Back in March, inspired by Tara Hunt, I wrote a post which, in part, imagined what Shakespeare’s Twitter account might look like. I thought it was marginally funny, but there was a germ of an idea there. I got to wondering…
What would God’s Twitter account look like?
I got to chatting with my friend Heather about the idea, and we started working on TwitterAllMighty.com. We’d skin a Drupal site so that it looked like a Twitter page, write a few funny tweets from famous people, and invite site visitors to submit their own.
Why is my first instinct to satirize new tech trends? More on this later, maybe.
We registered the URL and got to work, but we rapidly got really busy, sick, busy some more, moved to Malta, and so forth. The idea died on the vine.
Here’s what it might have looked like (click for larger version):
Thanks to Rob for Archimedes’s line.
Laziness and the Completion Threshold
I have a fair number of random ideas like this. Some get started, a few get completed and the rest just float around in the ether. I was thinking about why I finish the projects I do, and came up with this graph (click for larger version):
Yes, my busyness and laziness have something to do with my success rate, but I think it’s mostly driven by the quality of the idea. If I think an idea is great–like GetaFirstLife.com–and friends respond really positively to me when I pitch it, then I’ve got a lot of inertia to get it done.
On the other hand, if I’m not overly excited by the idea, and it only gets a lukewarm reception from colleagues, then I’m far less motivated to get it done. That’s pretty much what happened with TwitterAllMighty.com (it’s about half done). It was a marginal idea, so I didn’t cross the threshold of completion. That said, I obviously think it’s good enough to share the skeleton of the idea with you kind folks.
What would your historical figure tweet about?
DarrenBarefoot.com 
never saw god as a historical figure but anyways … 🙂
a while ago, i started following the twitter faker robert mugabe (robmugabe); liked the idea of following the (imagined) inner workings of a crazed politician. unfortunately, he stopped twittering. but i think it would be really interesting to take someone like hitler or mussolini or mao, imagine what their day is like, both in its internal and external workings, and twitter about it. any history buffs out there?
I just saw this morning that Seattle’s best weekly (The Stranger)(blog) points to Jesus Christs Cool Blog. Description: A daily memoir of sorts, in which I capture the mundanity of everyday life and breathe art into the words! And I write about my lamb, Karen, too! She really does the funniest, cutest things.
Last year Sachi and I both read “under the banner of heaven” by John Krakauer, which is about wacky mormon fundamentalists who can justify anything (including murder) because of “revelations from God”. We half-considered starting a blog called “Revelations from Dog” in which we could justify our actions thanks to our dog’s ability to communicate with us in some cosmic way. Perhaps that’s twitter-able too.
I think you should create a second graph here… about the “lifecycle of an idea.” EVERY idea initially seems like it’s on the GetaFirstLife trajectory… then, some continue before dropping off, some drop off immediately, and some carry on. What’s it chart as?
For example, I always think ALL of my ideas are superb immediately, but after a good night’s rest, or similar sobering experience, probably 75 percent whither on the vine. Others live to see another day.
Anyway — great post. Thanks!
This is great! Your Twitter site reminded me of the movie Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey where he is responding to “prayers” in email format.
I think it’s great that you take time to satirize new trends. Trends like Twitter in my opinion really should be questioned anyways. Especially when people on Twittervision stay on their computer for hours on end just watching random people change their status.