Player-to-player interaction on twitter is one of the weirdest aspects of its use. I chose to use these interactions in an attempt to attract attention to “Z-Bo’s” tweeting. I’m still dumbfounded as to why these media superstars need to “connect” with one another via social sites.

These players have agents, managers, coaches, and current/former teammates in common, yet they use public forums to talk to each other? This makes their networking come off rather fake IMO. Their dialogue online is similar to “reality television" in a sense, it's "reality twitting".

When Jalen Rose dropped the twitter a line on twitter asking Z-Bo to post a double-double because he’s on Jalen’s fantasy team, I wondered why the fellow Michigan-area alumni (Rose went to Michigan and Zach went to Michigan St.) didn’t give Zach a call instead? In my opinion, these sites help set the hierarchy to the professional athlete pecking order. A player like Shaq, already a legend in his own right, has used twitter to become something of a cult sensation. When you see the number of followers he has (2,821,181 followers) compared to a guy like Chris Bosh (87,721 followers), we know where he stands within the basketball food chain. Why? Because as important as the successes these players have on the court are to their popularity, it’s the fans decision whether to embrace them or not. Twitter has become a barometer for that popularity.

With this celeb-popularity contest in mind, I used this concept as a tool in garnering notoriety for the twitter. In came the insults. Who doesn’t love a good sports squabble? Did anyone turn away from footage of the Palace of Auburn Hills when Ron Artest and Jermaine O’Neal choose to enter the stands and tag-team the crowd? Or when the classic McNabb-Owens feud erupted, was that not all we heard about? We’re an audience that loves to watch the car crash (no we're not NASCAR fans) so why wouldn’t people be interested in player twitter squabbles?

First I tried contacting players outside basketball to no avail. I wrote the following to Chris Cooley, Tight End for the Washington Football Team.

For those of you out of the “blogging loop”, Cooley is one of the more progressive athletes to use the Internet. Unfortunately, he posted a photo awhile back exposing a [no longer needed] section of his playbook and in the process, inadvertently exposed himself. My juvenile comment was disregarded completely (which was probably for the better). My crossover conflict attempt was thwarted. On to attempt number two.

After some friendly banter about March Madness with Marcus Williams, former University of

Connecticut Point Guard and current Memphis Grizzly, I decided he’d be my next attempt. After Marcus proclaimed that he didn’t think Michigan State would make it passed University of Southern California, this exchange took place:

Poor Marcus. To be honest, I genuinely felt bad about this comment (Williams was released by the Warriors on March 11th last year). Williams is a player I enjoyed watching (notice how I choose a player I had a tie to?) during his brief, inconsistent tenure with the Nets. I was disappointed when they traded him to Golden State, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. The comment garnered enough attention to be featured on one of the more influential sports blogs, The Big Lead:

Frustratingly, that was the extent of the coverage the twitter received from my Marcus Williams smack talk (but I was happy to see what a good sport he was over the ribbing). I tried instigating a few more athletes like the aforementioned Shaq, Jalen Rose, as well as Jason Richardson, into a phony twitter diatribe, but the attempts were futile. Maybe after all the twitter comments, they decided to give Zach a call instead?

Part Two: Adoration | Part Four: Confrontation