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Archive for July, 2011

Minute of Silence

By jeff on July 29th, 2011 No Comments

Some twitter members have been trying to organize a minute of silence to honor the victim’s in last weeks massacre in Norway. The organizers tried to set a time of 12:00 PM EST but it could not gain enough traction.

The organizers called the movement Twinute Silence. A member of the group stated they will try to organize another minute and hopefully attract global attention. As a member of  the organization said, “It’s a way everybody all over the world, no matter your language, your religion or your beliefs, can show your support for the victims and their families.”

The hashtag #twinutesilence soared to the top trending topics on twitter. While it is unknown how many people actually participated in the moment of silence, it is nice to see people remembering innocent victims of a tragic massacre.

50 Cent Causes More Twitter Drama

By jeff on July 29th, 2011 No Comments

50 Cent is causing quite the stir on twitter yet again. After his song, “I’m on it” was recently leaked this week, 50 Cent announced he was going to leak Dr. Dre’s new song. The threat was mainly directed at Interscope records because the record company was apparently responsible for the leak.

Although, 50 Cent said he was going to release Dre’s song today, no song was ever leaked. In fact, 50 Cent switched his tone up completely and said he would never release Dre’s songs because, “he done nothing but help my career.”

Go figure, 50 Cent causing more twitter drama. Thankfully, he did not leak Dre’s song and escalate an already tense situation. It would be nice it 50 Cent would go back to comedy like he did last winter when he tweeted about hustling rich folk for money after snowstorms.

Regardless, you know it is never going to be a dull day if you are following 50 Cent. There may not be one person more entertaining on twitter then him.

Is Google+ a Twitter Killer?

By jeff on July 28th, 2011 1 Comment

Recently, there has been much speculation on whether or not Google’s new social network, Google+, will kill twitter. This is laughable, and I cannot see Twitter being affected by Google+.

If you have even joined Google+, then you know the layout is very similar to Facebook. Sure, it seems like the Google’s goal is to promote micro-blogging- essentially the same thing as a tweet- but that does not mean that it will be able to overtake twitter.

Google+ is still in beta stage. How can anybody in their right mind say that it will kill Twitter? There are millions of twitter accounts and billions of tweets each week. I highly doubt that that number is going to go down simply because of Google+.

If anything, Google+ is going to be a hybrid of twitter and facebook. Personally, this makes me think it will be a bust. Users of both social networks seem to like the separate features and benefits. I know I’m not going to stop using twitter and chances are you are not going to either. Twitter will remain strong.

NSFW Tweets

By jeff on July 28th, 2011 No Comments

Twitter has finally developed a tool in the Twitter API to remove not safe for work (NSFW) material to be filtered out. The tool is called “possibly sensitive.” The goal is to allow users to have the ability to flag links that are posted on Twitter as NSFW.

Twitter has said that they have wanted to include a tool like this for some time. Currently, a user can report a tweet or photo as offensive and twitter manually reviews the material. This new tool seems to remove twitter from the equation so that they can move their staff onto other more important things.

I’m sure there will still be some moderation process if something is marked as NSFW by a large number of people. The goal here is to filter out images and tweets from people at work and minors so that they are not exposed to things they should not be viewing.

Thank you Twitter.

Twitter Releases Timely Tweets

By jeff on July 28th, 2011 No Comments

Twitter has officially announced a new feature today called Timely Tweets. Essentially, timely tweets are promoted tweets that will appear the top of your timeline. They are just like regular sweets in that they will only appear on your timeline once. You can also remove them from your timeline by clicking remove.

Twitter’s goal here is to sell more sponsored tweets from big brand Advertisers. They already have attracted the likes of Dell, Gatorade, HBO, TNT, among many other brands.

A lot of non profit organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Make-A-Wish Foundation also have expressed their interest in the new service.

We will have to wait and see if timely tweets can catch on or not. Essentially the only new difference between them and the old sponsored tweets is that timely tweets will get more exposure to twitter followers because of their location.

Twitter says their goal is to enhance user experience, but we will see if this new feature can truly enhance that.

Warning: Beach Body Spam

By jeff on July 28th, 2011 No Comments

Be on the lookout for new beach body spam that is spreading across twitter like wildfire. Thousands of tweets have been promoting a weight loss website that promotes an acai berry product. If your account has been sending out spam tweets, make sure to change your password. As always, make it something complex so that it cannot be easily hacked or guessed.

It also may be advisable to run a virus scan on your computer. This way you can ensure that you have no viruses on your computer that can continue to send the beach body spam on twitter.

Twitter recommends that you change your password every single month to something that isn’t in the dictionary. This means using letters and numbers in various forms to prevent password detection software from being able to easily guess your password. A representative from twitter will explain the situation once all the information is gathered.

Venezuela Being run by Twitter?

By jeff on July 27th, 2011 No Comments

Caution, this may be one of the craziest things you have heard about twitter. With Hugo Chavez staying in Cuba, he has been running the entire country of Venezuela by twitter. If you are not aware, Chavez is currently recovering from surgery to remove cancer. However, since he is not Venezuela, he has had to resort to alternate means to run the country.

He has constantly been updating his twitter to keep in contact with the members of his cabinet as well as regular citizens. With recent tweets he has approved a bill that gives $25 million dollars for a new trash-collect company, $51 million dollars for a new state government, and $37 million dollars to oversee a new public housing construction program.

While it may not be the best method to run a country, I applaud Chavez’s innovation. Perhaps our world would be a much better place if everybody was a little more creative.

The White House Rickrolls Critic

By jeff on July 27th, 2011 No Comments

It seems somebody from the White House has a wonderful sense of humor. In response to a critic of the Obama Administration, someone decided to exact revenge by rick rolling the critic. The critic had previously complained about the “entertainment value” of President Obama’s press conferences.

Personally, I have no problem with what the representative did. He or she could have easily responded with a nasty insult but decided to have fun using one of the Internets best pranks. I think it’s actually a little nice that the administration is trying to light up the mood right now, especially with the giant debt problem lingering.

While the reporter did bring up a valid point about the current administration, I can’t help but think he laughed over the response. It was completely harmless and was intended to be all in good fun. Regardless, it was still funny for the rest of us but I hope the white house can now focus on more pressing issues.

Another Twitter Rant from an Athlete

By jeff on July 26th, 2011 No Comments

When will sports figures ever learn? Jose Enrique, a Newcastle United defender, has been find over $100,000 for his insults of his team on twitter. Even worse, he directed his rant directly at the team’s owner. Sure, he had a point with what he said but as an athlete you have to uphold yourself to certain standards.

This case brings up a buried point that needs to be entrenched in every single athletes’ mind. As an athlete, you are under public scrutiny constantly. Whatever an athlete or even a celebrity does can potentially cost somebody else thousands of millions of dollars.

Unfortunately, Enrique is going to take the same hit in his wallet that so many other athletes have had to endure. Twitter is a great way for athletes to connect with fans and with each other. However, until athletes understand that they should only be using twitter for that reason, we will probably still see more and more of these fines.

Twitter: Hear it First

By jeff on July 26th, 2011 No Comments

Throughout many recent notable world affairs, you may have heard, “twitter broke the story.” Essentially, news on twitter is reported first before other mainstream news sources can report on the story. It makes sense why this happens.

Twitter relies on the viral nature of itself to spread news and trends. Every single one of twitter’s users can be considered a journalist. The more a news story is re-tweeted, the higher it moves on the current trends. The viral aspect of twitter plus the vast array of users make it easy to spread and report news.

As long as twitter can keep its viral nature, then it will continue to be a place for news to be leaked. News Organizations cannot keep up with the sheer number of people available to report the news. News organizations only have so many people at their disposal, which is a great disadvantage.

Twitter has evolved from a place to send funny messages to friends. It’s now a viral marketing machine and major news outlet that is only likely to grow.