New Thing #314: Following Everyone With My Last Name On Twitter

Growing up, I think everyone in my family thought that our last name was pretty unique. At least, we knew it wasn't as popular as other names we saw.

In those days, when everyone wasn't on the internet all the time, you'd come across people's names in a bunch of different places - sports rosters, news broadcasts, magazines, books, and more specifically, phone books.

And we never saw another Sucich - especially in the phone book, where so many other last names showed multiple entries.

But I'm discovering that Sucich isn't as rare as I once thought.

What I've found recently is that there are a few other people named John Sucich, besides my dad of course, that every so often I catch wind of.

There's a pilot named John Sucich in Michigan. There's a politically active Hawaiian named John Sucich - I think I received e-mails intended for him once.

There's also a bunch of obituaries for people named John Sucich that I've come across when I Google myself every once in a while.

I did that this weekend, just to see what came up. It brought up this nice article about my brother, which was a pleasant surprise. Sometimes there are links to the results of road races I ran more than a decade ago.

But I was reminded this weekend when I did it that I wanted to engage in a social experiment - because another place where I find a lot of 'Sucich' is Twitter.

And I've often thought about those other Suciches - do they wonder who we New York ones are as much as I wonder about them?

So I'm following them all - well, 7 of them, since I'm careful not to hit any that look like spam accounts - and we'll see what happens.

Maybe they're inactive and I won't follow them for long. Maybe they'll be great people that I become friends with. Maybe they're boring and I won't pay any attention after a day or two.

But we'll never know unless we give it a shot.

Update: Within 10 minutes of following the Suciches on Saturday, I heard from a Chelsea Sucich, who is in Tampa, and from Chicago. I had come across an article about yet another John Sucich who moved from Europe to Chicago in 1919 or so…I wonder if there's a connection there.

New Thing #286: Downloading My Twitter Archive

Late last year Twitter made it an option for a user to be able to access all of their old tweets in a more organized way. (I suppose the possibility exists to scroll down until you get back to the beginning, but that doesn't seem to be an efficient way to go about seeing what you wrote way back when, thousands of tweets ago.)

It's been in the back of my mind to check out my Twitter archive for...oh, about 10 months now, but it didn't look like something that would be simple and quick so I haven't done it.

But this weekend I looked into it a little bit more.

It took about one or two extra steps than I would have liked, but I've downloaded my Twitter archive.

Of course, if you know anything abut my Twitter life, I've only really downloaded half (or less than half) of my work on Twitter. I have two accounts - one is a sports-heavy one related to my sports blog work, and the other is the one which I've been using for the past year-plus. (That's the one I downloaded.)

I'm a big fan of starting fresh every so often. I don't know why. But I distinctly remember as a kid getting to the final stage of Legend of Zelda, for Super Nintendo I think, and just not being able to beat that last boss. So after a couple of tries I started the game again from the beginning, where you're in that rainy scene discovering the problem that sets you off on the big adventure. I don't think I ever ended up beating the game.

I think about that often, but I don't regret it.

I feel like Twitter is the same way - I worked really hard to build up almost 800 followers on my '200 Miles From The Citi' account, and then I started fresh on my regular John Sucich one. And I kind of feel like my 70 or so followers on that account are more interested in what I have to say than the 800 (probably mostly fraudulent accounts) I had following me on the sports site. (I've tried to get some of them to cross over, but other than a handful that I'm interested in following I haven't been successful.)

As for the archive? Well, it was a full-on download process, and I can only access the tweets by clicking the link they gave me after the download. I wish there was just a shortcut on my Twitter page.

But I'm enjoying the navel gazing as I re-read my old tweets. I would say I haven't quite yet mastered the medium (not like someone like Jimmy Fallon)...but I do OK.

Here's a quick taste from the past couple of years:

If you like what you see, there's more where that came from. Give me a follow, would ya? I'm @jsucich. Thanks!

New Thing #67: A High Profile Retweet

I'm having quite the Twitter week. I've been doling out some compliments.

Early in the week I sent a note to Josh and Chuck of the 'Stuff You Should Know' podcast because their TV episode about time travel was so fun to watch. (The show is no longer on once a week - now it's on in bunches every other Saturday afternoon. The last episodes air this weekend...no word on a second season. I suspect the '365 New Things In 2013' TV show jinx is now a thing.)

Then on Thursday evening I tweeted Buster Olney because I liked an interview from his podcast.

And he retweeted me.

This is worth writing about for a few reasons. One is that this is the biggest retweet I've ever gotten. Buster Olney has 658,200 followers.

Secondly, I really liked the interview. Or part of it, at least. The part I liked was when Jason Motte of the St. Louis Cardinals talked about being on the mound to close out Game 7 of the 2011 World Series. He talked about the precise moment the wave of crowd noise washed over him on the mound during the game and how he enjoyed the moment - anyone who has ever pictured themselves in a Game 7 situation had to have appreciated the picture he painted there.

Third is the result of the retweet. It drew a lot of attention to my tweet. (No new follows, it should be noted.) It might sound insignificant compared with more than 650,000, but I got retweeted 6 more times (all by followers of Buster, not me), favorited once, and then got 4-to-5 more replies (again, not my followers but Buster's followers).

I never really understood why guys like Olney, when they received tweets laced with vitriol, retweeted and engaged those people rather than just letting them sit there. Well, now I have a better idea. It's tempting to do something. Because the 4 replies were all somewhat pointed. (Well, one was more of an insult directed at Motte than me.)

All I meant by my tweet was that, being a Mets fan, I don't like the Cardinals. I didn't want a reason to root for any Cardinals, but I like Motte after listening to him speak with Buster Olney. The replies seemed to interpret that as me usually hating players on other teams. I never used the word hate. I just don't root for them - so I don't like them.

But here's the last notable thing: I think a few years ago those replies would have sat with me and ate me up inside. They didn't really do that this time. Maybe it's because writing about them is a good outlet. I don't know. But I have an idea now of what people are talking about when they talk about internet trolls - it's hard when people engage with you in a harsh manner. I can only imagine what happens when more than 50 people are following you.

So that was my Thursday night. If you want to get in on the Twitter fun, follow me @jsucich. Just be nice.

New Thing #66: Twitter Computer App

I'm still getting used to the existence of apps for the computer. You know, I've used apps on my phone for a few years now, and (I think) many similar ones are available for the computer desktop.

The only one I've used at all is the Twitter app.

And the jury is still out.

If I'm doing any tweeting, chances are I'm using my phone.

Among its advantages - it was the first available option for 'quotable retweets' - the retweets where you add something to the front and then 'quote tweet' rather than straight up retweeting. So I'm in the habit of doing that only from my phone. (And to be honest, I don't even know if you can do that from the computer yet.)

I just find the iPhone app easier to use overall. (At some point I'll explore TweetDeck or other Twitter apps. I know there are other options out there than the plain old Twitter app.)

But I like the Twitter computer app too. It's easy to write tweets from, it does a great job of quickly pulling up mentions (like if I type in @ and then some letters the options come up), and I like how it changes the text color for hashtags.

But it's not perfect - It's not obvious to me when there are new tweets on my feed, and I don't like that you have to use the 'File' menu at the top of the screen for so much. It seems so five years ago. And I admit some of these problems are my own fault - I am not used to checking it constantly, like I am with my phone, so sometimes I forget about it and lose sight of new tweets.

This is a pretty New Thing - I'm writing about it too soon to pass real judgment. I'm sure, though, as spring (and baseball season) approach and I'm on the computer a lot watching baseball and keeping tabs on the Twitter feed, I'll be using the app quite often.

New Thing #26: My Very Own Hashtag

I enjoy Twitter. (You can follow me here!) That's not new.

I've been promoting each of the 'New Things' on Twitter...much like I did with my sports site for a few years.

That's not new.

I've also been using the hashtag #365NewThingsIn2013.

That's new.

Hashtags were one of the hardest aspects for me to understand about Twitter.

Well, actually, not the concept - I got that pretty quickly. Moreso the practicality of them.

I didn't understand the value of the hashtag if you could just throw the 'pound' sign in front of anything and turn it into a searchable term.

I later realized that it was pretty good for finding information about, say, the Mets, or the Jets, or something else I was interested in. (Let alone the fun Jimmy Fallon hashtag games!)

Well, now with #365NewThingsIn2013 I have my very own hashtag.

I know that it's not likely someone's going to accidentally stumble across it in a search, but I really like that in the vast, vast world of the internet, where millions of people cross paths, I have a tiny little corner that's all mine.

And someday that little hashtag will yield 365 results.