Trending topics reveal much more than the objects that captivate the hearts, minds, and keyboards of Twitter users around the world. Twitter’s trends is a cultural mirror that reflects the state of attention and intention. And as such, Tweets then offer an MRI that visualizes the minds of consumers and more importantly, serve as a crystal ball that reveals the future of products and services before and soon after they’re released. For the most part, however, the vast amount of…
Twitter Writes Its Own Success Stories
In January 2010, nearly 75 million people visited Twitter according to comScore. While that number seems remarkable, it represents only a fraction of what’s realistically attainable. I believe that Twitter’s growth, to date, is hindered not by its ambition nor potential, but by the company’s ongoing focus on competing priorities rather than showcasing how users can effectively communicate and excel on this unique platform. But that’s all about to change… Every day, millions of potential people are introduced to Twitter…
News: Twitter Changes Updates to Tweets
In the grand scheme of things, this news seems a bit insignificant in light of other current events However, it is significant in the world of Social Media. As mainstream audiences embrace new media, every subtle nuance introduced from here on out reverberates across the social landscapes that define, shape, and dictate its evolution and its pace of adoption. Today, Twitter changed its “update” button to a verb that will only gain in prominence, “Tweet.” Thanks to good friend @Orli…
Facebook Top Trends of 2009
Contrary to popular belief, Twitter wasn’t the only story of 2009. Facebook skyrocketed to over 350 millions users in 2009 and continued its rise to global pervasiveness becoming one of the top visited sites on the Web. As aspiring digital anthropologists and sociologists, we thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the trending topics readily available for review and analysis on Twitter. On Twitter, trends are defined and shaped by the shared interests published in the form of status updates that suddenly congregate…
The Twitter Star: Nova or Supernova?
Source: Shutterstock Nova: a star showing a sudden large increase in brightness and then slowly returning to its original state Supernova: a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its mass I recently wrote about reports on the documented decline of visitors to Twitter.com. A good friend encouraged me to take a deeper look at the reports as a way of discerning hype from reality and to also examine the potential…
On Twitter, What Are You Doing Was Always The Wrong Question
What are you doing? Perhaps, Twitter asked the wrong question all along. In all honestly, who cares…it was really never about “what you were doing” that inspired your network to stay connected nor was it the siren for attracting new followers. We chose to follow you because you moved or encouraged us to do so – with every update. For many of the users on Twitter, the question that engendered a response and also also aroused a cultural movement was,…
Guess How Many Tweets Fly Across Twitter Each Day
Source 1 million, 5 million, 10 million…? If you guessed 10 million, you weren’t even half right. According to new data from Pingdom, Twitter users are averaging 27.3 million tweets per day with an annual run rate of 10 billion tweets. Just last month, Caroline McCarthy of CNET reported that the 5 billionth tweet posted. Pingdom’s report highlights the pattern of tweets, which appear to spike during waking hours in the U.S. However, it’s important to note here that Comscore…
Hollywood’s Next Production: Gagging Social Media
Source I carefully considered this topic before sharing my views. In doing so, my perception might have altered since the news of Hollywood studios banning film stars from using Twitter initially broke. It’s not a secret that Hollywood has a long history of controlling what is said in the media. Like in almost every industry it touches, Twitter has completely disrupted the chain of command, democratizing influence and shifting the power of publicity, control and reach of information from executives…
RT @Twitter: New Retweet Feature Goes Live
Source: Twitter This is breaking news at the moment, therefore this post will update as new information trickles in. Twitter is making good on its recent promise to introduce new features to bring users back to Twitter.com. Similar to the way that it rolled out Lists, Twitter is incrementally releasing its new Retweet feature initially previewed in August 2009. As described by @Biz, co-founder of Twitter: Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your…
Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists
Twitter recently expanded its new Lists service to users network-wide and in doing so, injected a sense of excitement, confusion, and also utility. Lists represent a significant milestone for Twitter as it transcends asynchronous conversations and and broadcast messages into a form of intelligence gathering, education, entertainment, and news. Twitter Lists are also stirring controversy as many believe that it sets the foundation for a new level of establishing a metric for influence. Whereas prominence was measured by the number…
