My friend Todd Sanders (@tsand on Twitter) is crazy, unpredictable, and always pushing the envelope–waaaay more than me. He’s a web nerd at University of Wisconsin, a video fanatic and, possibly the worst of his sins the week before a Steeler’s Super Bowl, a diehard Green Bay Packers fan. He’s currently getting ready to in the middle of driving a Mercedes Benz with his friend and co-driver John Pederson (@ijohnpederson on Twitter) in “the world’s first Twitter-fueled race.” You can visit their team website, join their Facebook page, or even follow the race here (update: the link to the live tweet/fuel/race progress does not play nice in Chrome, apparently, so you will want to use another browser to watch the progress across the map and see how much fuel they have at any point). In a nutshell, Todd and John are driving an S-Class Mercedes Benz from LA to Dallas while their celebrity coach, Pete Wentz (@petewentz on Twitter, bass player and lyricist of Fall Out Boy) calls the plays.
Each team’s progress is “fueled” by Twitter activity during the race. Over a three-day period, we will earn points not only for collecting Tweet Fuel, but for our performance on a series of social media-related challenges we will face along the way. The team that reaches the Finish Line with the highest total score will be declared the winner.
- So as not to vomit into my own Twitterstream, I’ve created a second Twitter account for the occasion named, appropriately, @Robin2RT.
- I’m using a separate Twitter client to help make fewer mistakes from the wrong account and to follow the drivers and the race HQ account, who is giving the challenges. (Note: I’ve already had to juggle between Twhirl and TweetDeck; Holy Twitterstream overload!)
- I can tell it’s gonna get ugly in my Twitterstream, so I’m using the TweetDeck filter capability to filter #MBteamS from my normal stream. I am a team player, though, so the hashtag has it’s own separate column. That way I can tune in and out when I need to.
- For those people who don’t use TweetDeck, I offer muuter.com, which offers the service of temporarily unfollowing the noisy tweeters, then refollows after a time you determine. If the race isn’t your cup of tea, this could save your sanity for the next three days.
- If you’re willing to join the cause, great! They “fuel” in the morning a half hour before start time (8am, wherever they are) as well as during the day–literally fueled by followers’ tweets. You can check the official race rules (or the updated points clarification added below) but the biggest bang for your tweet is to RT @tsand’s tweets and make sure to include the hashtag. There will also be challenges along the way, both for the drivers and the followers. So watch and learn, and see how this experiment pans out.
- Did I mention the RTs have to be old school (as in, show up with the RT @tsand, not just using the retweet button)? And don’t forget the hashtag #MBteamS.
Team hashtag (#MBteamS) = 1 pt
Team Cap’n handle (@tsand) = 1 pt
RT with either @tsand or #MBTeamS = 1 pt
RT of @tsand that includes #MBteamS = 3 pts*
Yes: RT @tsand No: (via @xxxx) or just using the button
Tweet on, racers! And go, bacon!
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