So you want to scour the net for Richard Armitage instant updates? A very basic guide

Want the latest news about Richard Armitage as it happens, but feeling daunted by the information flow on the Internet?

Here at “me + richard armitage” we’re all about self-empowerment!

So here are a few suggestions about the best places to look.

This guide is really intended only as the most basic possible introduction. Experts who are willing to tell their secrets should share their own tips on looking through the Internet in the comments.

1. The “real time” or “all” feed on Twitter.

You can access this without an account. Just to go Twitter, type “Richard Armitage” into the search field, and then hit “everything” on the left margin and “all” toward the mid-center of the screen.

This is probably the best source for direct fan reporting and pictures from any event, in particular, from people who don’t keep a tumblr, blog or website. If anyone, fan or not, runs into Richard Armitage on the street accidentally, or sights him in an airport, and finds it remarkable enough to note briefly, this is the most likely place the news will appear. It’s also a key source for fan candids / selfies that don’t make it other places. It can be great fun to watch this stream during an event as you get to read a lot of the impressions from the ground — and if you get an account, you can talk to people who are there while it’s happening. The stream should refresh itself periodically, or you can refresh your screen.

Be aware, when you’re doing this, that information will repeat itself as people RT (retweet) things they want their followers to see. Save time when clicking on links by noticing the “RT” abbreviation, which indicates that the material is coming from somewhere else (and RT it yourself to “signal boost,” which is part of the fun). There can be some virus danger in clicking random links on twitter — if you’re worried, stick to click on materials from tweeps you recognize.

Intermediate: if you have a Twitter account, you can follow the feeds of known associates of Richard Armitage. Very occasionally, this yields a picture or some other tidbit. Important: keep in mind that Armitage’s friends keep these accounts in order to further their own careers and social lives, not his. Luckily for the watcher, they’re all very interesting people to learn about on their own merits.

2. Instagram (still photos) and Vine (very short videos).

I don’t search these sites myself at present, because what shows up there as publicly visible almost always shows up immediately on twitter or tumblr. They are both searchable, but you must have an account.

3. Tumblr.

Go to tumblr and search for Richard Armitage. You can do this without being logged in. This is a good source for up-to-the-second connections to new video and press. Additionally, this tends to be where fans who keep a tumblr / blog / website post their material  — candids, selfies, etc. — post first.

If you’re willing to get an account, it’s also worth cultivating your own group of people to follow on tumblr. A few tumblr sites aggregate information over social media, so some of the more assiduous people who pursue realtime updates can be found there. But a lot of fans don’t tag and their stuff isn’t found in the Richard Armitage tag. You will only find their updates if you follow them.

4. Commercial image sites.

The two I usually look at are Getty and Corbis, which license photos for sale that are taken by professional photographers who attend these events with the intent of selling the photos they take. Sites may vary by the country where the event takes place. Simply type “Richard Armitage” into their search fields. If it’s a big event, pictures may appear as soon as an hour after they’ve been taken; if a picture hasn’t appeared in twenty-four hours, it’s unlikely to do so, as the vast majority of event pictures have a relatively short sell-by date.

5. Youtube.

There’s a Richard Armitage feed that you can subscribe to — this only works as well as people tag the videos, however.

6. Facebook.

The terrain on FB changes really quickly because of the way that Facebook prioritizes what you see in your feed (its algorithm seems to come down to — the more people in your circle who click on something, the more people see it, and the faster.) I don’t have a single recommendation to make here, other than that you friend other Richard Armitage fans on FB and see what most people are watching. (People like me have a separate account for this purpose, so that it doesn’t interfere with our real lives.) There are thousands of Armitage fans on facebook and hundreds of pages to watch — and the “page to watch” changes frequently.

And as with Twitter, some of the personalities we’re most interested in have Facebook presences. Peter Jackson, for instance, always posts his vlogs first on his FB page.

7. Know your event or media venue.

A lot of knowing what will happen when and seeing it happen live is directly related to deducing where the current project will publicize itself, or in what places the event in question is being broadcast. Richard Armitage’s been associated with Warner Bros. for three years now, so a lot of new stuff appears via their website and social media; if he doesn’t do another project with them, however, that stream will trickle. Empire Magazine, the venue of the Jameson Empire Awards, is a paper publication but it has a web version and for yesterday’s event it tweeted, operated a liveblog, and broadcast a livestream for interviews (all simultaneously!). When you note an event at which Armitage is likely to appear, then, it pays to scout out the relevant social media that the event sponsor might use, in advance — they can usually be found on the sponsor or event web page. If you follow these venues for a while, you can also elucidate general patterns. For reasons unknown to me, for example, when Warner Bros. has new content to premiere and announces a time for it, the Czech webpage is usually a minute or two ahead of everyone else. My point here is that the more watching you do, the better you get at predicting what might happen and being in place for it.

8. WP tags

WordPress tends not to be the primary source of instant updates — for various reasons that have to do with the culture of the platform and its ongoing role as a verbal rather than a visual medium. (There’s a reason I use it.) Still, from time to time WP has been the home of people who pursue that information and post it there first. Your favorite wordpress blogs also tend to disseminate that information relatively quickly. Here’s the link to the WP tag for Richard Armitage.

9. Sign up for Google Alerts.

This is a really good, basic option for the watcher who’s not interesting in up-to-the-second updates but wants to know the most important things that have happened every few hours or every day. It primarily covers traditional press venues and blogs, but if you don’t want to follow all of them independently, it presents a great summary. You can specify the information you want to receive, and when and how, and Google sends you a summary at your convenience. In my experience every serious “Armitage watcher” has relied at least partially and often heavily on this source. If you don’t like it, however, there are other services that do the same thing: Alternatives to Google Alerts.

10. Watch the tried-and-true fan sites.

There may be a temptation to neglect the “old faithfuls” in favor of quicker updates on newer social media. The big websites have had a lot of effort poured into them over the years, they still take maintenance, and the people who operate them have lives, so they are rarely (any more) going to be the first source of news. If you want to keep going as an Armitage watcher, stamina and perseverance are key and this often means not jumping to update immediately but rationing your energies so it doesn’t take over your life. Most of them have extended, however, to other platforms, so that you can follow intermediate updates of news on Twitter or FB while you wait for a nightly or in some cases a weekly update, and they may disseminate information in those places that they wouldn’t necessarily aggregate on their sites. Because of their role as established institutions, they tend not to want to step into grey areas of copyright or privacy — they don’t posts copies of photos they don’t own, or aggregate fan candids or pictures that involve minors. This means that they’re not always going to have the most immediate, sexy updates.

But there are a couple of reasons to stick with (and support with our assistance) the big sites. The first is that they do aggregate and preserve the information — while they may not always be up-to-the-minute at any given moment, eventually they always update, with the comprehensive information. The second is that as known aggregators with a history, when the big sites do get unique news, it tends to be reliable. People who have news, want to leak it anonymously and have it taken seriously, are most likely to seek out a big site because the people who operate them have developed a reputation for trust and reliability over years. And the operators of those sites are unlikely to want to compromise their reputation for integrity with unreliable news or mere rumors.

11. Learn about the entertainment press and industry.

For the very serious (I admit, I’ve never gotten this serious, or maybe it’s just that I’m interested in Richard Armitage and much less in the industry in which he works) — certain publications and venues in every country are most likely to host news about big productions and important celebrities first. If you followed the Hobbit press sequence for a year, you know, for instance, which media are likely to run an interview with people associated with that sort of project. For me, this is mostly covered by watching Google Alerts and the big fan sites, but as you learn when you’re watching something closely, there’s always more information available.

Next, some reflections on how the culture of the instant update has affected me as a fan and a blogger.

~ by Servetus on March 31, 2014.