The Digimites at PN have had their claws all over the internet this week. Chris Nee explains what he managed to drag back.
Twitter has claimed its most high-profile sacking (no pun intended). Predictably, much of the coverage of the decision of American football franchise Kansas City Chiefs to waive running back Larry Johnson has focused upon the fact that the comments which earned him a less than amiable exit from the squad were published on Twitter.
As is so often the case in social media, Johnson was merely using a new channel to air opinions which would have resulted in disciplinary action had they been said in person, on the telephone or in print.
The Chiefs did not officially cite Johnson’s tweets (criticisms of his coach, mostly) in explaining the decision to let him go. They also did not mention a 32,000-strong petition calling for the front office to axe the player before he broke the team’s rushing record.
But while Twitter is inevitably getting all the credit, it’s more likely his inflammatory tweets were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Johnson has been arrested four times since 2003 on charges of assaulting women, including waving a gun at his girlfriend and spitting a drink in a woman’s face at a nightclub. Nice chap, then. Social media can be powerful, but it’s important to note that they are in human control. Twitter did not waive Larry Johnson.
How to make a video go viral
It’s not easy to get women’s college football onto ESPN Sportscenter in the States, but the viral qualities of video showing the exploits of New Mexico’s Elizabeth Lambert caught the show’s imagination. In a game against BYU, Lambert kicked, fouled, punched and outright assaulted opponents, earning just a yellow card for her efforts.
Following her new-found fame, Lambert has been suspended by her team. The interesting thing about this incident is the speed at which it spread through the global football blog scene. I’ve been off-radar for a few days, checking in to Twitter and emails only very briefly. But I knew all about this player because of the sheer volume of sharing between my peers. The various videos have been viewed around a million times.
Still, they say all publicity is good publicity…
Twitter to introduce geo-specific trending topics?
That’s quite enough sport for this week. Back in the social media echo chamber, one of the unintended useful side-effects of Twitter has been trending topics, which can be identified by a whole range of tools and applications which take into account the volume of tweets containing the most-used words and phrases at any given time.
Trouble is, trending topics can be (a) gamed and (b) far too specific for a global audience. The classic confusions are between US and UK users when something occurs on either side of the Atlantic which has no resonance on the other.
The death of Are You Being Served? actor Mollie Sugden in July led to the trending topic #mrsslocombespussy popping up all over Twitter during UK working hours. Upon waking, many users in the US spotted this topic and interpreted it as so much trend spam – one can hardly blame them, the stuff is everywhere.
Mashable has written of its desire to see geo-specific trends on Twitter, and the microblogging site looks as if it will soon answer the call. Good work, Twitter.
Google loves Sesame Street
Call me a miserable sod, but I hated Sesame Street (no, I’m not the Chris Nee who writes Blue’s Clues, by the way). As such, I care not a jot about the show’s birthday – unlike Google, which has dedicated a series of special logos to various characters while I was (thankfully) offline.
Of course, it got people talking and it most certainly raised the profile of Sesame Street’s birthday and got people talking. If it weren’t for chatter online I’d have been none the wiser about either the anniversary or Google’s logos. It’s definitely achieved its aim.
Kudos once again to whichever poor Google staffer has to keep an eye on the calendar of forthcoming anniversaries. This one was screaming out for a visual mark of respect, even if I preferred Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Top 10 Facebook apps
Ever since Facebook started to show developers a bit of leg, users have been inundated with emails and notifications from zombies, pirates, friends with gifts, quizzes and bumper stickers.
Building a Facebook application can be a great opportunity to engage with users, but only if you get it right. Mashable has carried out a poll of its readers and the results give an indication as to which apps get the thumbs-up from social-media savvy folk.
Predictably, the top ten is dotted with one or two functional apps but dominated by games. FarmVille tops the list, followed by Mafia Wars. Not far behind, Bejeweled Blitz edges out Scrabble. Extrapolating a little randomly, one could argue that apps are aided by a high level of engagement (a challenge-a-friend mechanic, if you will), simplicity and shareability.
SMS revenues pass $100bn
Jon Bernstein reported early last week that revenues from SMS (text messaging) have passed $100bn. Intended as an accessory on mobile phones, SMS has become a huge deal in its own right. Put simply, 160-character messaging caught on in a way few had expected.
And yet, well over a decade after its introduction, marketers haven’t quite figured out what to do with it.
