New media twist to old Shakespearean classic Romeo & Juliet

There’s the classic stage production at Stratford-on-Avon and at the Globe in London. Then, there’s the movie version by Franco Zeffirellii and an updated version starring Leonardo di Caprio ! Now, in a new Twitter-twist to an old bard’s tale of Romeo & Juliet, the Royal Shakespeare Company is presenting the story of forbidden love and star-crossed lovers through Twitter!

For five weeks, the stars of the show will be Tweeting their lines to be followed by the audience. This is meant to give an update on the old tale to make it more contemporary and to connect with the tec-generation teens of today.

You can catch some of their tweets here:  http://noolmusic.com/twitter/romeo_and_juliet.php.

The production is aptly called ‘Such Tweet Sorrow’ and you can follow the tweets as the story unfolds. Talk about an interesting style of digital storytelling!

Well, you tell me…does a rose by any other name smell just as tweet?

Or what do you think of the following that I’ve concocted?If Shakespeare had Twitter: Brevity is the soul of tweet. 1:41 PM Jun 25th, 2009 via web

If Shakespeare had Twitter: What’s in a name? That which we call a tweet by any other name would smell as sweet. 1:41 PM Jun 25th, 2009 via web   

If Shakespeare had Twitter: Beware the tweets of March. 1:40 PM Jun 25th, 2009 via web

If Shakespeare had Twitter: To tweet or not to tweet; that is the question 1:40 PM Jun 25th, 2009 via web

State of the Blogosphere

Technorati’s report on the State of the Blogosphere is out!

And according to the report, Technorati states that “the growth of the blogosphere’s influence on subjects ranging from business to politics to the way information travels through communities continues to flourish. In a year when revolutions and elections were organized by blogs, bloggers are blogging more than ever, and the State of the Blogosphere is strong.”

Released over a 5-day period, the report covers the following:

The Report

Day 1 — Who Are the Bloggers?

Day 2 — The What and Why of Blogging

Day 3 — The How of Blogging

Day 4 — Monetization And Revenue Generation, Brands in the Blogosphere

Day 5 — 2009 Trends: Political Impact of Blogging, Twitter Usage

Definitely a must-read for those into blogging and new media! It’s interesting that the report has a section on Twitter – a testimony to the growing popularity of Twitter. In fact, Twitter’s popularity has grown so much that Google and Microsoft have been in competition to seal deals with Twitter for their serach engines to index Tweets!

Facebook updating and anti-Facebook advocates

I just came across a new development in Facebook. It’s going the way of Twitter and allowing more Twitter-esque updates as it realises that many of its users prefer to do quick updates while on the move. This new feature will be out 11 March, so why don’t you guys try it out too and let us know what you think about it.

Strangely, just as Facebook is getting more popular with more Facebook fans across the globe, there’s an increasing number of anti-Facebook fanatics who have even gone so far as to sustain an anti-Facebook site known as Hatebook. Yes,  I know – not very original.

 It’s ironic that it touts itself as an anti-social networking site, for all anti-social networking people to network : Hatebook is an anti-social utility that disconnects you from the things YOU HATE. Everybody loves to HATE.

And what’s the purpose of the site, well it’s for users to Upload somebody’s lies or publish secrets • get the latest gossip from your enemies and friends • reveal photos and videos on your hate profile • tag your enemies • join ahate-clan to get rid off all annoying things around you • take over the world.

 And what’s priceless about it? We are told: The enemies of your enemies are your friends – find them here

Cute.

No, I have not signed up for a Hatebook account and I certainly hope I don’t have need to do so.

Twitter Writing Contest Results!

About a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Twitter Writing Contest organised by Copyblogger.

Well, the results of the Twitter Writing Contest are out and posted in Copyblogger’s latest posting.

Alas, yours truly didn’t win the 8GB iPod!

But here are the winning entries, taken from Copyblogger:

First Place:

Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.

 

Second Place:

Tony was a snitch, so I wasn’t surprised when his torso turned up in the river. What did surprise me, though, was where they found his head.

 

Third Place:

When Gibson hit that homerun in the fall of eighty-eight, my old man had never been so happy. He hugged me for the first time. I was eleven.

 

First Honorable Mention:

Happily sobbing she held the boy, her memory of his violent conception falling away. She had learned to love him, this would be her revenge.

 

Second Honorable Mention:

The priest at the funeral home asked if she had been a loving mother. The children all stared at each other. The silence spoke volumes.

Twitter Writing Contest

I came across a post on Copyblogger announcing a Twitter Writing Contest!

The contest requirement is to write the best 140-character story, and the best story will win the writer an iPod Nano (of course it’s got to be the nano!)

The post also writes:

It should be a great exercise and a lot of fun. Being constrained to exactly 140 characters will spark your creative juices and force you to focus stringently on word choice, sentence structure, and even punctuation.

Here’s an example that I tweeted over the weekend:

Three flies are bugging me on the deck. I kill two, and spare the third. “Go tell the others this is what happens,” I warn as he buzzes off.

Isn’t that such a great, cute tweet! Forget the essay, the novella, the short story, here comes the micro-tale!

If you think that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ and want to give it a try, find out more at Copyblogger.

Blogging on the go

It seems that the 2-second generation is taking over! Micro-blogging seems all the rage now, with more people using Internet-enabled cellphones to blog while they are on the go, something also known as moblogging (mobile blogging).

I just read the other day about how Twitter is getting more and more popular, and it is now another platform that bloggers need to use to keep their readers updated on what they have posted.

There’s a Twitter guide that you could read to help you get started. It’s really about giving your friends in your Twitter network live updates of what you are doing in as few words as possible!

In a jump-on-the-bandwagon kind of way, I got myself a Twitter account, so don’t be surprised if a you get a little twitter from me!