Forget scalability in Twitter. Scalability is decided by people trying to create a structure. But Twitter is all about self-assembling and the groups sort of morph into being around this. It’s an eco sphere.
How better to organize members who know themselves they are tiny ants by having them fight color wars in teams? Someone had to think of transferring this popular bonding game played in summer camps onto Twitter. That someone was
Zefrank, a blogger/twitter user backed by a team of programmers, ready to create online versions of ‘tug of war’, a flickr based ’scavenger hunt’ etc.
He sent three tweets out, which soon became memes that traveled throughout the Twitter-o-sphere:
“Good Morning! As you can see, i am now a member of the blue team!”
and
“What team are you on? don’t make up some imaginary team either…for God’s sake the color wars are coming!”
and
“The first colorwar challenge has begun: http://colorwar2008.com/”
That last link lands you on the
ColorGames website on which he outlines what it’s all about. Guess what, the game was materializing as he reported back, with many teams forming, some of which are hundreds of players deep.
These are the teams and their follower numbers:
@newsroom - 52
@veryGreenTeam - 774
@BlueTeam - 289
@OrangeTeam - 232
@Redteam - 159
@YellowTeam - 127
@FF1CAEteam - 164
@GoldTeam - 199
@Offwhiteteam - 95
@Plaidteam - 119
@Noteam - 176
@Fuchsia - 55
@TeamClear - 102
@PinkTeamgo - 27
@Whiteteam - 40
@Purple - 86
@StripeTeam - 35
@PuceTeam - 26
@rainbowteam - 101
@blackwatchteam - 59
@GammaRayTeam - 5
@ChartreuseTeam - 48
@greenredteam - 49
@BrownTeam - 19
@TeamTransparent - 53
@PussyPinkTeam - 145
@sepiateam - 16
@seethruteam - 6
@meatteam - 53
@Teamcoffee - 31
First goal of course is to get as many followers as possible. The
first challenge for Color Wars contestants: take a photo of yourself, by midnight EST Monday, throwing either “rock”, “paper” or “scissors” and post it on the Colorwars website.
It's naff, but the thing is catching on, with plenty of Facebookish reactions. Various authoritative people expressing their color affiliations. The crowd at Mashable for instance asked its readers what team it should tell its 4,000 followers to back. Based on many responses they decided to endorse the
VeryGreenTeam. That was the direct result of intense lobbying by members of that team.
The first challenge, submitting a Flickr-uploaded photo of yourself enacting scissors or paper or stone, should be easy. Reporters wanting to participate, check out the
Newsroom team.
----------
Disclosure: Angelique van Engelen writes for the
ReporTwitters blog.
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