I’m new to twitter (need an account for work, sigh) and am still looking for good people to follow. I’ve got Roger Ebert, Stephen Fry, Nathan Fillion, Penn, and Teller.
My latest find: Fake AP Stylebook. Funny shit.
Any recommendation?
You definitely need to check out Conan O’Brien. He started his twitter feed after leaving the Tonight Show. He tweets once a day. These were some of his first ones:
I have an account for work that we use to run out specials and soups of the day. For the sake of keeping up appearances I really only follow a handful of local business. I also linked a FourSquare account to it that I use when I eat at or go to local Milwaukee restaurants/venues. Having said that, I only follow one ‘real’ person…Conan.
I tend to follow some serious people, like Keith Olbermann and Chuck Todd. I enjoy reading their stuff because their tweets reveal the person behind the TV persona.
I also like Paula Poundstone, because she’s just funny.
There’s one I like called @VeryShortStory. An entire story in 140 characters.
I had to unload Ebert because he tweets like 400 times a day.
It’s now famous enough to have a TV show, so perhaps it goes without mentioning, but Shit My Dad Says.
If you read Questionable Content (webcomic by Jeph Jaques), you should def. be on the Twitter list for his QC Characters as they interact with each other + Yelling Bird for extra randomness.
http://twitter.com/#/list/jephjacques/qccast
**Warning: NEVER CLICK on a Pintsize link, they’re all NSFW.
I also enjoy following the Cobra Commander for random evil fun.
Another good theme one is “ManvsZombies” it’s the Twitter account of a survivor of a zombie takeover. He’s tweeting while trying to outwit the zombies, but he’s a spare poster.
Stephen Colbert is also quite funny for one liners.
And finally, ONLY if you’re a true fan of his movies/podcasting/talks, would I recommend Kevin Smith, he’s not posting as much due to making red state, but when he posts, he can post sometimes 20-30 posts a day for weeks, and fill up your twitter page. If you don’t like that or like his sense of humor/shameless promotion of himself/friends, just don’t bother to follow him. But if you ARE a huge fan and love to learn more about him, he’s very open and honest on his twitter account. Just consider yourself warned.
A “Hard working Chilean miner stuck in a mine with only a laptop and 32 co-workers for company”.
Very funny, but also using twitter to raise funds for the Chilean Earthquake Relief fund.
That has the same feel to it as Conan.
@fireland
He posts non-sequitor comedy that’s often quite good. A few of my favorites:
Here’s a thread from a few months ago. Who should I follow on twitter?
I follow a lot of sports people:
Joe Posnanski: JPosnanski - one of the best sports writers out there
Buster Olney: Buster_ESPN
Will Carroll: injuryexpert - great insight to sports injuries and sports in general
OzzieGuillen - hilariously horrible
Rany Jazayerli: jazayerli - a KC Royals blogger with great insight
KenTremendous: Former writer of FireJoeMorgan.com and writer on “Parks and Recreation” (also, cousin Mose on “The Office”)
Keith Law: keithlaw
Peter Gammons: pgammo
Chris Harris: writerboyESPN is an ESPN fantasy sports guy
Mark Cuban: mcuban - a pretty interesting person. It’s not always sports, he talks business a lot as well
Of Interest:
BillGates and gatesfoundation: tweets about a great number of interesting things/causes
whitehouse
Random:
SergeGraystone (the house robot on the BSG spinoff “Caprica”) - written by Caprica staff, interesting little nuggets of inside info
michaeljnelson (MST3K & Rifftrax)
One of my favorites is Astro_Wheels. He’s tweeting from the International Space Station, mostly sharing photographs. He’s an excellent photographer; his pictures give you a whole new perspective on the Earth and the solar system. Here’s his TwitPic page.
The Bad Astronomer is always interesting.
Chris Anderson, TED curator, tweets as TEDChris. He’ll typically share a link to a presentation, but also shares other interesting information. He was born in Pakistan, so he’s covered the flooding in Pakistan quite extensively.
One of the best local news and event sources is Columbus Underground. They do a really good job of tweeting in a way that draws you to their website and keeps you aware of what’s going on in Columbus.
I’ve slowly built up my list based on who interesting people are following and re-tweeting. I tend to drop people who tweet too much and just go to their profiles periodically and browse.
I could share lots more…
My favorite: Weird Al.
Please do!
Brand new today: @SteveMartinToGo
Was just about to post this. He’s made a good start - his timeline is hilarious.
I was also about to suggest Steve Martin. Phenomenal start, I hope it lasts.
@maddow - Rachel Maddow of the eponymous MSNBC show, also @maddowblog for ancillary info,and two of her producers @producerguy1 & @jamilsmith
@BrentSpiner - Yes, Data. I don’t know what character he’s playing on Twitter, exactly, but it’s a good one.
@Alyssa_Milano - She has extremely informative links sometimes that make you stop and say, oh, hey, wow. Interesting stuff. Plus lots of photos of herself, if you like that.
@CoryBooker - he’s the mayor of Newark, NJ and surprisingly active, transparent, funny and engaging.
I can also give links to all of the pro dancers from Dancing With the Stars, the key actors from the show Private Practice, several key cast members from the show Criminal Minds, and a bunch of people who are pretending to be the various characters from the show The West Wing (riffing off of @Pres_Bartlet) if anyone’s interested in any of the above. Niche, but fun if you’re a fan.
More, you say? How about these:
Omer Mozaffar - Pakistani in Chicago (got him through Roger Ebert)Natasha Badhwar Writer, Mom, sharer of cool links such as this
webcomic(warning, salty language). She’s in New Delhi, so I’ve discovered lots of items through her that I’d normally miss. Another person that I found through Roger Ebert.
Jason Alexander - just started following him this week. Both funny and serious.
GOOD Don’t know exactly how to describe GOOD. They have a magazine and website and push good causes, good deeds, etc. They link to interesting articles.
David Pogue NYT tech columnist. He writes very accessibly and does silly videos; shares lots of interesting info.
Mashable All the latest about social media developments and uses.
Metropreneur New local site with resources for entrepeneurs.
Talcott Starr Local cartoonist.
CoolColumbus New local blogger
Allie Brosh If you read the Alot thread, you know who she is.
Real_Hulk
NPRMonkeysee NPR’s pop culture blogger.
Scott Simon from NPR
The Dalai Lama
Gardening twitterers:
The Germinatrix
containergarden
(I haven’t really looked around for gardeners; these two seem to know lots of other gardeners, so I tend to go read their pages and follow links from there.)
Food-related twitterers, including some that are local to me. I’ve discovered lots about the local food scene through them. I’ll bet your town has similar people to follow.
Saveur Magazine
Foodista
Rick Bayless
ThePioneerWoman
BreakfastWithNick
Columbus Food Adventures
Mollie Katzen
glutenfreegirl
lisathewaitress
Simply Recipes - Mostly a food blogger, but also has a regular blog where she posts cool stuff like JK Rowling’s Harvard commencement speech (she doesn’t use this blog much, but what’s there is interesting).
I use my Twitter stream to try to learn things I wouldn’t otherwise know about. I’ve been trying to add people with different interests and backgrounds than mine, in part inspired by this Ethan Zuckerman TED talk. He talks about the theory that the Web puts the whole world at your fingertips and how, IRL, most people only encounter and interact with people who are…just like them. I figure Twitter is a pretty easy way to counteract that tendency. These boards help with that too. 