2012 Twitter Madness Tourney: Elite 8 Wrap Up

I believe it was Walt Whitman who said “Damn, the @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney is off the chain, dawg”  Truer words were never spoken as the 2012 Edition of the Tournament was proving to be the most unpredictable and exciting in the 112 year history of the event. From grizzled veterans, to renowned celebrities, to local phenoms, the event has been one cliffhanger after another.  So captivating has been the tournament that I got a call from Steven Spielberg yesterday who wanted to option the event for a movie.  Well, I’m pretty sure it was Spielberg. I didn’t actually pick up the call and he didn’t leave a message, but c’mon, this tournament has been so spectacular why wouldn’t he yearn to base a movie on it?  Anyway, I’m sure he’ll call back and if he doesn’t I’ll let Quentin Terantino do the movie cuz I know he’s gonna call.

But enough of my name-dropping Hollywood exploits, let’s see what happened in the Elite 8…

@jimsterne v. @frankreed: Frank made a Cinderella run in this year’s tournament but this time the clock struck 12 on this Marketing Pilgrim and his golden carriage turned into a pumpkin. So what went wrong? Well not much really, this is just a case of running into the Twitter Buzzsaw that is @JimSterne.  So what did Jim do that was so special? Let me summarize.

1. He freakin’ brought Venn Diagrams to the party. This hasn’t been seen since the ’54 Twitter Madness Tourney and Jim’s retro strategy was well timed.
2. He pointed out his shortcomings. This is the first time in the history of Twitter that this has ever been done and Jim showed true courage in being the trailblazer of this type of humility.

1. He’s bringing his case for Twitter supremacy to the source. And I suspect I can con him into paying for the coffee as well.

Winner: @JimSterne

@TheOnion v. @1918: In a true David vs. Goliath matchup, local upstart Phil Buckley (aka @1918) tried to stop the undeniable force of @TheOnion. First, some background. according to his website 1918.com his twitter handle and seemingly his whole existence is predicated around the Boston Red Sox, and in its incarnation his web presence was to honor the year of that team’s last World Series Championship (1918).  A worthy tribute I suppose but I am going to be perfectly honest with you, I hate the Red Sox, in fact there’s not much I like about Boston except for Bobby Orr, chowder, and the band.  As far as the Red Sox go, I’ll never forgive them for poaching Pedro Martinez from my beloved Montreal Expos, which proved to be the final death nail in the downward spiral of the franchise.

But this isn’t about grudges right? So let me put away my well ingrained hatred for the city and baseball team I loathe the most and focus on the man himself, and his performance. I noticed that he secured a new gig which has to be attributed to his run in the Twitter Madness Tourney. I mean that’s the kind of power this event has…it catapults careers!  To his credit he put on another successful #SEOMeetUp here in Raleigh (in an Irish Pub no less) featuring a guy making mad cash doing a web show called Freezerburns which Phil deftly promoted on Twitter with great skill. On the downside I noticed that he referenced the term “awesome sauce” which deducted 2.74 point from his score.

Now, how about @TheOnion.  @TheOnion was Jon Stewart before Jon Stewart was Jon Stewart. If that kind of humor floats your boat than there’s no one better feed to follow than @TheOnion. But during the matchup with Phil, there just seemed to be something missing in the normal stellar Onion reporting. I can’t really put my finger on it but can’t help but think they were overlooking @1918.  In fact, I detected some subtle sarcasm pointed towards Phil in one of their tweets:

So the question is, how much equity do I allow @The Onion, who is consistently the go-to Twitter account for all the fake news that’s fit to print.  The answer: “none Goddammit”. This is the freakin’ @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney and you better show up ready to play when the bell sounds.  So as the Onion might say:

Winner: @1918

@RudiShumpert v. @jowyang: A great matchup between the Sr. Director- Technology of Keystone Solutions  and Jeremiah “Don’t call me Jow Yang” Owyang, Industry Wonk to the stars at Altimeter Group.  Jeremiah came out of the gates strong with his mix of shared and original content.  This is where Jeremiah really excels.  Rather than just use Twitter as a glorified Mashable link feeder, he throws in some of his own content.  Imagine that, a guy creating his own content and not RTing the same shit that’s been RTed a bazillion times by everyone else.  He did make a huge mistake however when he Tweeted a link that was via him. What the fuck is up with that.  As anyone familiar with my list of 25 Tweet Types will tell you, this is a clear violation of Tweet Type 3, and actually might be a new strain of Tweet, the “I RT my own Tweets” Tweet.  With a Douchebag Scale Ranking of 8 this really hurt his score and could have been fatal.

As for Rudi, well he inexplicitly posted no tweets on the first day of the matchup.  Folks, let me be clear on something. When you get to the Elite 8 of the @deanshaw Twitter Madness Tourney and you don’t tweet on the first day of the matchup, you disrespect me. But you not only disrespect me, you also disrespect your country, the Corps, and your Mama.  Needless to say, that despite his faux pas Jeremiah was enough of a hare to beat Rudi’s tortoise to the finish line

Winner: @jowang

@kaimac v. @AndyBeal: So @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Titantic’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘Cinderella’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Brooklyn’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘tru dat’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Irish beer’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘trakur’  and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘potatoes’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘being sexy and he knows it’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Amazon closing at 7pm’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about an ‘Android condom phone’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘US Soccer’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘ukeleles’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘WTF’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘lol’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘grrrr’ and then @andybeal said somethin’ about ‘OMG!’ and then @kaimac said somethin’ about ‘Pie’ and then @andybeal said….wait…what??? @kaimac said something about ‘Irish Beer’, ‘potatoes’ and ‘pie’????? Ladies and gentleman, what you have witnessed here is the first culinary trifecta in Twitter Madness history. And then @deanshaw said somethin’ about ‘Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!’

Winner: @kaimac

To the Winners – Welcome to the Final Four!

To the Losers – Well, no one likes a loser…scram!

To check out the brackets go to @deanshaw Twitter Madness 2012 Brackets
For more info on the tourney check out my 2012 Twitter Madness Tourney Page