datsyuk, the magic man? What happened to Shake'n'Bake? Link
@MissTrade Wings in 7 Link
@davidjhinson C'mon. 2.3 seconds. Hold on! Link
@julzroguenine And I can't believe I stayed up late for that... Gonna need lots of caffeine tomorrow... Link
@hoopadoo Hasek should be first star of the game... For Nashville.... Link
@davidjhinson Hot Damn! Preds Win! Link
@TheFitB Wow! Nashville ties the series with the Wings Link
@MaggieConv WTH there is no reason why Nashville should win ANY games vs detroit..but yet..they win another one. sad. Link
@bccarlso @ hoopadoo Haasek... haasek... you suck! OK, but seriously Z boy coulda scored a couple too. Link
@hoopadoo @ bccarlso I 'm out of angry things to say about Hasek. Link

Photo by Flickr user Dan4th

Washington, D.C. attacks Twitter? Nah, just spammers.

Several months too late, the spirits of primaries past have come to haunt us on Twitter.

When I opened up my inbox, I had quite a list of followers waiting to be checked out.

Did Mike Gravel, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Chris Dodd suddenly decide it would be a great idea to add us all as Twitter friends once again? Nah. It's just some crafty spam-artists trying to take advantage of the "follow you, follow me" culture of Twitter.

This is part of a growing trend on Twitter, one that Adam Ostrow over at Mashable pointed out last week. Spammers are creating accounts on Twitter for the sake of following thousands of users and hoping they'll follow back. How do they follow so many users so quickly? Automated following bots allow them to follow thousands of users in record time.

I completely agree with Adam Ostrow's solution: require a CAPTCHA to be filled out for each new follower on Twitter. Let's cut down on the spammers (or at least make it much more difficult to be a spammer) on Twitter before it's too late.

Profanity habits: Twitter style

5 days ago Download Squad posted a great article, "17 ways to visualize Twitter and its Tweets", which outlined some great sites for looking at various Twitter statistics.

One of the sites mentioned was TweetVolume.com where you can enter up to five keywords and see how they stack up against each other on the Twitter network.

I played around with keyword groupings like "Obama vs Clinton vs McCain" (Obama has over double the tweets of Clinton and McCain combined) and "PC vs MAC" (Mac has over triple the tweets of PC) but then an odd one struck me. How much profanity is used on Twitter?

So I decided to pit 5 of the big bad words head to head and see where the chips fell. My money was on "sh**" for sure, and I was completely surprised when "damn" took the prize.

Results:
Damn - 35,100
Sh** - 20,100
Ass - 19,200
F*** - 15,300
Bi*** - 6,380

In hindsight I should have known "damn" would be the most widely used profane word simply based on my own Twitter habits. Out of these 5 words "damn" is the only one I have ever used in a tweet (to the best of my knowledge).

Twitter feels like shouting in a public place to me, as you never know who will come across your messages. With that in mind, I try to keep my language civil. I'm sure many Twitter users feel something similar, and based on that conjecture I should have guessed "damn" would be the overwhelming favorite.

Damn.