tweet
Watch How Retweets Ripple Out Through the Internet
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5995388/watch-how-retweets-ripple-out-through-the-internet
A quick tweet can blast through Twitter like wildfire. All it takes is a click of a button and anyone can help push that 140 character shout just a little further through cyberspace, until everybody knows. This is what it looks like when that happens.
“Where Does My Tweet Go” is a neat little Twitter analytics tool developed by France’s MFG Labs. It’s a very simple concept; instead of just telling you how many times one of your tweets (or someone else’s) got retweeted, it traces the viral spread from person to person to person, ever outward to Twitter’s furthest reaches.
Each graph starts with a dot in the center for the original tweet, with a ring around it for the first wave of retweets. Each concentric circle represents yet another wave, like ripples in a pond, while the pie-slices emanating from each tweet show the overall reach of every echo.
For the moment, the service is still in beta, so your choice of tweets is rather limited. You can sign up and look at the spread of your own (if you’re popular enough) or browse through some of the (mostly French) accounts and trends the service currently supports. Eventually, it should roll out to the net at large, giving some color and shape to ever-increasing retweet frenzies. Too bad that hacked AP tweet isn’t loaded into the beta. That would be a tweetsplosion worth seeing. Maybe (but hopefully not) next time. [Where Does My Tweet Go via Wired]
A Shimmering, Tweet-Based Langauge Map of NYC
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5985892/a-shimmering-tweet+based-langauge-map-of-nyc
If you’ve ever wondered which languages are spoken where in NYC, here’s the map for you. This visualization shows exactly which languages are used in tweets across the city.
Put together by James Cheshire, Ed Manley and Oliver O’Brien from University College London, the map builds on 8.5 million tweets, captured between January 2010 and February 2013, which were all analyzed for language content. As you’d expect, it’s quite the melting pot, and the highest concentration of different languages seems to be around the Theatre District and Times Square. Best put that down to tourists, eh? Check out the full, interactive map here.[UCL via Guardian]
The Happiest and Saddest Places in the Country as Told by Your Tweets
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5985419/the-happiest-and-saddest-places-in-the-country-as-told-by-your-tweets
Louisiana residents probably won’t be too pleased to hear the following news, which, for them, won’t really be a change of pace at all. According to a team at the very not-real-sounding Vermont Complex Systems Center and based on what is surely a totally objective and not-at-all arbitrary analysis of tweets, Louisiana is understandably (Katrina, blacking out the Super Bowl, being notoriously obese) the saddest state while Hawaii (sunshine, pineapple, knowing they bestowed Manti Te’o unto the world) is the happiest.
To find these purported emotional extremities of the US, the researchers analyzed each tweet for its happiness content based on the positive words, such as beauty and love, and negative words, such as boo and lied, that were used. In addition to whether or not a tweet contained “happy” or “sad” words, the extent to which a city used certain words more or less than the national average also played a role in its rating. For instance, Napa’s relatively low use of the (sad) word “bitches” directly contributed to its status as the happiest and least-derogatory-towards-women city in the country. Conversely, Beaumont’s markedly high use of the (sad) word “shit” played a role in its status as the US’s most depressing and profane place to live.
Of course, this study does leave a considerable amount of room for error. It in no way takes into account the context surrounding the indicator words. For instance, a tweet declaring “Damn, look at these fine bitches” might very well be marked as sad when, in fact, it’s a joyful declaration of aesthetic appreciation. Still, the authors are able to note that their data correlates with other (still probably highly subjective) measures of happiness as conducted by Gallup.
Even if potentially woefully inaccurate, it is, nonetheless, a fun little study that, depending on your city, can either validate your current emotional state or send you into existential crisis as you question the very happiness you thought you had, everyone in Louisiana. Enjoy.
[ariXv.org via The Atlantic]
American Express cardholders can now buy goods by tweeting special hashtags
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/12/american-express-sync-twitter-buy-products/
If driving to a store and waving your phone by a terminal puts too much sweat on your brow, American Express has launched a new way to part with your money in exchange for physical goods that’s even more effortless. Since last year, Amex Sync has let American Express cardholders earn discounts in return for posting tweets including hashtags about certain products, and now it’s letting them buy things just by tweeting special hashtags. After signing up for the service, users can send out a tweet with a hashtag such as #BuyAmexGiftCard25, reply to the @AmexSync account to confirm their purchase and wait for the package to arrive via free 2-day shipping. As of now, the outfit is offering a $25 American Express gift card for $15, but will being offering up new products, ranging from a Kindle Fire HD to an Xbox 360, with sweetened prices starting February 13 at noon EST. Not a Twitter user? According to AllThingsD, Leslie Berland, Amex’s SVP of digital partnerships and development, says the solution will head to the likes of Facebook and other platforms at some point as well.
Filed under: Internet
Via: The Verge, AllThingsD
Source: American Express (1), (2)
Job Applications – Eliminate Resumes, Applications, Keywords
Only Three Smartphone Companies Are Profitable (AAPL, GOOG, MSFT)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/only-three-smartphone-companies-are-profitable-2012-11
Interesting tweet from analyst Horace Dediu, “Apple’s share of operating profits from global mobile phones dropped to 60% in Q3. Samsung now at 39% HTC 1%. No other companies profitable.”
A couple of thoughts on this:
- How is this sustainable for all the other phone makers? What happens to Motorola, RIM, Nokia, LG, et al.? Do they go away?
- If they go under what happens to Android? If you’re wondering why Google is trying to save Motorola, this could be a clue. It doesn’t want to be held hostage by Samsung, the only smartphone maker that’s profitable.
- What happens to Windows Phone? If Nokia continues to lose money and market share, and HTC is just barely profitable, what happens to Microsoft’s mobile efforts?
- Is this really a business Microsoft wants to enter? Microsoft is reportedly thinking about doing its own smartphone. Does it really think it can make money like Apple and Samsung, companies with years of manufacturing expertise?
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Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights. 
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