Social Media

Chicago just got pounded with a monster blizzard, and all of your friends are wearing sandals and prancing around in the Texas sunshine at SXSW for the next week. Awesome, right? Nah, it kind of blows. Confession: I'm one of those a-holes who will be soaking up the warmth at the music and tech festival for the next week, and, well ... sorry I'm not sorry about that. But here's the thing: I am kind of sorry you have to deal with a barrage of tweets, Facebook posts and Instagram photos reminding you how much fun you're missing out on while you're buried under a foot of snow and someone's armpit on the Red Line.

How is Lent treating you? Going crazy yet? (Quick lesson in case you're not familiar with the practice: Lent is a showcase of faith and sacrifice in which Catholics and other Christians give up luxuries in life from Ash Wednesday until Easter.) Now, I'm not Catholic, but I am someone who believes in giving up what you want in the short term in order to achieve a greater goal in the long run. What makes me laugh is when people give up things that barely affect their daily lives. Oh, you gave up chocolate?

Who knew taking a nap on a long flight could be so nerve-racking? It is when you're a pro athlete and your teammates have a smartphone handy. Having fun at your friends' expense and sharing your personality are social media staples, and they're catching on in the Bulls locker room. The Twitter and Instagram accounts of Nate Robinson and Carlos Boozer are particularly entertaining. Off the court, "Booz" is one of the more affable guys on the team, and his Internet presence is a reflection of that, even though it took him some time to get into social media.

This probably isn't what you'd expect to hear from the wingman, but here goes: The Super Bowl isn't worth your time or energy. It's an American tradition that is in dire need of a shake-up. Allow me to break down why the Super Bowl is a bona fide crap-a-thon. It isn't really for the fans The corporate shilling is so depressing, it makes me want to sell all my possessions and go live in a tree like my friend Timmy D. I understand the ads are what make the game go 'round, but do we really need the third annual Valtrex Tommy Bahama Cialis Margaritaville Turner Classic Movies Celebrity Pro-Am Keno tournament?

As a guy whose job it is to make sure the White Sox brand remains strong, the Manti Te'o fake girlfriend hoax represents one of chief marketing officer Brooks Boyer's worst nightmares. "When you think of how big the Manti Te'o brand was during the season, that brand has been knocked down," Boyer said at SoxFest. "That can happen to the White Sox, it can happen to Pepsi, it can happen to anybody. " Lennay Kekua might not be a real person, but Boyer said Te'o's fake girlfriend does serve as a real-life cautionary tale for all pro athletes, especially given the fact that social media has completely changed how they interact with the public.

If you missed your chance to ask Cubs slugger-turned-most-interesting-man-on-Pinterest Sammy Sosa a question during his webcast Wednesday, he's got some good news for you. He had so much fun doing it that there's going to be a sequel. “In the near future,” Sosa said via e-mail through Robert Miller, a rep for his company Injex21. Sosa's webcast lasted about 10 minutes. He said he had to cut it short because of his busy schedule, which doesn't include any involvement in the game that made him a wealthy man. “I run two companies,” he said of Injex 21 and Riverhead Homes.

In February of 2011, fans of legendary late-night bar Marie's Riptide were saddened when namesake Marie Wuczynski passed away. Now, the future of the Bucktown bar is uncertain. On Tuesday, two messages regarding the bar's closing were posted via Twitter from Marie's Riptide ( @Mariesriptide ). The first: “ Sad news today . We are trying to find way to stay open but as of now, Fri Jan 25th is our last day open. If you want to help please retweet.” The second tweet was simply “Fri.

He hit 609 home runs and created one grand slam of a Pinterest page. Now, former Cub Sammy Sosa wants to answer any and all questions that you might have. Sosa announced on his Facebook page that he'll be hosting a live webcast today at noon, broadcasting to the masses live from Ft. Lauderdale. So why's he doing something like this now? His spokesperson Maggie Curran says he wants to prove to the internet that he's more real than Lennay Kekua. “After getting involved with social media Sammy realized he had many fans that were trying to reach out to him,” Curran said.

In case you were wondering, it really is Sammy Sosa, the real Sammy Sosa, on social media. Rebecca Polihronis, marketing manager for Injex 21, a company that makes needle-free technology for drugs that are injected, confirmed Thursday that the former Cubs star has joined the image-sharing site Pinterest . Sosa is the CEO of Injex 21. “We're learning social media, we're not pros at it yet, but we're working on it,” she said, also confirming...

Instead of searching every social media platform, residents now can go to one place to find and track Chicago's mayor. The mayor's office on Sunday launched Chicago Digital at digital.cityofchicago.org . The site is designed to make it easier to find information and quicker for Chicago to learn about projects and apps, said Kevin Hauswirth, director of social media for the mayor's office. “It should be easy to find the information that people need from us and you shouldn't have to dig through a website to learn about digital innovation happening in city of Chicago,” Hauswirth said.