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How to Easily follow Race Across America, RAAM and RAW 2010, with Real Time Information from Twitter and What the Hashtag.

“How to Easily follow RAAM and RAW 2010 with Real Time Information from Twitter and What the Hashtag.”

By Lark Birdsong
RAAM, 2008 Competitor
RAW, 2010 Chief Crew

What the Heck is Twitter and What the Hashtag?

Here is a way to follow RAAM and RAW from people who are “tweeting” over the days leading up to RAAM and RAW, the 12 days of competition, and post race information as it happens. So what is Twitter? In common sense language, Twitter is a website on the internet where people can put in up to 140 characters of information and it is also a place where people can read this information, usually within a few seconds after the person “tweeted” the information. Per Twitter, “Twitter is a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.”

Why in the world would I want to do this?

Because the information can be from individuals who have knowledge of the race as it is occurring. For example, I will be tweeting about the men’s and women’s RAAM solo race and all the RAW competitors I see, along with tweets about the Denver Spokes, since I am chief crew for this wonderful team.

If you are interested how Jure Robic or Amy Xu is doing, I might have seen them and tweeted about their progress. RAW teams and RAW individual solo competitors will be swirling around us and I will tweet about them when I can. Anyone tweeting can provide information about accidents, competitions, weather, wonderful moments, etc. Pictures can also be added to tweets and you could even see pictures of the competition as well.

As with any information you have to determine whether it is quality information. So yes sometimes it might not be accurate or maybe folks might be trying to throw off a competitor by providing a false location. Twitter is one piece of information and if it is really important to the competitor’s race strategy, she/he would have to verify information from multiple sources of information.

Yet information from Twitter can be very useful. Think of how it would be to see a photo of someone you are following through a tweet or hear that they made it through a nasty piece of weather or were okay after a crash on the bike. These are just a few of the examples of information that could be found on Twitter. If I were coming upon an accident that might affect racers behind us I could tweet about it and many others could know about the accident much sooner than their arrival at the accident scene. In this instance I would also call the race officials, yet the public distribution of the information instantly through Twitter has the ability to get to many more racers and crew much quicker. Many big companies are using Twitter to their advantage and there are reasons why. So let’s start tweeting and reading all the information about this wonderful race called Race Across America (http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/ ) and Race Across the West (http://www.raceacrossthewest.org/) by those that are tweeting on the race.

Okay I am convinced so how do I do it?

Here is a step by step manual to follow this great race and graphic examples. You can only follow people who tweet or you can tweet, you don't have to do both.

Do this for people who Tweet; please add #raam2010 to all their Tweets for RAAM/RAW

• Add this at the end of every tweet, #raam2010; leave a space before the #.
• Below is an example of a tweet I just posted. I use HootSuite (http://hootsuite.com/) to put my information in or “tweet from” on my iPhone and my Twitter name is lebird (http://twitter.com/lebird). I will be tweeting before and during the race.
• Denver Spokes compete in RAW 2010. Celeste Callahan at 68 has done 3 RAAMs and soon 1 RAW http://ht.ly/1LxjI #raam2010
• We can see all the tweets that use #raam2010 on What the Hashtag.

Do this for people who only want to read RAAM and RAW information for 2010; use What the Hashtag?! website

• Go to the website What the Hashtag?! (http://wthashtag.com/Main_Page)
• Type in raam2010 in the white search box with a # sign to the left and below What the hashtag?! blue icon. Here is an example of how it might look.

• Go to the lower half of the webpage and you see the most recent information that people have tweeted about regarding RAAM and RAW. See this example.

• If you want a transcript of more tweets click on the transcript tab that is just above the most recent tweets and chose the date range you want to have a transcript from. I chose May 13, 2010 through May 15, 2010 and an example is listed below.

 

Wrap Up- It is easy so go ahead and try it, there is information waiting for you to read

1. It is easy to get all the RAAM and RAW tweets in one place for people to read if, people tweeting use #raam2010 in all their tweets. (doesn’t matter if capitalized or not).

2. Individuals wanting to read these tweets go to What the Hashtag?! And type in raam2010 in the search box by the # (http://wthashtag.com/Main_Page).

3. People wanting a transcript of more tweets that they see click on the transcript tab in What the Hashtag?! and put in the date range you want to read.

4. You can of course do both, tweet and read the other tweets.

Best wishes to all for a safe and fun race. See you soon.

What the Hashtag and Twitter: Live Conversations for a Hashtag and Transcripts for a Conference or Topic, Wow!

I learned about What the Hashtag?! (http://wthashtag.com/Main_Page) from Andrea Meyer of Working Knowledge (http://workingknowledge.com/. Andrea works a lot with Twitter and her expertise is valued by many companies.

I tested What the Hashtag?! and wanted to show one way I found it useful. First, from the website What the Hashtag?! they describe their services as "a user-editable encyclopedia for hashtags found on Twitter."

If a hashtag is setup (I tested #health) for a topic, type it in and you will see a description for the hash tag, contributions the last seven days, top contributors, area to have a live conversation with folks on this  specific hashtag and what makes me really excited, is a view transcript tab.

Click on it and you can get tweets for some time back. I went back one month for #health and received a transcript for 30 days worth of tweets on #health. 

If there is not a hash tag setup for your purpose you can set one up. Here is an example of one I setup for some work I am doing. I wrote the hashtag, description and have promoted this tag on other listserv's and social media sites as the one to use for this year's Race Across America. (http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/).

Lastly, and this is also really exciting, What the Hashtag is a place to get the transcript from a conference, if it has been setup. As an example, the Association of Information Professionals (http://www.aiip.org/) is having their annual conference starting April 28, 2010 and has designated the official hashtag for the conference as #aiip10. Since this hashtag was not setup, I setup one up for the hashtag (#aiip10) for the AIIP 2010 Conference and described how the hashtag can be used on What the Hashtag. I can now type this hashtag into What the Hashtag and have a transcript from the entire conference. This could also be used to have live conversations during the conference, from anywhere, as long as an individual is registered on What the Hashtag.  Here is how it looks now before the conference starts.

After I set the #aiip10 hashtag up, this is how it looks now. I tweet as lebird (http://twitter.com/lebird)and infoliteracy (http://twitter.com/InfoLiteracy) and they showed up about one hour after the tweet. You can also see the other tweets leading up to the conference. 

 

I believe this is a valuable tool to have live conversations on a topic plus gain a transcript on #hashtags. Thanks Andrea for bringing this to our attention.

Bicycle Dreams and Race Across America

Last Friday, June 12, 2009, I went up to the Breckenridge Film Festival to see the movie (Bicycle Dreams). It is a must see movie if you have any kind of interest in Race Across America (RAAM) or ultra-endurance cycling competitions. If you are a competitor, fan, have a loved one in this type of race, a sponsor or just love the extreme sports, it is a movie that gives you a perspective on what it takes to get it done. You see why people take it on, the love/hate relationship that exists during the race and the enduring love and respect for RAAM that lasts a lifetime.

The film maker, Stephen Auerbach, did a wonderful job of capturing what RAAM is really like from the hardships of the race to the unending treasures RAAM brings; if RAAM racers and crew let in these treasures by inhaling RAAM's essence.

A very special moment in the movie is the story of Bob Breedlove, a wonderful person who competed in RAAM several times. Bob lost his life while racing in RAAM 2005. He raced with such joy in his heart and had a saying while racing that it is just "Another Day in Paradise".

One lesson I took away from this movie is to know that everyday in my life is a day in Paradise, if I let it in. Race Across AMerica is addicting because of the invisible gifts that soak you each mile. The riches of RAAM continue well after the 3,000 miles we have been so lucky to pursue, are behind us.

Bicycle Dreams

"Bicycle Dreams," which chronicles the experiences of five riders in the grueling, 3,000-mile Race Across America (RAAM), is set to world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival on Saturday April, 25, 2009.

Documentary on Race Across AMerica

Local filmmaker Stephen Auerbach has completed one of the most tremendous projects of his career......

"Since the race's inception in 1982, fewer than 200 racers have ever finished the competition; an average of 48 percent of those who attempt RAAM ever finish. But the film has been a long time coming, and Auerbach has been tried and tortured with almost every step along the way. Covering the race was so daunting," he said. "The amount of money being offered to cover it was probably between five and 10 percent of what would be required to do a regular film or television show."

This race is hard on everyone who races, crews, officiates, volunteers, staffs, films, photographs or has loved ones competing. It is in its 27th year and it starts again on June 17, 2009.  I hope Stephen and his crew get a lot of support for their work and that film festivals pick it up if Stephen wants. Perhaps the economics might work for RAAM to have it in their store for purchase. Thanks Stephen for your work.

We just gotta love crazy folks who take on any of the many roles required in the extreme endurance events (and there are many roles and events to applaud) for their perseverance and love of life.

Race Across America Website

Race Across AMerica or Tour De France?

Which is it?  The debate goes on as to which cycling race is harder. Race Across AMerica or Tour De France. Having done RAAM on a 4 women team in 2008 I have a sense of what the solo RAAM racers endure and am biased towards RAAM. The way I see the online sparring is they are both great and I am lucky to be able to watch each race. With RAAM alot of the watching is online. The numbers are listed below. You decide unless of course you are a dog and then you win paws down!

RAAM versus TDF

Dogs Win!