Whatever...

Bad mood map is sick

By Mike King 

A day doesn’t seem to go by without another new development in social media monitoring appearing on the scene.  One of the latest to gain publicity is a project at Northeastern University in Boston that uses Twitter messages to measure the mood across America.  The "pulse of the nation" project monitors the Twitter feeds of 300 million Americans to produce a real time mood map of the country.

The analysis is based on interpreting keywords in 140 character messages to determine the mood of the sender.  They’ll be no way to measure irony, sarcasm or, I expect context, so it is probably about as accurate as most other automated social media monitoring tools.  Still, the findings so far reveal that the West coast is the place to be if you want to be happy (apparently, East coast people are just not as jolly), and that the nation’s happiness level peaks on a Sunday morning and troughs on a Thursday evening.   No Monday morning blues in the USA it would appear. 

 

The analysis is carried out using ANEW ratings (Affective Norms for English Words) where words are given emotional ratings in terms of pleasure, arousal and dominance.  I don’t pretend to understand it fully, but words like ‘sick’, ‘bad’ and ‘wicked’ must prove a challenge. 

 

The marketing power of viral videos

Old Spice’s Twitter viral video campaign is clearly reaping its rewards as Old Spice has announced that sales have increased by 107% in the past month.  Mashable reports that Visible Measures, the online video metrics firm, believes that this string of custom-made videos is one of the fastest-growing online video campaigns of all time.  But will this campaign just be a flash in the pan or will the Old Spice man continue to answer Tweeters’ questions for a long time to come?  We’re certainly hoping so! 

 

  

Need a friend? Rent one!

By Alexandra Radius

We tend to think of friendship as something that money can’t buy, something that evolves naturally and that you need to make a little effort to keep alive…right?  Well not necessarily so, as I discovered last week with the launch of a new UK website. This site allows you to purchase friendship and rent friends online and, if it works in the UK, a launch in France will surely not be far behind.

 

The website, Rentafriend.com, has been created to help people find ‘friends’ to hang out with.  Of course, this is not all done out of the goodness of the site owner’s heart; you have to pay a membership fee to join, and when you find a friend, you have to pay him or her by the hour.

 

For someone who moves country or is visiting a new city, this could a good idea.  It can sometimes be difficult to meet people when you arrive somewhere, and exploring a new area can be very lonely.  But, if you’re staying somewhere long term, what about joining a night class or taking up a sport to meet new people?  Maybe if the website said "companion" instead of “friend” it would be more appropriate.

 

For me, this is another example of how everything can be commoditised today and the ‘friendship market’ (how much of an oxymoron is that?) is just another way to make profit from people’s loneliness.  Rather than creating a connection with someone, the service can in fact completely disconnect you from real life and real relationships.

 

I’m currently reading a very humorous book by Lawrence Block called ‘Hit and Run’ about an agency where you can rent your own ‘personal killer’ to bump off, for example, an annoying neighbour or unfaithful husband.  It’s very entertaining, but of course it’s pure fiction…or is it?  In today’s consumer society where whatever you want is only a few clicks away, Rentakiller.com may be coming to a town near you very soon. 

 

 

The highs and lows of social networking

As Facebook’s irrepressible rise continues, how are the other social networking sites doing?  These stats and graphs on the BBC demonstrates perfectly Facebook’s dominance and how many sites are struggling to even retain their users.  How far can Facebook go and what company could challenge it now?

So, is the iPad amazing or is it absolute rubbish?

By Lindsey Challis

While at a family BBQ last week I realised the difference in opinion over Apple’s new wonder-device.  There was a lot of heated banter, but mainly a lack of actual knowledge.  How many new technologies have we seen step into the market, ridiculed by a whole array of people – from the techno-obsessed to the techno-phobe – only for them to later become staple in our everyday life?  Social media, internet banking and the mobile internet to name but a few.

At the beginning, there are two camps of people – those that have the gadget and those who don’t.  Generally the former are absolutely enthralled by the new technology.  With the iPad they’ve bought into a unique merger between iPhone and laptop, often expecting it to revolutionise the world.  I understand this – they have the gadget, they are using the technology and have most likely spent the previous months reading everything to do with the upcoming device and its technology.  At present, however, they seem to jump to defend their new gadget at any cost, claiming that they can’t understand anyone who lives without it.

The other side I am less supportive of – and unfortunately this was the side indulged most at the BBQ.

As the iPad got well and truly put through its paces, the discussion was more an effort to wade through everything that had been said and written about it – this was because nobody had even seen an iPad, let alone used one!  As perception, assumption and confusion intertwined, the newly constructed version of the iPad seemed far removed from the reality.

So I guess the question remains – is it the technology or the newspapers driving public opinion?

22 ways to build your brand using social media

A little something for all the social media junkies out there – Mashable has just compiled a list of 22 handy social media resources featuring tips galore, from how to big up your brand on Twitter to communicating with a dolphin using your iPad.

 

The internet gossip machine goes into overdrive

By Fiona Halkerston

The past couple of weeks have seen a flurry of rumours which have transcended from blogs, tweets, texts and forums to become international news headlines. 

We’ve seen everything this month from speculation about Google’s social networking site go from a single tweet to The Independent, to celebrity rumours ranging from the Beckham’s alleged divorce, Justin Bieber being pregnant, the text message scandal surrounding Steven Gerrard and his sister-in-law and, I can barely say it, the rumour of Barry Chuckle’s sudden death. 

It seems that as soon as a story of interest becomes a trending topic on Twitter or Google, the line between gossip and news becomes blurred.  If the story involves a celebrity, it is bound to make headlines as the celebrity in question invariably speaks out to quash the rumours and allegations against them.

As we see more and more reputable news outlets begin to charge for online content, will internet news consumers give up checking the validity of such stories at their previously trusted sources?  One approach to combat this is to slate rumours at the source as demonstrated by Google yesterday.   Dan Morrill, head of Android’s Open Source and Compatibility Technology, used Twitter to debunk claims and reassure followers about Android 3.0 Gingerbread rumours.  The problem is however, tweets clarifying the truth behind the rumours are unlikely to get as many views, or as much news coverage, as the untrue gossiping tweets and trending topics.