The world of Anakin and Luke Skywalker, Princesses Amidala and Leia, Han Solo, and R2D2 is alive and well and engaging with you in social media. Are you ready to receive it?
From the front page of StarWars.com
George Lucas’ masterpiece begins at starwars.com, where you can watch recent episodes of the animated Clone Wars TV series, shop for official merchandise, read news, view storyboards and videos, and even apply for the Star Wars credit card, with your choice of Yoda or Darth Vader on the front!
While most of starwars.com pushes you information, hoping you’ll click and watch or read, that’s the beginning of Lucas Online. Below the fold is a link to the official Star Wars blog–powered by WordPress–with new blog posts every day or two, each with comments.
(Paying members of Hyperspace, the Star Wars Fan Club, can contribute their own blog posts to another source of Star Wars online material for others to read, comment, and share.)
Recent stories on the official blog include an expose on Susan Boyle competitor Darth Jackson, reviews and pictures from a Star Wars convention in San Diego, and fan memories when they stood in line for The Phantom Menace.
If you click the last link–about the fan memories–you’ll see reference to Twitter. That’s right, my young padawan friends…
The Star Wars universe is officially in Twitterville.
Tweeting from @starwars, here are some recent tweets to their 8,178 followers:
Recent tweets by @StarWars
You can see there is more broadcasting than replying, but it should be obvious a person is behind the controls. The feed is unlike @CNN, wherein every tweet is a linked press release. It is clear, evident from the blog post above, Lucasfilm understands the importance of crowdsourcing.
Note: For fun and 100% not officially sanctioned, there are a mix of Star Wars characters on Twitter, from @R2D2 to @DarthVader. Here’s a recent top 10 list someone created from those unofficial official characters.
No less notable–but with far less fanfare–is the official Star Wars photostream on Flickr. Photos appear to be added to the stream in advance of adding them to blog posts; this is a sign the person behind the blog is a savvy webmaster, trying not to increase bandwidth to the blog. I’m doing the same thing with this post, as every image is hosted on my Flickr account.
As I’m not a devoted Star Wars blog reader, I don’t know if any photos are uploaded that aren’t used in the blog. However, if you click into a photo’s page, you’ll see each receives hundreds of views and occasional comments.
The World of Star Wars is my second-to-last offering to you. Hosted by Yahoo Entertainment, you have the option to create an account to comment on photos and videos and other community features. You can also run keyword searches and see Yahoo-powered results.
Jaina Solo, from the Japanese book cover of "Force Heretic I: Remnant"
If you’re tasty for trivia, do stop by Wookieepedia, the open source wikia project that draws upon films, TV series, and countless books, though not affiliated with Lucasfilm.
At latest count, the index includes 67,095 articles posted and edited by you(?) since March 2005.
Here’s where you can learn more information that you ever might want to know about the Battle of Taris, the Hundred Year Darkness, power cells (for lightsabers and vehicles), and Jaina Solo, one of Han’s three kids.
That’s the gist of the Star Wars official presence in social media–from the broadcasting website and Twitter account, to the sharing and commenting blog and Flickr feeds. I hope you enjoy clicking all the links in this post as much as I enjoyed web surfing to find them.
About Ari Herzog
Interesting stuff. I’m surprised that more stuff hasn’t been done with Star Wars in terms of mainstream pushes though. Then again their fanbase is so massive they probably just don’t need too.
Stuart Foster´s last blog post..Your Idea Sucks
Well, they have a huge fanbase and they like to sell stuff so this isn’t that surprising. The @starwars stream is pretty good although I wish they would follow back and interact with people.
I used to follow @darthvader – it’s a funny stream.
I have, however, had my fill of Star Wars – I was never a big fan and used to live with someone who collected action figures
Kim Woodbridge´s last blog post..Twitter and Facebook Integration: Stop Making Every Tweet Your Facebook Status
The irony is between your comment and now, @StarWars retweeted me.
But Kim, the force will be with us, always.
My biggest regret is trading my sets upon sets of trading cards for Kiss albums.
Yeah, I know. I’m kicking myself in the butt too.
Wonderful list and link droppings Ari. I’ve been following the characters from The Stand, never once thought to branch out to star wars, even though I’m following Darth Vader and I’m a huge Star Wars geek…I guess what I’m saying is thanks for filling that hole in my life with this data.
I’ll be Twittering till death for sure now. lol
Wayne´s last blog post..Getting Indexed By Search Engines
How could you speak of social media and not mention facebook? The official Star Wars Insider page on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Star-Wars-Insider-Magazine/11532179978?ref=ts
Mathiias´s last blog post..DON’T PANIC! May 25 is Towel Day!
Too funny. I’m not surprise that it took Star Wars so long to have their own twitter account. After all, they are in a galaxy far, far away. I wonder how Biz and all the other people at twitter will respond to the new intergalactic traffic that the servers will be getting. Just wait until parallel dimensions start to tweet!
Rena´s last blog post..Managing multiple Twitter accounts
Wookiepedia… this I’ll have to see. Right now I have to admit, I’m on a Star Trek kick. My mom has been a trekkie all of my life, and this recent movie finally got me in the swing of Trekkie-ness. My husband is all about Star Wars though, I’m sure he’ll enjoy knowing about this – it may help me lure him into the dark side of Twitter after all.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog post..Coronado Island Beach
Nice article, however you may want to know that Amidala was never a Princess.
She was an elected Queen in Phantom Menace and a Senator in the two films that followed.
Mike S´s last blog post..200th Episode of SW Action News
Not true. According to her Wookieepedia page, Padme Amidala was a princess of Theed at age 13.
She was never referred to as ever being a Princess in any of the films – we only ever saw her as a Queen or as a Senator.
Mike S´s last blog post..200th Episode of SW Action News
Did you see this stormtrooper shot? http://www.tylershields.com
I agree with Ari Herzog, as far as I know Padme Amidala was a princess. I do not remember that she was an elected queen …
.-= New from Juergen: Was ist ein Hypothekendarlehen Rechner =-.
If you watch 2002′s “Attack of the Clones” Amidala says to Anakin that she “wasn’t the youngest Queen ever elected” when they arrive on her home planet of Naboo.
She was never referred to as a “Princess” in any of the films, perhaps in the comic books, but they aren’t important – the films are!
Hey – as you can see from my name, I have a site about clone troopers – but how could I use Twitter to make more money from this site? I am trying to sell costumes and dont have a lot of visitors so is it worth me setting up twitter for something like this?
.-= New from Andrew@Clone Trooper Costumes: Star Wars Clone Trooper Costume =-.
George Lucas is a bombshell, he never forgets his fans. I mean, he is keeping the Star wars flame and craze blazing on on with the Clone Wars TV series. For Stormtrooper fanatics like us, the saga continues baby!! Hey Ari Herzog, thanks for the update, you have just won yourself a twitter follower dude.
.-= New from Idaku from Stormtrooper Costumes: Star Wars Stormtrooper Costume =-.
Exciting stuff. I am an ardent fan of starwars, be it the film, tv or video game and I cannot think about my childhood without starwars. A big thanks to George Lucas and a special thanks to you for compiling all these resources together into a single post. I like the wookiepedia. LOL yeah,.. the trivia is mindblowing. As soon as I read it I called my friends and bragged about the information I learnt from there. My friends were awestruck and then I shared them with this post. Twitter is just a great socializing tool, probably the best of all found on the web. Thanks!
Ha ha.. Now I can say aloud No more Anakin.
Nobody can easily forget princess, my stint is still continuing and surprisingly kids of this generation are also attracted. This will be a blessing in disguise for them. I have to retweet this asap. Thanks for sharing these incredible resources with us. You will get all the praises and wishes from the starwars fan communities across the globe.
.-= New from Mack@Las Vegas Real Estate: Commercial Real Estate Bubble =-.
You guys are very lucky. Be it social media or the star wars you get them first. I am big time fan of Anakin and I have to wait for quite sometime to hear whenever something is talked about him. Recently there is a sixth ultimate edition of star wars for the PC announced in the US. I keep my fingers crossed and wait till it hits my country.
Hey, thanks for all the links to Starwars related sites. Im really getting into twitter these days (trying to keep up with the trends) so I was particularly interested to see those feed links there! Thanks for sharing it all!!!
.-= New from Anita @ Sexy Santa Outfit: About Us =-.
As a kid I was fanatical about Luke Skywalker, the whole movie series actually. These days its great that so many like minded individuals can pursue this hobby more thanks to the internet!
.-= New from Adam @ Chuck My Talking Truck: Tonka Chuck and Friends Dump Truck =-.
I so WISH I kept all of my toys I had as a kid. I could retire now!!! I love how kids growing up now are still embracing everything Star Wars. I have to say I’m still in the original trilogy camp, but I’ve seen all of the films and some of the animated stuff. I’ve read some of the books as well. Thanks for the great list of sites.
.-= New from Charles@Las Vegas Properties: First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Extended =-.
Wookipedia is bloody awesome, it’s geek heaven! Perhaps one of the best social experiments I’ve seen recently is that Star Wars uncut experiment which has now been finished. The idea of cutting up the original into 15sec clips and then getting all the fans to remake them is a brilliant idea and it was warmly received and applauded by all fans.
.-= From Mort to you: Red shirts steal van… Trekkies gone bad? =-.
BEST URL name ever = Wookiepedia
I think I’ll go buy the URL rights to “Wookieleaks” ha ha!