If there is one thing the judges learned in choosing the winner for our Can You Put the Wit in Twitter Contest, it is that wit can be a very subjective thing, indeed.

While the entries were quickly narrowed down to the final contenders, choosing the winner took some discussion and compromise as different tastes in humour came into play.

In the end, though, one entry did emerge as wittier, cleverer, and more original than the rest, and that one will take home the main prize today.

I have also decided to give out Second and Third Place prizes to two other contenders I felt were deserving of recognition.

Before announcing the winners, I want to extend a sincere thank you to the judges, James Chartrand from Men with Pens and Dustin Wax at dustinwax.com (click here to read more about them and visit their other excellent sites.)

I also want to point out that entries were judges completely blind, meaning the judges knew neither the names or affiliations of any of the entrants, in order to prevent any biases.

The Winner

And so, without further ado, the winner of the Smithereens TwitWit competition is...

*drumroll*

RhodesTer, aka Dave from rhodester.net, for this witty quip:

The lady at The Coffee Bean laughed at my joke when I ordered a "Synonym Roll", and asked her if there was another word to describe it.

Dave's excellent entry managed to cram two double entendres and a compelling visual narrative into just 140 characters. Congratulations, you are officially the wittiest twit on Twitter (that we know of.)

He will be taking home this sweet prize package:

1. A copy of The Collected Short Stories, by bestselling author Jeffrey Archer (he's my all-time favourite author and he should be yours, too!) This special edition is a combination of all the best mini-stories from his three most popular anthologies: "12 Red Herrings", "A Twist in the Tale", and "A Quiver Full of Arrows")


2. For the tea-lovers among you (and who among you isn't?), a complimentary basket of exotic teas from Alexis at the my tea cups blog.


3. An autographed copy of Mark David Gerson's The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, graciously provided by Gerson, who also runs a great writing tips blog by the same name: check it out. (Value: $20 sans autograph)


4. A free Online Press kit to help promote you business, your blog or your own personal brand, courtesy of Donna at PressKitTemplates.com. (Value: $75)
   
   


5. Let yourself be pampered by the poetic prowess of How Not To Write's Jamie Grove, who has kindly offered to write an Ode to the winner and post it on his blog (along with a link to your blog if you have one.) Take a look at the one he wrote recently for James Chartrand at the Men With Pens blog, and let me know if this should remain filed here under awards or if I should create another category for cruel and unusual punishment. At Smithereens, the readers decide! (Value: Priceless?)


6. Bob Younce, author of the popular and high-traffic blog The Writing Journey, has graciously added to the lot a FREE 125X125 Banner ad on his site, above the fold, for the month of July. This can be used to promote your blog, your company, your LinkedIn profile, whatever you want. [But no flash or animated GIFs - static ads only.] Don't have a button to use for this? I (Daniel from Smithereens) will create one for you, too. (Value $65)
   
   


7. Now that Smithereens has been redesigned, complete with three sponsor slots, I am happy to offer up the middle block (where you see the TwitWit promo right now) to the winner for the month of July as well. Same rules apply as for Bob's prize above. (Value: $50)


8. As if that wasn't enough free advertising for you, James and Harry at Men with Pens, an excellent blog that will teach you how to write better, guaranteed, are offering up a banner ad on their site for one month, too. You may also want to check out the guys' other sites where creative fiction writing meets online gaming:Capturing Fantasy and Escaping Reality. (Prize Value $65.)


9. Rob at the Home Biz Blogger blog, who also runs a really great blog directory and forum called Bloggeries, has kindly offered a FREE review of your blog, product or business (minimum 200 words) on his site. Rob's site is a PR4, so you'll get lots of link juice from this! (Value $50)


10. Carolyn Bahm runs two great blogs: Drops of Blood, which is full of great tips and articles on writing, and CarolynBahm.com, a fun general interest read. She has decided to throw in 3000 EntreCard Credits from EACH of her blogs for a total prize of 6000 credits! EntreCard is a really cool program that allows you to accumulate credits and then buy ads on other sites to promote your own. That 6K will go a long way! (ie: I'm quite jealous.) (Value: $60)

Dave, I know it's not quite an Apple II ... but hopefully an enjoyable prize package for you just the same.





By the way, if you're on Twitter, you can send Dave a congratulatory Tweet here.





Second Place





The following little care package will soon be the new property of our lucky Second Place finisher:

1. A copy of Archer's most recently published collection of short stories, "Cat O'Nine Tails: And Other Stories."
   
   


2. A complimentary guest post on the winner's own blog, on the subject of their choice from experienced web writer Dustin Wax, who blogs at The Writer's Technical Companion, Lifehack and a few other places, too (he is also one of our intrepid judges.)


3. A Free 125X125 Ad on Smithereens for the month of July, including creation of the banner by yours truly if desired.


4. 500 EntreCard Credits courtesy of Carolyn Bahm at the Drops of Blood writing blog.

And the winner of this great prize, and the honour of our second place slot is...

Ezra Butler, whose blog on strategic marketing and advertising can be found here and whose very worthy witticism was:

The price of living large can be calculated by the cost of broken scales.

We felt that this entry blended a clever (even wise, says Dustin) saying with a nice bit of parallelism to create a sardonic, bite-sized piece of twitter wit. Congratulations, Ezra!

Ezra can be reached (and followed) on Twitter here.

Third Place

And finally, we wanted to give a well-deserved honourable mention to a third entry that caught our eye. This lucky entrant will take home bragging rights, along with 1) a 125X125 spot here on Smithereens for the month of July, and 2) 200 EntreCard Credits donated by Carolyn Bahm.

And the third-wittiest piece of wordplay is...

Jonathan Crossfield, from the CopyWrite blog, who penned this award-winning, knee-slapping limerick in exactly 140 characters:

There was a Twitter from Nantucket Who's Tweets could never quite cut it He'd try to be brief Causing some grief But ran out of letters. Oh F

We thought Jonathan's entry was clever and original - no one else submitted a limerick (or haiku, or any other type of poetic wordplay, for that matter.) It also made great use of the character limit, turning it into an asset instead of a curse. And it made us laugh. That's important!

Before you all call me a grammar hypocrite, yes I know he accidentally used "who's" where it should have been "whose" (and trust me, if you read Jonathan's work, you would know that it was a typo and not an error of ignorance) , but I didn't feel this was grounds for disqualification because a) I don't think it was done on purpose, and b) he could have conveyed the same point with the correct word, by substituting "Tweep" for "Twitter" for example, or myriad other tweaks. The important thing was the funny narrative and the clever twist at the end that demonstrated Jonathan's sharp wit. That's what the contest was about, after all.

Congrats Jonathan! You can find him and congratulate him on Twitter too, of course.

So, there you have it: the three most wittiest Twitterers in the Twitterverse, according to us! Congratulations to the winners and thank you to all who participated.

Owing to my practice aggregating all the entries to the Copyblogger contest that inspired this one, you can of course view all the TwitWit entries in a nice little slideshow at the end of this post as well.

I would like to sincerely thank every single person who helped make this contest such a success- all those who so graciously donated prizes, submitted entries, told their friends, Tweeted the contest and linked to it on their own blogs. Your help and support hasn't gone unnoticed and I hereby write you all a giant IOU!*

By the way, I apologize that the results are being announced a day later than planned, but I got caught up yesterday and was unable to complete this post. Stay tuned for a couple great posts coming up tomorrow and Monday that have been in the works throughout this week...

Oh, and whether your favourite TwitWit entries were different from our choices, or you agree wholeheartedly with our selections, let us know in the comments! 

Winners, drop me a line using the contact link on the right and give me all your info (including mailing address for 1st and 2nd) and I will arrange to get your prizes sorted.

*Redeemable at participating retailers only. Not valid for the purchase of lottery, tobacco or alcoholic products. Not valid in conjunction with any other offers. Not valid in the province of Quebec (sorry James.)

The Entries:

Well it is 7PM EST and that means that our Twitter Wit Contest is officially over. A big thank you to all those who entered, donated prizes and promoted the contest over the past two weeks.



I know this is going to be a difficult decision for our brave judges to make. We will announce the winner of the $350 prize package on Friday. If you don't want to miss the announcement, you can get free updates by email or RSS just by clicking here.

As I might have mentioned a couple times, my Twitter Wit contest ends today (Wednesday) at 7PM EST. But I wanted to make a brief post to let you know that we have two excellent judges who will be picking through the entries to choose a winner this week.  That dynamic duo will be ... *drumroll please* ... James Chartrand and Dustin Wax.

Chartrand is one half of the team behind the extremely popular Men With Pens blog and the newly launched Escaping Reality and Capturing Fantasy role-playing-blogs-periments. The Men behind the Pens,  James and his partner Harrison McLeod, are your go-to guys for any kind of web content, web design and/or consulting.  James' Twitter gems can be unearthed here, and Harrison's here. 

Dustin Wax maintains a very useful writing blog called The Writer's Technology Companion, and an interesting multi-subject (heavy on the anthropology) blog at dwax.org. He is also a contributing editor to the wildly popular Lifehack blog and a contributor to the anthropology blog Savage Minds as well. If you like what you read, you can hire him for freelance print and web writing at dustinwax.com or follow him on Twitter here. In his spare time, Dustin enjoys collecting blogs and websites. 

A big thanks to both gentlemen for agreeing to cast their judgmental eyes upon my readers' words of witticism.  

I will be party to the judging discussion as well, but will only break a tie if necessary. So your fate pretty much rests in the hands of these two guys. (I hear James is a sucker for a fine Red and word is Dustin won't turn down a box of smuggled Cubans. Just sayin'.)  

May the best man (or woman) win.

PS- Haven't entered yet? Better do so quickly if you want a chance to win the $350 loot bag.

Yes, that's right, there are only 6 short days left to get your entries in for my exclusive Twitter Micro-Writing Contest: Can You Put The Wit in Twitter? The Contest Closes at 7pm EST on Wednesday, June 18th.

So what's the deal?

To prove your Witeracy, all you need to do is write some sort of wordplay-laden blurb - be it a punny phrase, a snarky satirical snippet or a clever quip. 

The catch? Because we believe brevity is truly the soul of wit, your entry has to be 140 characters or less, the maximum number allowed in a Twitter Tweet.

Make sure you follow the 5 Golden Rules at the bottom of this post, submit your entry in the comments of the original post, and you could be the lucky winner of this impressive lot of 10 prizes worth over $300 combined:

1. A copy of The Collected Short Stories, by bestselling author Jeffrey Archer (he's my all-time favourite author and he should be yours, too!) This special edition is a combination of all the best mini-stories from his three most popular anthologies: "12 Red Herrings", "A Twist in the Tale",  and "A Quiver Full of Arrows")
   
   


2. A copy of Archer's most recently published collection of short stories,  "Cat O'Nine Tails: And Other Stories." I have never read more gripping tales than the ones Archer weaves, and the lucky winner will have the pleasure of enjoying the whole collection all summer long. 
   
   


3. For the tea-lovers among you (and who among you isn't?), a complimentary basket of exotic teas from Alexis at the my tea cups blog.  
   
   


4. An autographed copy of Mark David Gerson's The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, graciously provided by Gerson, who also runs a great writing tips blog by the same name: check it out. (Value: $20 sans autograph) 
   
   


5. A free Online Press kit to help promote you business, your blog or your own personal brand, courtesy of Donna at PressKitTemplates.com. (Value: $75)
   
   


6. Let yourself be pampered by the poetic prowess of How Not To Write's Jamie Grove, who has kindly offered to write an Ode to the winner and post it on his blog (along with a link to your blog if you have one.) Take a look at the one he wrote recently for James Chartrand at the Men With Pens blog, and let me know if this should remain filed here under awards or if I should create another category for cruel and unusual punishment. At Smithereens, the readers decide! (Value: Priceless?)
   
   


7. ***NEW PRIZE*** Bob Younce, author of the popular and high-traffic blog The Writing Journey, has graciously added to the lot a FREE 125X125 Banner ad on his site, above the fold, for the month of July. This can be used to promote your blog, your company, your LinkedIn profile, whatever you want. [But no flash or animated GIFs - static ads only.] Don't have a button to use for this? I (Daniel from Smithereens) will create one for you, too. (Value $65) 
   
   


8. ***NEW PRIZE*** Now that Smithereens has been redesigned, complete with three sponsor slots, I am happy to offer up the middle block (where you see the TwitWit promo right now) to the winner for the month of July as well. Same rules apply as for Bob's prize above. (Value: $50)


9. ***NEWEST PRIZE OF ALL*** As if that wasn't enough free advertising for you, James and Harry at Men with Pens, an excellent blog that will teach you how to write better, guaranteed,  are offering up a banner ad on their site for one month, too. You may also want to check out the guys' other sites where creative fiction writing meets online gaming: Capturing Fantasy and Escaping Reality. (Prize Value $65.)


10. ***NEW PRIZE*** Rob at the Home Biz Blogger blog, who also runs a really great blog directory and forum called Bloggeries, has kindly offered a FREE review of your blog, product or business (minimum 200 words) on his site. Rob's site is a PR4, so you'll get lots of link juice from this! (Value $50)
    
    


11. ***NEW PRIZE*** Carolyn Bahm runs two great blogs: Drops of Blood, which is full of great tips and articles on writing, and CarolynBahm.com, a fun general interest read. She has decided to throw in 3000 EntreCard Credits from EACH of her blogs for a total prize of 6000 credits! EntreCard is a really cool program that allows you to accumulate credits and then buy ads on other sites to promote your own. That 6K will go a long way! (ie: I'm quite jealous.) (Value: $60)
    
    

And there you have it. Want to win that pot o' gold? Well get writing!





But first - don't forget the 5 Golden Rules:

• To be valid, your entry must BOTH be posted on Twitter and the link directly to your message posted in the comments below ALONG WITH the full text.


• Your entry must be more than one word and fewer than 140 characters long.


• It must be clever in some way shape or form and exhibit some sense of wordplay: ie - puns, satirical comments, ironic quips. 


• Your entry must use only real, English words. No symbols, no txt-spk, no creative punctuation (save the creativity for the words.) [Update: I've decided to allow the use of ampersands, because they are pretty common and some people have an eery obsession with them, but no other random symbols or abbreviations are allowed.]


• You can enter more than once, BUT for every additional entry after your first one, I ask that you "buy back in" by providing a link to this post either on your own blog, in the comments of someone else's or on a profile page on your favourite social network. Send me proof of the link and you get another entry - easy peasy. Update: You can now get a second entry just by referring one other person to the contest, too. 

To read a couple of my own examples and to read the entries thus far for inspiration, head over to the original post. Please post your entry in the comments to that post, so we can keep them all in one place.









Now go already- eat, drink and be witty.