I recently started watching AMC’s Mad Men. It’s a terrific show that I can’t recommend highly enough. A few weeks ago I tweeted about finishing Mad Men season 2.

Later in the day I received an email that Betty Draper was following me on twitter. Soon other Mad Men characters were following me: @ken_cosgrove, @Betty_Draper (I guess she’s got so much to say, she needs two accounts), @peggyolson, @_PeteCampbell, @don_draper and a few that I found on my own @Sal_Romano, @Paul_Kinsey, @harrycrane

Yesterday @bettydraper tweeted:
Sitting at the kitchen table, writing out Christmas cards. Jewish people are lucky they don’t have this chore.
Which is totally believable as something the character would say in the show.

Will we see other In-Character Twitterers? If they do a good job staying in character it’s an interesting way to keep up with the show in between episodes and seasons.

In my imagination I can see Jack Bauer tweeting: “Fuck, this guy won’t talk now I have to break his leg!”  I just searched for Jack on twitter and found this account @jackbauer. It doesn’t seem as well done as the Mad Men tweets, take some notes Jack!

Do you follow any faux twitterers? Which characters would you like to see on Twitter?

A few weeks ago I read this article about celebrity twitter users, and have been mulling a question over in my head.. do I care about celebrity twitter users?

The answer I keep coming up with is not really. To be honest I don’t really care much about celebrities outside of twitter, although I did see the actor who plays Smash on Friday Night Lights at Whole Foods today and pointed him out to my wife. It seems a lot of them became famous for their work, then being famous becomes their work. Although I’m sure if I was given the comps that they receive, I’d work at being famous also!

My attitude towards twitter has been changing recently, but there are some constants. I really only have two personal rules regarding who I follow.

First, be interesting. I know it sounds straightforward, but you’d be surprised how many celebrities violate this prime directive. The classic celebrity violation is to use twitter solely as another marketing vehicle for your latest single/video/whatever. *cough* Britney *cough*

Second, don’t flood my screen with your tweets. This seems to be a habit from the “Internet Celebrity” as opposed to Hollywood variety. If I frequently log on to twitter and see a screen full of your tweets, I’m going to stop following you. This may be a function of the number of people I follow, which is relatively low at the moment. My theory is that no one is THAT interesting, and all of your noise drowns out the other people I’m following. Robert Scoble was guilty of this violation, so he had to be unfollowed. Seems like a nice guy, but he’s a tweet machine. He should cut back on the coffee.

In addition to my rules, I’d like to see celebrities interacting with other people on twitter but this seems to be a rare occurrence. Since I live in Austin, it’s mandated that we pay attention to Lance Armstrong, but the dude puts out great tweets like “Just off the bike. 70 miles. Windy in austin!!” not exactly engaging. He’s got 5,377 followers but is only following 2 people (one of them is his foundation’s twitter acct, the other is the president of his foundation). Get engaged Lance! I’m sure there are some cyclists out there who would be thrilled to trade cycling related tweets.

Tim Ferris is a little better. I’ve read his book and think he seems like an interesting cat, but come on Tim get a little more involved. Just checked two pages of his twitter history and not one tweet that seemed to be part of a conversation. 8,699 followers yet he’s not following anyone himself.

Ultimately I’ll probably still follow celebrities just out of curiosity, and they’ll probably continue to violate my personal twitter rules. You can view my twitter page at twitter.com/alexanderhill and see which interesting people I’m currently following.

What are your personal rules on twitter? Do you have any? I welcome any and all comments in the comment section below.

The few of you who have been here before are likely noticing a new look to the site. I decided to crank out my own theme for the site and this is the result. It’s not earth shattering, but I like it. It’s simple and unassuming.

A few thanks…

To Mike of Capsize Designs, I’m using his BlueTrip css, which hybrid of Blueprint and Tripoli

To Lynn of Microcanadian, I came across her blog by following a tweet from Kevin Rose and really like the style of her blog. I believe her theme is based on Black3column, both of which I have shamelessly copied. I could’ve just downloaded Black3column and tweaked it, but where’s the fun in that?

It’s not complete by any means, but it’s definitely in a useable state that I’m pleased with.