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May 06 2012
French Twitter users to defy election embargo
Al Jazeera :: Twitter users in France are expected to break an embargo on publishing partial voting results in Sunday’s presidential runoff vote, challenging a decades-old law and risking fines of up to $99,000. Swiss and Belgian media have also vowed to break the law, which prohibits individuals, media and polling institutes from publishing voting results or estimates before the closure of all polling stations on mainland France at 8pm on election day.
Continue to read Cajsa Wikstrom, www.aljazeera.com
Catherine Bennett: Ms Mensch, Internet hatred goes far beyond sexism
Guardian :: Given the vast numbers of people who are still, reportedly, unacquainted with all aspects of the fast developing world of social media, one or two definitions may be necessary. Twitter, for example, is a popular forum for exchanging 140-character comments about this or that. Polcyb is the society for the policing of cyberspace.
Louise Mensch may be the web's most complex, least easily defined manifestation to date, a kind of multi-platform, self-replicating entity of seemingly unlimited reach that combines the latest in artificial intelligence with, some fear, a virus-like tendency to spread, uncontrollably, across every aspect of the media, 24/7, from publishing to print to social media to radio to television.
[Catherine Bennett:] Louise, you don't know the half of online cruelty
Continue to read Catherine Bennett, www.guardian.co.uk
Twitter said to have considered buying mobile photo app Camera+ but ...
Bloomberg :: Soon after Facebook agreed to pay $1 billion for Instagram, social networking rival Twitter considered acquiring a mobile photo-sharing application called Camera+, two people with knowledge of the negotiations said. Twitter executives held several meetings with Camera+ developer Tap Tap Tap, but talks broke down before Twitter could make an offer.
Continue to read Mark Milian, go.bloomberg.com
May 05 2012
Twitter's little 'redesign': More context
Twitter :: After recent experimentation, we introduced a slight redesign to every Tweet that flows through your timeline on Twitter.com. A Tweet may be our basic unit of communication, but it also contains a universe: each one has an identity with a username, real name and avatar; a 140-character message that includes text as well as metadata like time and language; some context (replies, favorites and retweets of that Tweet), and perhaps media (photos, videos or links).
Explained here - Continue to read blog.twitter.com
Twitter vs. secret diplomacy in the Chen Guangcheng saga
Los Angeles Times :: The celebrated deal that would have ensured that blind dissident Chen Guangcheng would stay in China began to dissolve publicly with a tweet: “GUANGCHENG TALKED TO ME. WHAT MEDIA REPORTED IS WRONG.” The unsettling Twitter message from Beijing activist Zeng Jinyan began a firestorm of debate over whether Chen had been coerced into the deal with threats to his family, an alarming idea that gutted the most important promise behind the agreement -- that Chen would be kept safe.
Continue to read latimesblogs.latimes.com
Twitter's 'water cooler moments'
Twitter Blog :: There are phrases whose origins fade in the rush of time, and “water cooler moment” is one of those. Apparently first cited c. 1999, it meant a prime-time TV moment that co-workers discussed the next day at the office (presumably with small pointed paper cups in hand). Flipping forward, Twitter has been increasingly invoked as creating such “must-see” moments for a newer world — in real time, no waiting.
HT: Nieman Lab, here
Twitter is officially the new water cooler...says Twitter nie.mn/Jxx5HC
— Nieman Lab (@NiemanLab) May 4, 2012
Cloe Sladden on Twitter
Water cooler moments ... Continue to read Cloe Sladden, blog.twitter.com
May 04 2012
Doubts: Twitter cannot predict elections either
Technology Review :: It wasn't so long ago that researchers were queuing up to explain Twitter's extraordinary ability to predict the future. Tweets, we were told, reflect the sentiments of the people who send them. So it stands to reason that they should hold important clues about the things people intend to do, like buying or selling shares, voting in elections and even about paying to see a movie. Indeed various researchers reported that social media can reliably predict the stock market, the results of elections and even box office revenues. But in recent months the mood has begun to change.
Claims that Twitter can predict the outcome of elections are riddled with flaws, according to a new analysis of research in this area.
Continue to read www.technologyreview.com
Download the research paper "I Wanted to Predict Elections with Twitter and all I got was this Lousy Paper" -- A Balanced Survey on Election Prediction using Twitter Data, by Daniel Gayo-Avello" here Cornell University Library, arxiv.org
TV writers on Twitter: Write a dumb joke and then, in 30 seconds, move on
Sydney Morning Herald :: Most TV writers who tweet, though, seem to have their reasons. For Cougar Town creator Bill Lawrence, who tweets as @VDOOZER, Twitter "is the open door to the opportunity to brand yourself as a writer". "You watch a TV show going, 'Hey, it's Tom Selleck and his TV show.' Every writer wants to get to a point where it's 'Hey, it's Bill Lawrence's new TV show'," Lawrence said. Plus, it offers the opportunity "just to write a dumb joke now and then, in 30 seconds, move on".
Reason-why - Continue to read Ellen Gray, www.smh.com.au
May 03 2012
Twitter is torturing social media nerds with #hashtag spam
The Atlantic Wire :: Twitter's well-documented spam problem is creeping into the hashtag section, making it difficult for the kind of people who take their hashtags the most seriously: denizens of the endless social media conferences. In just the last two days we've seen two twitter hashtags, at two separate tech conferences, overwhelmed by spam bots, one from The Guardian's Activate NYC conference and another from Wired's Business Conference.
Continue to read Rebecca Greenfield, www.theatlanticwire.com
Drama was relayed over Twitter: US-China intrigue over escaped #ChenGuangCheng
Storyful :: Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng was transferred to a hospital in Beijing on Wednesday, after a six-day stay at the US embassy. Reports that the activist left the embassy of his own volition were muddied by claims that he was blackmailed by the Chinese authorities. Chen fled his home in Shandong Province last week after 19 months under house arrest for exposing forced abortions and sterilisation under China’s ‘one child policy’.
Continue to read storyful.com
Twitter, YouTube, Facebook big data analytics: DataSift lands $7.2m in inside funding round
The Next Web :: DataSift, a rising star in the world of ‘big data’ collection and analysis, has raised $7.2 million from existing backers GRP Partners and IA Ventures to help accelerate growth as worldwide demand for its services continues to soar. DataSift describes its solution as a real-time and historical social data platform, but the reality is that the startup is poised to go beyond the aggregation and analysis of the billions of conversations on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and whatnot.
Continue to read Robin Wauters, thenextweb.com
May 02 2012
April 30 2012
340 million Tweets per day: The science of social attention
Guardian Media Network : When social networks first emerged, they were a platform for connecting people who wanted to stay in touch and share personal information. Today, social networks are anything but child's play. With over 340 million Tweets per day and 483 million daily active users on Facebook, social networks have become the most powerful and critically important platform to business. The challenge is no longer access to your consumer. It is winning the war for the audience's attention. How do you break through the information bottleneck?
[Frank Speiser:] Applied maths and science are key to breaking through the information bottleneck to grab the attention of your audience through social media.
Continue to read Frank Speiser, www.guardian.co.uk
April 29 2012
#OccupyWallStreet: Law enforcement agencies monitor Twitter and Facebook accounts
CBS News NEW YORK :: Facebook and Twitter are now essential tools for protest movements like Occupy Wall Street. Nine in 10 law enforcement agencies say they monitor social media. CBS News correspondent Tony Guida reports they are using what they find to make cases against demonstrators.
Video available - Reported by, continue here Tony Guida, www.cbsnews.com
April 28 2012
Obama, Romney campaigns embrace Twitter-fueled news cycle
Huffington Post :: The increasing speed of the news cycle, driven by plugged-in reporters, operatives and political junkies on Twitter, hasn't been lost on some veterans of past campaign war rooms. Discussing how the election had literally gone to the dogs Sunday, "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos reminisced with panelist Donna Brazile about working in the Michael Dukakis campaign's rapid-response room during the 1988 election, a simpler time where "one of those old AP tickers" kept staffers up to speed. "That was how we got the news," he said. But now, Stephanopoulos said, everyone's turned to Twitter, with 2012 being the first election "where you've got both campaigns completely engaged on this instant messaging."
Continue to read Michael Calderone, www.huffingtonpost.com
Twitter becomes a key real-time tool for campaigns #pleasevoteforme
Washington Post :: President Obama repeated that Twitter hashtag twice more during a Tuesday speech opposing an increase in student loan interest rates. For good measure, he even had his Chapel Hill, N.C., audience chant it back to him. Within moments after Obama finished his remarks, Twitter users had written more than 20,000 posts containing “#dontdoublemyrate” — enough for Twitter to declare it a top 10 worldwide “trending topic.” The six-year-old microblogging site came into its own this presidential cycle.
Continue to read Bremndan Smialowski, www.washingtonpost.com
April 27 2012
Newseum looks at social media in new HP New Media Gallery
Washington Post :: The Newseum has selected an interactive exhibition on social media as its first permanent addition at the museum since it opened in 2008. It’s only natural since Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, as well as Google and YouTube have become part of the daily news feed.
Continue to read Jacqueline Trescott, www.washingtonpost.com
.@CraigSilverman: How to verify information in real-time, from social media
Poynter :: Lots of people talk about how Andy Carvin does crowdsourced verification and turns his Twitter feed into a real time newswire. Lost in the discussion is the fact that Carvin also develops sources and contacts on the ground and stays in touch with them on Skype and through other means. What you see on Twitter is only one part of the process. Some things never go out of style. At the same time, there are new tools, techniques and approaches every journalist should have in their arsenal.
8 must reads - Continue to read Craig Silverman, www.poynter.org
U.K.: Is the law criminalising 'improper' Twitter use a menace?
Guardian :: Paul Chambers joked about blowing up Robin Hood airport on Twitter. Joshua Cryer, a law student, was convicted after posting a series of racist tweets. The one thing the men have in common is that all have been found guilty of offences under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 for tweets they sent. Section 127, entitled "Improper use of a public electronic communications network" says in subsection (1) that it is an offence for a person to send a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character over a public electronic communications network. It is this subsection that the above tweeters all fell foul of.
[Amanda Bancroft:] Everything from jokes to racism is covered by section 127 of the Communications Act. Clarification is needed.
Continue to read Amanda Bancroft, www.guardian.co.uk
Instagram shares on Twitter increased more than 12 times
Distimo :: First, let’s take a look at how it all started. Instagram launched about a year and a half ago, on October 6, 2010. We have estimated the number of downloads for Instagram for every day since launch in the US. During its launch month, October 2010, Instagram generated under 10,000 downloads per day in the US.
However, this quickly increased. Instagram generated well over 100,000 downloads per day in the Apple App Store in just the US over the course of several days in April 2012. The graph below illustrates the growth in total downloads per month in the US. In cooperation with data from Skylines, a real-time photo search engine, we are also able to illustrate the increase in daily posts on Twitter through Instagram. The cumulative downloads and the total monthly Instagram posts on Twitter in May 2011 are set to an index of 100. In this way, we can easily compare the increase in daily downloads with the increase in posts on Twitter via Instagram.
The cumulative downloads of Instagram are about seven times higher in March 2012 than they were in May 2011. Looking at the increase in Instagram shares on Twitter, this increased more than 12 times. This shows how successful the network of Instagram is: while the growth in daily downloads is impressive, the number of shares are increasing even more. In other words, the average number of shares per user are increasing.
Source: Distimo publication, April 2012: "The Rise of Instagram and the Significance of the First Billion Dollar App Acquisition" by Hendrik Koekkoek
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