Twitter

RIP Twitter Bird (2010 - 2023)

This is not a blog post. Click here to redirect to blog post comment about my Twitterversary still being canceled on October 1, 2024!

Starting in 2010, I would annually announce/celebrate my Twitterversary at the beginning of October with a tweet, and on some years, a Twitterversary blog post. This year, with the owner of Twitter deciding to kill off the Twitter bird, and my being barred from using Twitter in any productive way, my Twitterversary is canceled for 2023. For me, the Twitter that I had known and found useful is now gone.

I am publishing this blog post about the end of Twitter on this, the last day of October 2023, as my way to:

• Thank those who commented about my departure publicly on what used to be Twitter

• Acknowledge the change (mourn the loss)

• Celebrate the past

The year is 2020. All my normal activities in Cleveland and my backpacking adventures on the Continental Divide Trail and Appalachian Trail have been canceled due to the coronavirus crisis. My wife and co-blogger, Julie, and I have been writing a series of 2020 Social Distancing Blog Posts about the COVID-19-safe activities in which we are able to partake. These blog posts were added to our sosAssociates.com website, which I built on the Drupal 7 content management system over eight years ago:

At the same time we have been writing blog posts this summer, I have been working behind the scenes on a new sosAssociates.com website. The new website is built on the new Drupal 9, which launched on June 3, 2020.

My goal was to create the new website with the new Drupal 9 version of the content management system, but with basically the same theme and content I had on my current Drupal 7 website.

I am launching my new Drupal 9 website on October 1, 2020, since this is a special date: my eleventh Twitter anniversary.

Looking for humor and creativity on the Twitterverse, and visiting parks while social distancing is what my life mainly consists of currently. There is also a lot of sadness about plans being canceled, but my family has been fortunate to have had no illness or death. I try to support those that I see online that are making a difference in our community.

While no day of COVID-19 social distancing is the same, the typical day often contains the following elements: 

• Absolutely no consistency in mornings

• Forenoon - Twitter online distractions

• 2:00 pm coronavirus #InThisTogetherOhio updates from Ohio Governor Mike DeWine

• Afternoon walk in local parks to help deal with coronavirus-related stress

• Evenings are spent watching online movies

In this blog post, I share my experience visiting local parks, and my online life during these coronavirus crisis times.

On Monday, March 30, 2020, while Julie and I were finishing our blog post, Peaceful Parks While Social Distancing, we got to talking about how we appreciated all the humor and creativity we were seeing on social media while everyone was social distancing. We were impressed by some of the very gifted people sharing their talents, and we liked how some people were using humor to cope with the stress of the current coronavirus crisis.

I decided to grab my @sos_jr tweets and retweets from this stressful time period that I thought demonstrated positive humor or creativity on the Twitterverse, and some tweets that had some personal significance. Please share those that you enjoy by retweeting them, so that your Twitter followers can share in a laugh, or appreciate the talent.

Today is my 10th anniversary on Twitter! I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all the good people in the Twitterverse who have invited me to learn about their lives and what they care about, by sharing interesting activities. And to the cultural, art, civic, and creative organizations, thank you for bringing joy into my life by informing me of new opportunities in which I could participate.

In #MyTwitterAnniversary blog post, I want to wish you a great month, year, and life full of adventure and fun times as I start my eleventh year of blogging and sharing on Twitter! 

It all started when I received an email from Michael Christoff, who is one of the members of the PechaKucha Night Cleveland leadership team. He wrote that he was inviting me to a special first-time-ever PechaKucha Night Cleveland Past Presenters Happy Hour. This would be an event where the 250+ PechaKucha Night Cleveland presenters from the past eight years would be invited.

Although Julie and I have written blog posts about PechaKucha Night Cleveland and attended many of their events, I had never done a PechaKucha talk myself. I was extremely honored to be invited to this closed event for people whose presentations I greatly admired. It meant a lot to me.

But it got even better -- I was in for a BIG surprise!!!

I have always enjoyed reading Janet Cho's #SocialMedia Tips articles, so I was honored when she contacted me to be featured in her column. 

Smarter #SocialMedia Tips from #HappyinCLE Stuart O. Smith Jr. (@sos_jr)

NOTE from Stuart: This is a reblog of Dan Yurman's blog post: Stuart Smith on Twitter.

On Jan 26 Stuart O. Smith, Jr., gave an informative and entertaining presentation to about 50 people at the CDPUG monthly meeting. Since his first “Hello World” on October 1, 2009, Smith has been using Twitter to promote tech, social media, blogging and some entrepreneurial events in the greater Cleveland area.

How did I get started promoting technology meetings and other events in Cleveland? It all started with my announcements at the beginning of my WebSigCleveland.org meetings. Over time, the number of meetings grew and grew, so that there were too many to announce. Then, Jim Evans (@GeekClean) asked, "Have you ever heard of Twitter?" And the rest is history...