On Soulja Boy and the meaning of Twitter

I wish I could understand Soulja Boy's lyrics, so I could alter them to make a clever intro to this post. Instead, I'll have to go with the straight news:

Soulja Boy has 2.5 million Twitter followers, but his new album sold a craptastic 13,000 copies in its first week.

Billboard's brief analysis of this utter failure asks several questions: Are Twitter follower stats meaningless? Did Soulja Boy use Twitter the wrong way? Is Twitter just a place where everyone talks and nobody listens?

The answers to those questions aren't that important (but they're "no," "no" and "no," if you care). The real question is, "What are you looking to get out of Twitter?" If your answer is "a ton of sales" or "a ton of money" or even "a ton page views," you're up Twit Creek without a paddle. (See what I did there?)

Airport security breaches: Why the free pass, media?

Airport security is in the news a lot these days. There's been tremendous outcry over the Transportation Security Administration's full-body scanners and invasive thorough pat-downs, and rightfully so. These new airport security measures raise serious questions about personal privacy, national safety and this document you may have heard of called the Constitution.

But there's a much more serious airport security story that you don't see on the news as much: the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of these airport security measures. Just the other day, a guy in Houston boarded a plane with a loaded Glock in his laptop bag*, and the airport security screeners didn't even notice it. Sure, this story got some play in the press, but the media didn't use it to create a national firestorm like with the TSA peepers and gropers.

2010 college football playoffs preview

It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, I'm not talking about Christmas. It's college football playoffs time!

I'm so glad everybody came around to this idea. Last year's tournament was great. Who can forget that triple-overtime quarterfinal between Texas and Oregon? And Boise State's Hail Mary against Alabama in the title game was so close to being caught, wasn't it?

This year's playoffs look to be just as exciting, and they start in only two days! Let's take a look at the first round matchups: