Forget scalability in Twitter. Scalability is decided by people trying to create a structure. But Twitter is all about self-assembling. 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 various teams forming, some of which are hundreds of players deep. I have entered the reporTwitter newsroom as an official team. We’re called the Newsroom Team, remember that and make sure you signed up as a follower of the Newsroom! (Of the 80+ reporTwitter members, only 54 are following the Newsroom tweet.)
These are the teams and their follower numbers:
@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.
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. In a post entitled “Mashable Can Bring Peace to Twitter” the guys ask their readers which team they should endorse and based on the 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. Any takers, it’s easiest to message other members using the Newsroom Tweet. Simply go to www.twitter.com/newsroom. The password is Novatwitter. Let’s make a go of this.