Twitter posts

Before anyone starts attacking me for “traffic envy” or accuses me of turning other blog’s follies into pseudo-news a la Gawker, let me say that I absolutely adore and respect Mashable and all they’ve done for tech blogging over the years. I visit multiple times a day and read over half of the stories they post. I will, however, take the opportunity to point out that the attention that Mashable is paying to Pinterest lately is bordering on obsession. In the last two weeks, Mashable has posted 25 stories with “Pinterest” in the title. Compare this to similar sites like Techcrunch who has posted 3 Pinterest…

It’s getting to the point where the numbers associated with the world’s addiction to social media can no longer blow our minds, but we’re not there yet. Not quite. On second thought, maybe we are. Does anyone still get amazed by the sheer bulk mass humongous force that social media exudes? Probably not. Still, it’s interesting to see how with all of the amazing things that Facebook and Twitter have done over the years that new players like Google+ and Pinterest still have room to flourish. Even social news sites like soaring Reddit and rebounding Digg are showing impressive numbers. There seems…

The digital age is loaded with activities that we can perform any second of any day. As long as there’s an internet connection available, we have access at nearly all times to devices that keep us connected to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the like. As a result, the things we do on social media have expanded at a frantic pace to the point where it’s nearly unfathomable. Take YouTube, for instance. In a social media minute, over 2 million videos are viewed. Just a couple of years ago social media was an occasional activity for the tech-savvy youths of the world. Today, it’s an every-moment-of-every…

For the last 3 or 4 years, social media has been the hot topic that businesses have been told will save them. It has come across as both a promise and a threat; if you get involved, it can help your business but if you don’t, you’ll go the way of the dinosaurs, lost with nothing to show for it but your fossil records. That is, at least, what everyone has been told lately. It may be true that some businesses have found success in social media and a majority still believe something is there, but few can say with certainty that the time and money they invest into Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, their blogs, and all…

If you’re not paying for a service, then you’re the product. That’s been the reality of social media for some time now and it’s coming out now that Twitter has sold access to your information to two research companies who will release it to clients who pay for the ability to mine the data. There are different packages that Twitter has made available. Datasift Inc. has the “big” package with data going back two years, while Gnip Inc. offers data that goes back 30 days. “Harvesting what someone said a year or more ago is game-changing,” said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy…

Western society has always had certain expectations of privacy that have been disturbed or reaffirmed at various times in history. We didn’t want this journalist, that politician, or this law enforcement agency trampling on our rights to do what we want (as long as others aren’t hurt as a result) during the personal times in our lives. Things have changed. Privacy is quickly becoming an illusion for many who utilize social media. The somewhat odd part is that very few seem to actually care. If someone were to ask a person if they would be willing to broadcast their physical whereabouts whenever…

Modifying board games has been a “thing” for a couple of decades now but in the last couple of years it has become somewhat of an internet sensation when people change board games to match various internet properties. It’s a fun distraction and relatively common, but this one stood out as exceptionally creative. The folks over at uFunk put it together. You can download a full-size version here. In the meantime, check out this “Social Media Monopoly” if Risk isn’t your game. …

Four Twitter accounts critical of French President Nicolas Sarkozy were suspended yesterday, just a week after the many started his own account to help with his re-election efforts. The accounts, satirical in nature based upon their Tweets, were allegedly reported by Sarkozy or someone acting on his authority according to Kaboul.fr who operated @_nicolassarkozy who contacted Twitter about the incident. There’s only two possibilities here. Either Sarkozy or his team contacted Twitter about the accounts and had them removed for impersonation violations, or someone else contacted Twitter…

Pinterest is starting to enter into the social media in ways that most sites only dream about. Other than Google+, it’s the fastest growing social site in the last year with 329% growth in the last 4 months of 2011 alone. We get more questions on our social media podcast about Pinterest the last month than we get about Facebook. Why is the spotlight shining so brightly on this relative-newcomer to the social world? The answer is pretty simple. With a base target audience of 25-45 year-old women, the site is a mecca for things like fashion, recipes, and male pectorals. This exposure has gotten the attention…

Has Western culture grown too attached to their social networks? It’s possible, according to a recent study led by Wilhelm Hofmann at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. While the nuts and bolts of the study were far from a compelling, comprehensive bit of scientific research (205 adults were put into a heavily-weighted situation and were told to describe their “conflicts” via text) it is apparent just looking at how we go about our lives on a daily basis that many of us are indeed addicted. This video by SourceFed gives us the details of the study. …