Posts Tagged ‘celebrities’

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, August 7th, 2012

Twitter now available in three new languages

Twitter’s approach to making the social network available in more languages is unique: it crowdsources the translation process out to the users through the Twitter Translation Center. Well, it looks like this approach is paying off. Only a few months after becoming available in right-t0-left languages, Twitter has announced it’s now also available in Greek, Czech, and Basque.

To change the language of your personal Twitter experience, just go to your account settings. To help with the translation process for any language, you simply sign-in to the Translation Center with your Twitter account.

Jason Mraz fan-sources ideas for new music video

Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz is making a music video for his song, “The Woman I Love,” and is looking to his followers for help in the creative process. For one week from July 30 to August 6, Mraz asked fans to tweet him at @Jason_Mraz with possible plotlines using the hashtag #MrazingTheVideo.

A director will create a storyboard based on the best ideas. The music video will premiere this fall on Twitter and those who’s ideas were chosen will be credited by their Twitter handles appearing at the end of the video.

The first tweets from Mars

NASA’s Curiosity Rover landed on Mars at 1:39 am EST on Monday morning, and the Internet is going crazy for it. In addition to a livestream of the landing via Ustream, the experience is also being documented on Twitter. The story is being told firsthand by NASA employees as well as the Rover’s own Twitter account, @MarsCuriosity.

As complex and hard to understand as the actual process of a Mars landing is, the Twitter account maintains a playful voice. The account announced the landing by tweeting, “I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL“ Along with amazing color photographs, the account is continuing to tweet amusing exclamations such as “Look out below!”, “Now the adventure begins,” and captioning a photo “No @Instagram required.”

Twitter suspends, un-suspends, and apologizes to Guy Adams

On July 27, Guy Adams, a Los Angeles correspondent for The Independent, started tweeting criticisms of NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. One tweet contained the email address of the President of NBC Olympics, Gary Zenkel. In the tweet, Adam urged his followers to email Zenkel to express how they felt about NBC’s Olympics coverage. On July 30, he found his account suspended. In an email, Twitter stated that his account was suspended because he posted an “individual’s private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents.” Adams maintained that because it was a corporate email, it should not have been considered private.

Most of the outrage over this incident was that Twitter claims not to monitor private accounts. However, Twitter has explained in a blog post that they did “proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation.” The account was reinstated when NBC withdrew the request for account suspension.

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

MBTA transit officer caught napping on the job

Greg Adrien was on his way to a friend’s house via the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority) when he noticed an MBTA police office sound asleep on the job at the Mattapin T station. Since he worked in security himself and knows the importance of being completely alert while on the job, he felt that officials needed to know about the incident, and sent them a picture via Twitter. He didn’t necessarily want the officer to get fired, but wanted to stress that this sort of thing cannot happen.

As soon as officials saw the picture, they dispatched a supervisor to check on the officer. The officer, who has been on the job for 29 years, was awake when the supervisor arrived but did not deny dozing off. He will be facing disciplinary action.

Metta World Peace’s latest mistake

Yesterday was Memorial Day, although it took Lakers star Metta World Peace (aka Ron Artest) awhile to figure that out. Around 1pm ET yesterday, he tweeted “Happy Labor Day… Enjoy it.” He’s known for living in his own little world, so this tweet just added fuel to the fire. ‘Happy Labor Day’ became a national trending topic as the Twitterverse discussed his latest gaffe.

To make up for angering a lot of veterans and those who love veterans, he later deleted the tweet and sent several tweets apologizing and explaining his mistake. Some of the excuses were that he “was still sleep” because he “partied like three rockstars” the night before, and he mentions several times that he frequently gets holidays mixed up.

He must’ve realized those sort of tweets were not helping him redeem himself, so he also retweeted his followers’ tweets about what Memorial Day means to them, veterans’ personal memories from serving, and what it was like having loved ones overseas fighting in wars. He also invited people to call in to his podcast show to talk freely and openly about his mistake.

Jennifer Egan writes fiction for Twitter

Pulitzer Prize winning author Jennifer Egan is trying something new. Her latest short story for The New Yorker was specifically composed with Twitter in mind, in paragraphs of 140 characters or less. Egan explains on The New Yorker blog that she had “been wondering about how to write fiction whose structure would lend itself to serialization on Twitter. This is not a new idea, of course, but it’s a rich one—because of the intimacy of reaching people through their phones, and because of the odd poetry that can happen in a hundred and forty characters.”

The story, titled ‘Black Box,’ will be published on the @NYerFiction Twitter account tweet by tweet for in ten nightly installments from 8-9 p.m. ET. Only after the entire story has been tweeted will it appear in The New Yorker‘s Science Fiction Issue. Each installment will also be collated on the Page Turner blog.

Would you read a 8,500-word story tweet by tweet? Is this a cool idea?

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

Nike controlling sneaker madness with Twitter RSVPs

People love sneakers, sometimes too much. In February, the release of Nike’s limited edition Foamposite Galaxy sneaker resulted in a riot in a Florida mall. To prevent this sort of mayhem in the future, Nike is launching a Twitter reservation system to help manage product launches at Nike stores.

Nike’s FAQ explains the process for reserving sneakers and picking them up at one of the 12 participating retail stores. First, a user must follow the account of the individual store. The store will announce the RSVP date a day or two in advance, and then at a random time on the RSVP day, the account will tweet a product-specific hashtag. Within the next 60 minutes, customers must direct message (DM) the store account with the product’s hashtag, their full name, and their shoe size. The store will then send DM confirmations to those who secured a pair of sneakers in their size. The store will also specify a time for the customer to come pick up their shoes on the day of the product launch.

The new system is an interesting take on customer service via social media and will hopefully improve product launches for the company.

Twitter remembers Dick Clark

Dick Clark is probably the only person that could get New Years Eve to become a top trending topic in the middle of April. His passing on April 18 was the end of an era for the entire entertainment industry.

While it’s not unusual for lots of celebrities to tweet about the passing another, I personally felt the tweets about Dick Clark’s death were incomparable. So many celebrities shared their personal experiences with Clark, from working with him to fond memories of his fun side, such as the tweet pictured to the left by Danny Bonaduce.

William Shatner takes his millionth follower to dinner

We love writing about stories that prove celebrities really do care about their fans. Lucky for us, celebrities making grand gestures seems to be catching on. When William Shatner become close to reaching one million followers, he promised that he would take his millionth follower out to dinner. His millionth follower ended up being Troy Pound from South Carolina. Shatner recently made good on his promise while traveling to South Carolina for his one-man show, “Shatner’s World.” He took Pound and his wife out to dinner and posted a video with them on YouTube.

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Betty White joins Twitter

On April 10, everyone’s favorite 90-year-old actress joined Twitter, despite saying she never would. She recognized this (with humor, of course) in her first tweet, which read: “Hello Twitter! And they said it would never happen. Oh wait, that was me.” I think Betty will find that Twitter will be a great medium for her hilarious one-liners. She has only posted 5 tweets, but she’s already flirted with Ryan Seacrest and tweeted about “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” She has also posted a video from her new hidden camera show, “Off Their Rockers.”

Betty White is no stranger to the power of social media. In 2010, a campaign on Facebook was behind her hosting the SNL Mother’s Day episode. But still, in her monologue she was skeptical of her need for Facebook, saying “Well at my age, if I wanna connect with old friends, I need a Ouija board!” Lucky for us, she realized that old friends are not the only people she can connect with online.

Kidnapped man rescued through Twitter

On April 7, a South African man was kidnapped in Johannesburg and stuffed into the trunk of his car…with his cell phone still on him. He was able to send a text to his girlfriend, who tweeted for people to be on the lookout for his car. Through retweets, the message was seen by @PigSpotter, a roadblock notification service for Johannesburg. The account shared the tweet with its over 110,000 followers, including several private security forces. Units were sent out to search and a sort of search party was organized, using Twitter to keep everyone informed.

4th annual Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt

Four years ago, skater Tony Hawk left a skateboard somewhere on his way to the ramps and tweeted out the location. This year, on April 15 over 75 prize boxes were hidden around the world.

Now in its fourth year, the Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt (#THTH) hid prizes in public places all over the United States as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and continental Europe. Prizes included skateboards and skating gear, guitars, clothing, electronics, and gift certificates, all donated by sponsors.

Hawk tweeted clues about the locations of the hidden boxes, and winners would tweet a picture of the box to confirm that it had been found and let others know to stop searching for it. The day ended with a huge skateboarding exhibition with free food and prizes. The location was also announced via Twitter.

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

Twitter opens office in Detroit

Detroit, Michigan is going through a “tech renaissance” and Twitter is the latest to join the scene, opening their office there last Wednesday. The office will be based in the M@dison Building, a historic building shared by several tech startups and will be led by Greg Myrick.

The “Motor City” office will serve marketers and ad agencies in the region, including the automotive companies that are the reason behind the city’s nickname. Automotive companies such as General Motors have already worked with Twitter on Promoted Products campaigns.

Twitter sues five spammers

We all hate spam, especially on social media. As social networks get more popular they become targets for spammers. Twitter is now taking action by suing five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers. In a blog post, Twitter explains:

“By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.”

In addition to the lawsuit, the engineering team also launched new anti-spam measures, such as using Twitter’s link shortening service (t.co) to analyze whether tweeted links could contain malicious content. But we need to do our part too. There are people that avoid tweeting about certain topics that tend to attract lots of spam, such as hot new tech products. Instead of (or in addition to) this, when you see a spammy tweet make sure to report it.

Big week for Instagram leaves app dominating Trending Topics

Last Tuesday, Instagram for Android was released. As a result, Instagram was a trending topic for days. Also trending was #TeamAndroid as Android users celebrated iPhone users having one less “exclusive” app. This resulted in one of the frequent Android vs. iPhone debates on Twitter.

Then yesterday, Instagram was acquired by Facebook, prompting hilarious tweets about the acquisition (more here). Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram both became Trending Topics, with Instagram still being the 7th most popular Trending Topic in the U.S.

Beyonce finally tweets

Although the verified @beyonce Twitter account has existed since 2009, no tweets had ever been sent from the account…until last Thursday. As part of a complete redesign of her digital presence, Beyonce sent her first tweet to announce her redesigned website. She also launched a blog on Tumblr, titled ‘I Am.’

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Madonna’s Social Launch of MDNA

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

Madonna has never had much of a presence on social media, but she is a woman known for reinventing herself time and time again. For her 12th studio album, MDNA which came out on March 26, she has sworn off traditional methods of promotion such as posing for magazine covers and performing on morning shows. This has allowed her to spend less time traveling all over the country and more time rehearsing for her upcoming tour. Instead of interacting with middle men to promote her album, she is going directly to the fans.

Facebook engagement

Madonna only conducted one in-person interview, sitting down with Jimmy Fallon on March 24. But even that had a social aspect. The interview was broadcasted via livestream on her Facebook page, and you needed to “Like” the page in order to watch the live interview. The interview took place in a makeshift studio at Facebook’s New York office. The audio was a little hard to hear at times, but you could still hear Fallon’s hilarious comments while they listened to parts of the album. Fallon and Madonna exchanged banter about her classic ‘Borderline’ and Madonna went on to sing a few lines. Madonna even taught Fallon some dance moves, which the Facebook employees in the audience thoroughly enjoyed! Fallon also asked Madonna questions that fans were submitting in real time.

In preparation for the livestream, her manager, Guy Oseary worked with Facebook to fill out her timeline with old music videos, live performances, and photo shoots. Sneak previews of tracks from MDNA were released and shared on Facebook leading up to the album’s release, and fans can even answer polls asking which songs from her previous albums she should perform on her upcoming tour.

Madonna’s big Twitter debut

Up until a few weeks ago, Madonna had no presence on Twitter. But she began tweeting from @MadonnaMDNAday the day before MDNA’s release on March 26. Then on the day of the release she hosted a live Twitter chat using the #askmadonna hashtag. She tweeted with Ryan Seacrest, Ellen Degeneres, and thousands of fans who had been submitting questions for a few days leading up to the chat, as well as in real-time.

Fans asked questions about her vocal warm-ups, her favorite foods, and her opinions of other celebrities such as Justin Bieber. Madonna really liked the suggestion of one participant to film her next tour in 3D, giving fans yet another thing to look forward to in the pop diva’s career.

While it was originally said that Madonna was only joining Twitter for one day, she appears to still be tweeting. She is still answering fan questions as well as engaging with celebrities such as Lionel Richie and Jessie J. She has even had a Twitter conversation with Britney Spears about reenacting their on-stage liplock on her upcoming tour, and personally inviting Katy Perry and President Obama to her concerts.

Listening to MDNA

The new promotion methods aren’t just limited to live chats on social media sites. Up until April 1, members of the design-focus daily deals site Fab.com had the opportunity to buy a deluxe version of MDNA for just $7.99, almost half of what it costs from other outlets. Fab.com even dedicated its homepage to MDNA.

Spotify users can enter for a chance to win premium tickets to her sold-out U.S. tour. Users that listen to MDNA three time’s during the first three weeks that it’s out will be entered into the contest, and they can boost their chances of winning by also signing up for a “Madonna Superfans” newsletter.

 

Do you think Madonna’s latest reinvention of her image will be effective?

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

Spike Lee retweet threatens an elderly couple’s safety

As the controversy surrounding the murder of Trayvon Martin continues, more problems are popping up around it, such as an elderly couple feeling unsafe in their own home. Twitter user Marcus D. Higgins took to the social network last week to make known the supposed address of the man that shot Martin, George W. Zimmerman. He tweeted the address to a large amount of users that had tweeted about the case, such as Spike Lee. Lee retweeted the address to his 240,000 followers.

But it turned out that the address was not the address of the Zimmerman that shot Martin. It was actually the home of David McClain and his wife, Elaine. Elaine was previously married to a man with the last name of Zimmerman and George W. is her son. George has not lived at that address in seven years. David and Elaine had to flee to a hotel because of hate mail and people showing up at their house. Lee has since apologized and agreed to compensate them for the disruption.

NBA introduces line of Twitter handle t-shirts

Last week, the NBA began selling official t-shirts that feature the Twitter handles of some of the big names in the league, such as Jeremy Lin, Dwyane Wade, and Kevin Durant. The front of the shirts display a hashtag along with the logo of the player’s team. The back of the shirts are jersey-style, only instead of the player’s name above their number, it displays the player’s Twitter handle.

The NBA has always been one of the more social-savvy pro-sports leagues, and this idea seems to be a first in pro sports. Websites have sold t-shirts with similar ideas, and other sports leagues have featured Twitter handles on jerseys, this seems to be the first time a professional sports league has sold merchandise featuring Twitter handles. Would you wear one?

High school student expelled for tweeting profanity

Mere months before graduation, Austin Carroll was expelled from his Indiana high school for a tweet containing the “f-bomb.” The tweet was sent from his own home and from his personal account.

The problem is that the school told Carroll’s mother, Pam Smith, that Carroll was accessing Twitter from a school-issued laptop, although Carroll says that he was on his personal computer. Carroll is now attending an alternative high school and will be able to receive a diploma, but reports that he is disappointed that he won’t be able to partake in popular senior-year activities such as prom.

This only one of the several current examples of schools disciplining students for content posted on social networks. All examples are surrounded by controversy and debate because right now, the U.S. Supreme Court has not made clear how schools can punish students in cases involving social media.

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Twitter turns 6 years old

March 21 marked the 6th anniversary of Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, sending the first tweet:

Twitter has come quite a long way since that one tweet and . Here’s what Twitter is like now:

New study looks at Twitter and the stock market

There have been many studies and claims about Twitter being able to “predict the future”. People have looked at how it can be used in elections, entertainment awards, and more. A recent study conducted at University of California Riverside looked for correlations between what was being discussed on Twitter and the stock market. It turns out, there is:

“The more a facets on which a company is being discussed, the stronger that company performs in the stock market. If a discussion about company centers around only a small number of news items or discussion topics, its stock underperforms.”

A four-month trial was conducted by professor Vagelis Hristidis and a team of computer engineers and scientists. Hristidis is still puzzled as to why Twitter can help predict the stock market, but according to Mashable, it’s been hypothesized that the bad news that receives lots of attention on social media is the same bad news that can drive a stock’s price down.

Twitter users want #Justice4Trayvon

On February 26, Florida teen Trayvon Martin was shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who says he was acting in self-defense. Although it has been widely talked about on social media for weeks, the awareness and support has become much more widespread recently.

Celebrities as well as the general public are standing up for Trayvon using hashtags such as #STOPZIMMERMAN, #Justice4Trayvon, and #WeAreTrayvonMartin.

Internet users are also responding to FOX correspondent Geraldo Rivera saying that the hoodie Trayvon was wearing is as responsible for his death as George Zimmerman is by posting pictures of themselves in hoodies. Lebron James tweeted this picture of Miami Heat players in their hoodies, and Dwyane Wade changed his Twitter avatar to a picture of him bowing his head with a hood on. Other celebrities and public figures that have posted pictures include Diddy, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and several others.

Twitter updates TweetDeck

The first Twitter-branded version of TweetDeck has now been updated and has restored a few of the features that went missing when the app was acquired by Twitter. Users can now edit, create, and delete lists from the app itself with a “Lists” button, view in-line media previews, and “Edit and RT” has replaced the “Quote” tweet option for retweets. Additionally, Twitter introduced “Interactions” and “Activity” columns, mimicking a feature of “New New Twitter.”

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

Ochocinco invites local followers to dinner

New England Patriot Chad Ochocinco is known for reaching out to his Twitter followers: in January he brought a loyal follower from Florida to Foxborough, Massachusetts for a playoff game between the Patriots and the Denver Broncos, paying for travel and hotel stay. He may have gone even further on March 12:

That’s right, he treated 200 people to dinner. TMZ reports that the feast of BBQ ribs, fried chicken, mac & cheese, and red velvet cupcakes put Ochocinco back $7,914, but that doesn’t even include tip. Later that night, he tweeted that he had 200 new friends, and that he even gave them all his phone number. On a social network where celebrities and athletes frequently brag about themselves and get into fights with other Twitter users, it’s great to see that Ochocinco is using it to truly connect with the people that support him.

Federal Reserve launches Twitter account

The Federal Reserve’s interest in social media is not new. But it only recently launched a Twitter account, @federalreserve, as a way to reach out to the general public. After almost a week, the account has tweeted 14 times and over 16,000 followers.

The account will primarily be used to communicate news about the Federal Reserve. The account will post the Fed’s weekly balance statements as well as its monthly report on credit and liquidity programs. In addition, followers of the account will see press releases, testimonials, speeches, and Congressional reports.

The Federal Reserve also hopes to use the account to educate, through tweeting educational material and videos. For example, the second tweet the account posted was a link to a video of Chairman Ben Bernake explaining the structure of the Federal Reserve.

Chirp Clock uses tweets to tell time

Have you ever thought about how many tweets talk about what time it was when the tweet was sent? Chirp Clock has, and discovered it’s frequently enough to build a clock that runs on tweets.

It uses the Twitter API to search for tweets containing whatever time the user’s computer is set at. It will display one tweet at a time, and will show a new tweet every 2 seconds. It also works on mobile devices and displays the handle and avatar of the author of the displayed tweet.

While it may not be the best tool when you need to know what time it is ASAP, it shows how much vast the span of Twitter really is. The creator told Mashable that since launching the site, “there hasn’t been a minute for which the site could not find a tweet.”

It’s also interesting to look at the context of tweets. For example, when I check the site around 11:30 a.m., a good portion of the tweets displayed had something to do with lunch or being hungry. This could become another way to track people’s moods through Twitter.

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

Couple’s wedding saved by generosity on Twitter

Six weeks before their wedding, Lauren Lane and Daniel Welch found out that the events company organizing it was folding, and the couple would be losing £4,500 (over $7,000). Naturally, Lane turned to Twitter for help, tweeting “Help needed with aspects of our wedding after venue goes bust with 6 weeks 2 go & with our £4.5k”.

The responses started coming in and her tweet was retweeted by many, including celebrities Davina McCall and Dannii Minogue. Lane’s bridesmaids also began tweeting local wedding services companies asking for any help. People from the Twitterverse helped however they could.

The Guardian explained: “Twitter users with something to offer leapt in to help. Some contributed jewelry and clothes, one came up with a three-tiered chocolate cake. A magician, make-up artist, a photographer and a wedding planner all offered free or cut-price services or goods.”

The couple was married on February 25 and Lane described it as their “dream wedding”. They estimated that they received £10,000 (around $16,000) worth of goods and services, and only had to contribute £5,000 of their own funds.

Wiz Khalifa and Amber Rose announce engagement

Last Thursday, rapper Wiz Khalifa proposed to his girlfriend, musician Amber Rose and tweeted her answer. At 1:49 p.m, he tweeted an Instagram picture along with three words: She Said Yes.

The picture was of the engagement ring on Amber’s hand. Around ten minutes later, Amber Rose tweeted the same Instagram picture with the message, “He has made me the Happiest Woman in the World!!!!”

As fans of both artists responded to the tweets and congratulated them, “Wiz and Amber” made the list of top trending topics.

Lady Gaga reaches 20 million followers

When Lady Gaga became the first Twitter user to reach 15 million followers in November, it was estimated that she would be the first to reach 20 million followers in March or April 2012. That estimate proved to be pretty accurate, as Gaga reached the milestone on March 3.

Her closest competition is Justin Bieber with 18 million followers, but statistics from TwitterCounter.com shows that Gaga’s daily follower growth rate is consistently higher than Bieber’s.

Gaga has referred to herself as the “Queen of Twitter” ever since her follower counts surpassed Britney Spears’ in August, making her the most followed person on Twitter.

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