The Twitter of Oz - Behind the Scenes Post #2

The following is Part One in a series documenting the making of The Twitter of Oz -- a modernized retelling of The Wizard of Oz through Twitter. Each of the main characters has their own Twitter feed and will tweet their experiences in real time as they try to get a Brain, a Heart, Courage and a Home.

I'm working on this at Visual Goodness where I'm Creative Manager. These are my notes as the world unfolds on Twitter.

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If you want to communicate with youth using Twitter, don't use Twitter by itself. Hook your Twitter feed up to everything: Facebook, web sites, mobile apps. Kids don't know what Twitter is yet. They might not ever know. For this target audience, Twitter is best served to function as a CMS.

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The single Twitter of Oz page is up. More changes coming soon.

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I learned the hard way that Twitter limits the rate of API calls from a single set of credentials (i.e. a single IP address) to 70 an hour. I've read elsewhere that the number is as high as 90. Some places cite blocking people for up to 24 hours. So, here's a tip: When developing a 3rd party API that's pulling Twitter feeds, use dummy content for most of your testing. Only connect to the live feeds when necessary.

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I might eventually open up Facebook pages for each of the characters. This goes back to the idea that youth doesn't know what Twitter is, but they know Facebook. I told my 19-year-old cousin Michelle that she was one of the ongoing inspirations for Dorothy. She wants to follow Dorothy now, but doesn't know how. It would be too much of a hassle for her to open up a Twitter account and have her visit Twitter every day. I suppose she could sign up at Twitter then use the Twitter Facebook app to follow Dorothy. But, really it's just easier for Michelle to befriend Dorothy and see her updates on her wall.

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I gave the Wicked Witch a name: Maggie Gregory. It's an homage to Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked who named his Wicked Witch Elfaba as an homage to Frank L. Baum who wrote the original Wizard of Oz.

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I've played around with contacting Gregory Maguire. Might still do it.

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Right now in the story, the Witch has just been hired by a woman kill her cheating husband. The Wicked Witch comes home and is a bit troubled by the request. Her boss/lover (the Wizard) encourages her to carry out the request. "It's a paying gig."

Also, today was Glinda's bday. It's a convenient way to talk about Lion's origins (she originally got Lion as a gift, but quickly forgot about him when the next shiny thing came along)

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Tomorrow is the first time I'll publicly talk about the project -- at AKQA.

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