A totally real photo of me Jeffery Simpson the famous blogger.

Link via Beyond Robson [br].

To be filed in the “completely too ironic interview” catagory, is this article on local internet celebrities, including Jennifer Lowther.  I’m not quite sure if Lowther knew how oddly clueless this was going to come off when she was talking to the Vancouver Sun [vs].  I don’t know her, I’ve never met her so it’s hard for me to judge exactly what she was thinking when she agreed to talk about how famous she is because of being on the internet.

I will say however that if you’re going to sit for an interview where you basically complain about the troubles of being “famous” thanks to your blog, Twitter and so forth aren’t you kind of asking for it?  Especially when you let the newspaper, which let’s face it still has a print run that rivals any local blogs, post a picture of you?

It’s a very meta-picture, because you can see the cameraman in reflection, it’s like a comment on how ‘net celebs get cyber.. not stalked.  But you know have people who follow them on Twitter.

And please someone explain to me this from Rob Cottingham talking about being a celebrity within your own circle, “”More interesting than the people who become instant celebrities are the people who become famous in a particular niche or within their own social networks. When you are able to rise to a level of prominence but just among the people you know.”   So when you become so famous that people who already knew you, know you, that’s real fame?

Back to Lowther, “People can know a ton about your life and you have no idea who they are.”

I really wish that emoticons were a respetable manner of conveying yourself in blog posts, rather than something used by tweens on Jonas Brothers’ fan boards.  If they were I’d use one of those smiley faces that shows deadpan blinking.

Is this really the stuff of newspaper articles in 2009?  I mean in 1999 I would have thought that this was all self-evident.  If you write a lot about yourself online then sometimes people are going to read it.  If you write a lot about yourself in the stalls of public toliets, some people are going to read it.

Now I’d blame this on the article’s writer Gillian Shaw, but from the (very few) conversations I’ve ever had with her (on Twitter / shock / horror) she doesn’t seem like she’s completely out to lunch.  Having written for tech for a daily city newspaper myself, not in Vancouver don’t bother guessing which, I have to say that this is probably not her fault.  By the time something filters up (or down) to the people who assign and approve stories often as a tech writer you kind of know that the world has moved onto something else but money is money.  Especially in this economy.

Now excuse me I have to go out wearing dress slacks and a pair of Crocs.  Oh my God, I hope nobody tweets about it.  Don’t worry, I only wrote it on this blog not in a bathroom stall.

I joined twitter a little over a year ago as part of some school research in emerging technology trends. For several months, I only had three followers: my professor, a classmate and a good friend of mine – not bad considering the huge Facebook craze at the time.

For some reason, I thought, “Hey why not see if good ol’ (or god-awful, depending on your point of view) Gordon Campbell is on Twitter.” Sure enough, he was. What about good ol’ (or god-awful, depending on your point of view) Carole James? She’s there too!

I added Gordon Campbell (@g_campbell) to my list… and within two hours he added me to his. Still waiting for Ms. James (@carolejames) to add me to hers. But considering that she’s not following anyone at the moment, I don’t think she’ll be inviting me to her list anytime soon. Granted, they’re both probably written by party staffers anyway.

Buzz Bishop (@buzzbishop) of 95.3 FM Virigin Radio fame tweets quite a bit, and I find his them to be a great source of what’s going on in Vancouver… and a great source for good eats! Local Vancouver Sun writer Gillian Shaw (@gilliamshaw) is a great read as well… She taught me a lot about how Twitter works on her recent Twitter article. For you Vancouver talk radio junkies, CKNW (@cknw) and News1130 (@news1130) are on it as well.

I’m sure that there are a more Vancouver twitter accounts out there. If you know of any good ones that we can follow, please leave a comment… Bonus points for you if you could find one that covers Vancouver’s food scene. I’m looking for more great places to eat!

Maybe you’ve been hearing about this Twitter thing, or maybe for you it’s old hat by now. Last week I explained how Twitter and the kindness of strangers helped me find my way when I got lost in Burnaby [mbv], and now I’d like to take a page from Blogging LA’s book [bla] and present a list of some great Twitter reads from Vancouver.

If you’re not quite clear on what Twitter is, or why you should care about it, check out this wonderful short video [cc].

1. Buzz Bishop [twt]: Vancouver radio personality and tech writer, Buzz is an active Twitterer and often uses the service to reach out to readers for ideas for his column in 24 Hours.
2. Sarah! [twt]: Sarah’s my fiancee’s roommate, and a very funny Twitterer.
3. Raul [twt]: There are different levels of Twitter frequency, and Raul certainly is active.  Following him on Twitter is kind of like following about three feet behind him wearing a long trench coat.  If you get my drift.
4. Tod Maffin [twt]: The CBC tech radio guy was of course an early adopter of Twitter, and still uses it regularly today to promote his work and share a bit of his personal life.
5. Vancouver Metblogs [twt]: Oh how tacky, I worked in a little self-promotion here.  That’s right, ten minutes before everyone abandoned Twitter for FriendFeed we totally set up a Twitter account for Metroblogging Vancouver.  With Vancouver specific updates, as well as notices of when we post something new it gives us that Web 2.0 street cred we crave.

Long time readers might have noticed that a lot of our regular posters have not been blogging around these parts much anymore. Even casual readers will notice that for a group blog having one author is a tad unusual. I won’t lie to you, I’m feeling a little lonely here at Vancouver Metblogs as I try to hold up the fort all on my own.

Which is why I’m putting the call out for authors. That’s right Metroblogging Vancouver is looking for new bloggers and you could be one of them.

What’s the catch? There is no catch. You just need to be able to blog twice-to-thrice a week about this great city of Vancouver. You also need to live in Vancouver, or the surrounding burbs, because let’s face it a Vancouver blog written by people in Calgary or Toronto would kind of suck.

So if you’re interested in being a part of the world wide project that is Metroblogging, then please send me an email [jefferysimpson at metblogs dot com] and come aboard. Whether your passion is blogging about local restaurants, other local blogs, parks, the Canucks, the Lions, riding the Skytrain or anything to do with Vancouver, we’d love to have you.