Twitter Color Wars… Crowd Control 2.0? And more…

If you haven’t seen the hoopla in the past couple weeks about the Twitter color wars… it’s pretty entertaining stuff. As of today, I’m officially on the @VeryGreenTeam.

If you’re not a “twitter-head” as Mashable put it… you probably have no clue what I’m talking about… and to tell you the truth you probably really don’t care either.

What’s the whole Twitter color war thing anyway??

Well… really don’t know yet. From the looks of it… it’s being really pushed by top guys like Gary Vaynerchuk, Ze Frank, and some other dudes big time in social media.

Basically, there are a whole bunch of teams named after different colors (verygreenteam, red, green, yellow, blue, orange, pink, gold, off-white, plaid, fuscia, clear, white, purple, stripe and puce (thanks Mashable for this rundown on the teams!) ZeFrank linked up a new webpage that looks like it’ll be dedicated to the whole Color Wars 2008 thing… this is crazy!! But I like it!!

I got to thinking about this whole color war thing and it goes way beyond just some crazy (and kinda stupid) games on Twitter.

This whole thing is showing in real time how Twitter and other social media can be used to control crowds and build excitement.

Crazy stuff when you think about it…

This is Crowd Control 2.0.

This is cool stuff… but at least so far it’s the good guys using the Twitter crowd for good (i.e. Gary V’s @santagaryvee thing that is basically free Woot… awesome way to further build his brand!)

I know… no one is being controlled… and no one is against their own will (sometimes I think I am though because I’m so addicted to Twitter and Web 2.0)…

… but, think about it like a big ol’ wave at a professional baseball stadium. When crowds are involved… and some outgoing people get creative and want to have some fun… it gets contagious and crowds can be told basically what to do (up to a certain point

Before Web 2.0 (and really… apps like Twitter and Facebook) an online version of the wave (I’m talking real time here… not forwarded emails and stuff) was pretty much impossible because of the time lag and non-interactivity of the crowds.

Now… this whole colorwars thing is showing how crowds of people can interact in real time in creative ways like online roshambo… and if we wanted to… we could create some type of “wave” competition to see which team can (in real time) keep the wave going the longest (I have a few ideas on how we can do this from the technical side).

Wow… more and more the offline world is being replicated by the online world.

Can you imagine the possibilities for companies and brands (big and small) to start grassroots viral competitions like this on these new social media sites to drive traffic and subliminally build their brand at the same time??

Wow!

Ya, it would take some sneaky thinking to get it so it didn’t appear to be coming from a commercial entity… but I can definitely see the possibilities… my mind is spinning right now.

How do you participate in the Twitter Color Wars?

I’ll tell you what. There is only one team in my opinion… the @verygreenteam is the only way to go.

Why?

Green is a pretty cool color. Money is green, trees are green, golf courses are green (at least they should be!), and Gary V. and ZeFrank are leading the charge on the green team.

I met up w/ Gary V. in Orlando in February and chatted w/ him for a while about biz and life (with some other cool people)… he’s an awesome guy and knows his stuff when it comes to building a brand and using social media to spread his good word.

Anyhow, I wrote this post for two reasons… to let ya’ all know about the Twitter ColorWars (for fun)… and to show you how little games like these are real time experiments in Crowd Control 2.0… bringing real time interaction on traditionally offline activities… online.

This is only the start… and us little guys are the ones who will pioneer the advances on the web… while the big guys will continue to be the late adapters.

So… head over and follow me on Twitter… pick your team… and join in on the war!