What Does Each Say About Us?

Three important lists were released just recently.  One being the most talked about events on Twitter throughout the world another being the fastest rising search queries on Google, and finally of course the third one was Facebook with the top status trends of 2010.

You can explore them in their detail by following the links above but for a quick over view:

Twitter

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

Google

1. chatroulette
2. ipad
3. justin bieber
4. nicki minaj
5. friv
6. myxer
7. katy perry
8. twitter
9. gamezer
10. facebook
• Facebook

1. HMU - Hit Me Up
2. World Cup
3. Movies
4. iPad & iPhone
5. Haiti
6. Justin Bieber
7. Games on Facebook
8. Mineros / Miners
9. Airplanes
10. 2011

• I dont have anything to add really, just encourage you to explore further through the links above, it's very interesting !

A Fly on the Wall & Just Imagine

It's been very interesting to watch.  I didn't catch wind of it until it was a bit late (I don't always scroll back to catch up on old tweets). But like I said, it's been very interesting to watch this Secret Santa #nztwittersecretsanta play out in its entirety.  It seems to have originated from here. Twitter in a way seems to bring togther a whole collection of random strangers & create localised communities like nothings been able to do since IRC days.  It's very reminiscent for me, I spent a lot of time on IRC 10+ years ago, so I don't often participate in Twitter activities but it's fun to watch it evolve.  And it's a great way to get news & information fast.  Does anybody remember pIRCh?

It's been 30years now since Lennon was shot dead as he returned home to his apartment one night.  I never had the chance to be around while he was in the world, but from what I've heard and read he sounds passionate about all things peace & humanity.  There needs to be more people like this willing to stand up & say, we just accept you, we of all nationalities, genders, wealth etc are able to just get along together in this world.  There was someone else like this though, Bob Marley, who once said,


Me only have one ambition, y'know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together - black, white, Chinese, everyone - that's all.

Assange Easier to Catch Than Bin Laden & Chrome OS

Turns out the Wikileaks founder was probably the most easy person to arrest off of an Interpol Most Wanted list than anyone ever before. He wrote this just before his arrest which is a very interesting read.  Why him ? The newspapers are just as culpable surely?  And as for the charges themselves, this is the most in depth I've found to come to my own conclusions that they're rubbish. I'll be following this one closely..

On an entirely different note, I'm sold.  Chrome OS I'm talking about, it just seems perfect to me for the form factor it seems to be aimed at. I've wanted a laptop / notebook / netbook (one of the above) for a while but have been put off by the amount of time it takes to become usable, i.e. boot time.  Also, I've become to realise as soon as I sit in front of a computer I open the browser & find I spend at least 95% of my time there.  I'd love to be able to take that environment out and about & be able to compute from anywhere, have all my settings & installed apps / extensions come with me etc.  Only time will tell if the general population will understand & "get" it, but I sure hope they do as I'm very keen!

 

Facebook Will Never "Be Finished" & Music Videos 2.0

As some, if not, most of you will probably know by now another major development to Facebooks profile pages has been launched. Zuckerberg decided to do this in conjunction with a 60mins piece in the States.  You can enable the new look profile here if you like.  You'll be asked to fill in a few blanks (it surprised me I didn't have anything entered for spoken languages) & then you can opt to be shown a tour of the new layout or dismiss it and get on with your day.  Aside from the messy summary at the top of the page directly under your name, I think its very nice - although I must admit it's purely a first impression, I haven't spent any time with the new layout to see how functional it is.  If early polling is anything to go by though most people either "Love it" or "Don't care"

This definitely caught my attention!  I've seen some crazy Russian (or at least I think it is) Facebook laden music videos before but not one in English.  Is this the future of club anthem music lyrics & videos? Either way, its fun and fantastic!

A Chili Pepper 540x the Strength of a Jalapeño & Doggehs Instead of Kittehs

I don't normally support Fox News but I couldn't find anyone else reporting this so will have to point there for this one.  A Chili Pepper grown in a snow covered greenhouse in North Western England of all places as been recognised as the hottest chili pepper in the world.  The "Nagar Viper", as it's known, is said to be hot enough to strip paint.  It's also so hot experts are considering using it in "spice bombs" to incapacitate enemy soldiers in battle.

The internet goes crazy over Kitteh videos and pics, just look at the runaway success LOLcats has been on the world.  Well i've never understood it because i'm much more a Dog person.. so I bring you cute Doggehs for people like me.. I've embedded the most "awww" worthy one below!

A Very Googly Operating System & Alien Life Forms

You may or may not have been following the rumours for a while now, that Googles been hard at work on yet another operating system (over and above the highly successful Android platform for mobile phones) called Chrome OS.  Yes like it says, will basically just be the Chrome browser on steroids.  Lets face it, 95% of us spend 95% of our time on a computer inside the browser so why not add some operating system functionality in there and be done with it! If they can pull this off, and have it boot in under 5sec (I understand they are aiming for boot speeds of as low as 2-3sec) then it'll definitely be worth looking at!

Not to get into too much detail but NASA just found life forms based on chemical compounds not thought possible before.  This life form apparently substitutes one of the "building blocks" of life for Arsenic when or if needed.  Put simply, it gives them many many more places to look or even consider in the universe that could support life as we know it.  Intense stuff..

Mapping Trends Worldwide & "Houston, We've Had a Problem"

Sometimes because of the vast nature of worldwide social media there isn't always one or two particular topics of discussion that stand out at any given time.  So my hunt for topics today led me to an amazing site that collates all the tending topics from around the world & maps them based on location information embedded in the tweets themselves.  From this one map of the world you can zoom into any country / city, click on trending words & get tweets based on that word in realtime.

Everyone knows the line, whether its remembered as "Houston, We Have a Problem" or "Houston, We've Had a Problem" is neither here nor there much like how everyone thought the famous line from Casablanca was "Play it again, Sam"  But this new website (spacelog.org) plans to at least solve the argument over famous words uttered in space by NASA astronauts.  Fully indexed transcripts of radio transmissions between astronauts in space & NASA ground control will be available for all to read.  They already have the famous Apollo 13 mission online and by the looks of things will soon have Apollo 8 (first human space flight to leave earth) & Apollo 11 (first manned moon landing) online also.  Look forward to those indeed!

Get @theashes to The Ashes & The rude Duke of York

So this is hillarious.  A poor 22yr old American girl who happens to have had the twitter account @theashes since 2007 exploded in a rage when people kept asking her about The Ashes cricket tests currently being played.  At one point exclaiming "I AM NOT A FREAKING CRICKET MATCH!!!"  She has since become an instant Twitter celebrity now with the meme #gettheashestotheashes gaining enough momentum for Qantas & Vodafone to want to pay for her to see a game herself in Australia.  Apparently shes seriously considering it.. all through the power of social media!

So Prince Andrew verges on being quite rude & candid, he's allowed surely?  Although it is interesting to have an insight into what he thinks about other countries and policies.  So comes the latest scandal to flow out of Wikileaks Cablegate.  He's apparently been caught claiming "..the Americans don't understand geography. Never have. In the UK we have the best geography teachers in the world"  I'm sure there are plenty more gems to be found amongst these Cables still to come !

W. to visit Facebook HQ & The great UK chill

The interesting character that we shall only refer to as W. is apparently making a stop off to visit Facebook HQ to be involved in a Facebook Live event.  One would assume most of the questions being asked of him will come from Facebook staff (possibly even Zuckerburg himself), although a few select questions will probably come from the live chat happening during the event.

I just love the power of social media & how you can collate whats happening over an entire country / the world just by looking into what people are posting & where those posts are from.  Take this for example.  Every time big weather events happen it's inevitable that people will tweet about them, so this guy in the UK has made a map of the snowfalls in real-time depending on peoples tweets, where they tweeted from and the intensity of the snow as described in their tweet. Pure brilliance!

Jail time for the Pirates & Stoner Willie

The poor bastards lost their appeal and although their jail time was reduced the original fines handed down to them were increased to US$6.4M+.  These lawsuits are not only pointless wastes of taxpayers money there is little to no actual evidence in my opinion that illegal file sharing even dents the profits.  Here we can see that even though a slight dip occurred in 2005, generally speaking (the US box office at least) revenue has been steadily increasing since the 80s.  And before you say thats only because ticket prices have been increasing at the same time here we can see total admissions have held relatively steady through the last decade.  They've even increased a lot since the 80s.. wasn't the big cry back then that VHS home video rentals would kill the cinema industry?

So Willie Nelson is a stoner, who would've thought?  Did his laid back attitudes, peace loving ways, long hair & beard give it all away?  Or was it this latest news that finally made you realise? I think this tweet sums it all up for me..

Crowdsourcing FTW !

So todays topic isn't exactly a "trend" so to speak on Twitter but never the less I find it rather interesting.  The whole aspect of creating a much more social web / internet has lead to some amazing concepts.  Crowdsourcing & Microfinancing being two of the most powerful in my opinion.  They have been getting a lot of buzz for the past couple of years and now slowly starting to get more mainstream media attraction.  Such sites as kiva.org & kickstarter.com are right up there to be the next big way to fund small but amazing projects in this post recession era.  Obviously sites like wikipedia.org would not exist without crowdsourcing it's information (you don't think few hundred or even thousand people could really re-write a continually evolving encyclopedia on their own did you?).

One other way people are slowly turning to crowdsourcing is through content creation.  Some might call this lazy, but I see it as potentially game changing. What other projects could foster such close ties with the people who will eventually consume this content than if they themselves helped create it.

The death of a Queen & Giving thanks !

So it was the 19th anniversary of Freddy Mercurys passing and the Tweets are streaming in to commemorate the occasion.  I must admit, I had no idea he passed away only 19 years ago.  To be honest I've always thought it was a lot earlier.  I grew up during the 80s when Queen was all over the radio! One can only imagine the passing of such a musical legend of his time was as widely mourned as MJ was just over a year ago. RIP Freddy Mercury, 5th Sept 1946 - 24th Nov 1991.

On a much brighter note for some parts of the world comes Thanks Giving.  Now I know little about this Turkey eating holiday (we save our Turkeys for Christmas on this side of the globe) but it seems its just as simple as giving thanks for a decent harvest.  Although with social media at play these days people are expressing what they themselves are thankful for in life.  Ah the power of global connection.

Cookie Monster for SNL & an Achy Breaky Birthday

For some ghastly reason it seems everyone all of a sudden wants a big blue cookie munching monster to host the hit comedy tv show Saturday Night Live.  Twitter is a buzz today following a video posted to Sesame Streets Youtube account depicting an audition by the Cookie Monster.  It seems he would like to branch out from his cookie munching career into comedy.  This will no doubt go "viral" & I can almost guarantee it will lead to SNL being fronted by the blue beast in no time.   If I had to guess only to silence the trollers out there screaming for the next 30sec laugh from the online world.

In other unrelated news, if we believe everything the Internet has to say Miley Cyrus is now 18.  Scary thought if you live in a country like mine that allows drinking & night clubbing at that age.  Happy Birthday Miley. Now I bet she really Can't Be Tamed.