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The bizarre surge in #WorldCup USA media coverage

joelmackey — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:47:34 +0000

Do you really care about the World Cup?

Well, do you? I mean don’t get me wrong, Soccer is fantastic and I’m sure there are TONS of people that love it. But historically I don’t remember so much discussion, chatter and news media in your face coverage about soccer or the World Cup. My analysis below is going to prove to you something is seriously abnormal about the US news coverage of the World Cup.

I did do some research and have to admit, I’m a bit shocked to see the search term “soccer” is about as popular as “baseball”, , what has come over you America? Must still be ticked off about the baseball strike, right? Still a Google search for “America’s Past Time” and guess what you get…Uh huh, Baseball!

So really nothing looks out of the ordinary looking at the previous graph from Google Insights. However, when you dig in to the World Cup Google Trends data you will notice two things that seem to pop out at you. One, already the term “World Cup” is trending higher in searches more than it ever has except in 2006 when the Germany World Cup was REALLY interesting for some reason or another.

The big one here though is the absolutely MASSIVE media coverage being given to the World Cup. Yes, yes, I know my Photoshop skills are worse than a 1st grader but I did my best, okay? See my pretty yellow arrow? That arrow is pointing to the secondary Google Trend that shows News / Media outlets pushing out drivel on the World Cup.

Now don’t worry, we aren’t done here yet. Let’s look at another media microscope tool to see the news volume, where it is, where it’s going and what is really going on here. Now we’re going to look at the News / Media outlets actual publication in Google’s News database that include the word “World Cup” from 1930 – 2010. This one is a little more telling as it does show a progressive climb of the media distribution. Instead of the World Cup Google Trends data above which shot up in a crazy way this year, this shows an even stair step build into the progressive trend.

A friend of mine on Twitter had this insightful theory as to why everyone is talking about the World Cup which I have to admit, I agree with.

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/searchguru/status/15966477314"]

Okay, I promise this is the last geeky trend graph we are digging into, thanks for sticking with me. What you are looking at below is the two search trends of “World Cup” and “Oil Spill.” Notice that they both spike at the same time. Coincidence? Maybe! This one possibly shows some type of correlation with the media wanting to talk about something else than the oil spill. I know, correlation not causation but you can comment about it and rip me apart, fair enough?

So there you have it. The truth is, I’m still clueless why everyone seems to care about the World Cup this year and the media is talking about it so much that it doesn’t even compare to the Superbowl or World Series. Something is up and it just may be that they need a new cash cow. Talk about the World Cup enough and maybe the ratings will increase?

On a typical day on Twitter I can usually ask a question and get anywhere from 10 – 30 responses. Tonight? The crickets were chirping. But I did have some great buddies and smart people respond. Here are the responses to my original tweet which will be posted first!

Please leave me a comment here and tell me if your fascination with the World Cup has increased and why you think the media is pushing it so hard!

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/webaddict/status/15966015904"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/ejw70/status/15966579662"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/d_Arc/status/15966667877"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/MichelleBatDell/status/15968800175"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/maximonos/status/15972679391"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/ssblackman/status/15972699284"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/Naughty_Jonny/status/15972755013"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/cindyoyo/status/15972821387"]

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/TrinaMb/status/15973357006"]

UPDATE: I wanted to add a quick note to let you know that all data and graphs above were obtained under United States data and analysis. Other country data was excluded except on the comparing Google Trend analysis of World Cup & Oil Spill!

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The mystery behind FOLLOW and UNFOLLOW on Twitter revealed

joelmackey — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:23:58 +0000

It looks like the cat is out of the bag today. If you live and breathe Twitter like I do you probably saw that the accounts: @PoliticalUpdate, @ThreeOclockPot and @twtr_us were suspended. It seems these accounts were suspended possibly due to a blog post by Louis Gray which you can read here, titled “The Newest Annoyance on Twitter: Follow and Refollow Spam.”

While Mr. Gray did an awesome job at providing some excellent data proving these accounts were run by robots (programming scripts) that seemed to follow and unfollow him at the same time every day, he sort of missed the boat on why this is happening.

Quoted from Mr. Gray’s blog:

So what is the benefit of such a clearly robotic practice? Is the idea that the follow notifications are a form of advertising, giving me a chance to see their name more than once, and increasing the times I’ll go to check out their Twitter page? Do they also think we’re naive enough to not notice?

No, these robots, accounts or scripts could care less whether a specific account notices them or not. They aren’t excited you’re getting email notifications and they don’t hope you check out their Twitter page, blog or whatever their promoting.

These accounts are strictly after eyeballs. Let me explain… If you take a look at the Twitter Top 1,000 list at TwitterHolic.com you would have noticed these accounts at the top of most of the movers and shakers Followers list. Mr. Gray was correct that this is a form of advertising. You can see Mr. Gray’s current Twitter ranking on Twitterholic here:

Now really, this isn’t the greatest example of trying to explain this but you can see Mr. Gray is ranked #956 out of the Top 1,000 on Twitter as of March 8th, 2009. A better example is to look at some people in the Top 100. If someone were to FOLLOW and UNFOLLOW all of the Top 1,000 multiple times a day, just like the banned accounts mentioned above did, they would find themselves at the top of the Twitter accounts Follower list.

Let’s try this out so you understand what I’m talking about. I’m going to go and follow the #1 ranked Twitter user http://twitter.com/cnnbrk, they have 421,913 followers. As soon as I follow them I’m the user at the top of the list. See the pretty graphic I’ve included.

Do you get it yet? Some of you might not, so let’s put it this way. Let’s compare Twitter accounts to real estate. The Twitter accounts with the most followers are the most prime real esate because those accounts are getting the most eyeballs and activity. So if you can put your name in front of 20 users (the amount of followers per page) several times a day, then these robot accounts have done their job.

Now take these robot accounts and multiply this example by all Top 1,000 Twitter accounts and you have 20,000 potential views on each account until it gets pushed off of the first follower page of each account.

Essentially what you have is free advertising and promotion. It’s similar to going over to Google Adwords and buying a sponsored placement for the keyword, “Twitter” and every time someone searches for Twitter on Google they see your account. Obviously, Google charges per click, so it’s a MUCH better deal to just go and FOLLOW and UNFOLLOW all high profile accounts and wallah, FREE Advertising for your Twitter account.

Now another reason someone might do this is to hit their target market. If you’re in the news business, you would target all major Twitter news accounts, like CNN Breaking and be at the top of their follower list since that is your targeted demographic. If you’re an up and coming rapper, it might be smart to be at the top of @iamdiddy’s Twitter Follower list. (As a side note: I absolutely love Sean Jean clothing, founder is @iamdiddy)

Anyway, I hope that explains the “mystery” behind this practice. I don’t particularly see anything wrong with this practice as long as it’s performed by addicted and caffeinated humans. However, the accounts mentioned above were suspended because they had an automated system doing the dirty deed for them at the same time every day, multiples times.

Let me know if you have any question by either leaving a comment here on the blog or dropping me a DM or @ message on Twitter over @webaddict.

Peace, Love and Chicken Grease,
- webaddict

Click the following link to Tweet a message on your Twitter stream about this article!

Tweet This Message

“The mystery behind FOLLOW and UNFOLLOW on Twitter revealed http://cli.gs/nX5hEV #Twitter #Follow #Unfollow”

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Twitter is for losers, why should “I” use it?

joelmackey — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:05:57 +0000

I still have a lot of people that I talk with on a daily basis that don’t get Twitter. They either think it’s for losers, find it confusing or just think it’s plain useless. Last night I had a conversation with a Social Media Buddy of mine who works for, let’s call it a well-known media company and we discussed Twitter, Digg and the possibilities of where social news networks and social media in general are headed.

Now you don’t see me flashing around titles and sales pitches calling myself a social media expert or any of that garbage. These are just my opinions that should have a little merit since I have spent a lot of my waking moments on social media websites writing and syndicating content through and around these networks.

In addition to that introduction, I know, the display of this information isn’t pretty. If you want something pretty, go to TechCrunch, Mashable or Engadget. I relate this to my feelings as I have done with SEO clients, it’s not always about being pretty, it’s about getting the job done and providing valuable information!

With all that said, enjoy the voyeuristic pleasure of being inside my conversation, sounds like Twitter huh? I censored out some private references, changed my Social Media Buddy’s name to SocialMediaBuddy, but I have left most everything else in tact. I hope this helps convey why some of you on the fence should probably start actively using Twitter.

(Quick note: Some of you may be scratching your heads when you read this. Please understand that this discussion of Twitter is really from a PR, Internet Marketing, content distribution & syndication viewpoint. Twitter is wonderful for many reasons, this is one niche.)

ENTER SOCIAL VOTE REQUEST CONVERSATION:

SocialMediaBuddy: Joel Upvote (Please hit the pic first)
(Censored Reddit Title / Reddit Link)

SocialMediaBuddy: thanks for the help Joel

hope you are good

Sent at 12:33 PM on Thursday

Joel: Gotcha man.

Sent at 12:40 PM on Thursday

SocialMediaBuddy: thanks man

how’s your life going?

SocialMediaBuddy: hey Joel may I ask for some Diggs?

Joel: F*** no, I hate digg.

SocialMediaBuddy: HAHAHAH

but you looouuuve me

Joel: I don’t use digg man. Period.

SocialMediaBuddy: okay

all good joelle

spanish pronunciation

Joel: They’ve banned me twice when I had 69 frontpages so really, not going there anymore.

SocialMediaBuddy:

Joel: You’re promoting on Digg now too?

SocialMediaBuddy: all good

Joel: Tisk tisk, playing w/ the dying devil.

SocialMediaBuddy: ha

I’m just sending it out to a few peeps before I hit the hay

Joel: Sweet. have a good sleep yo.

SocialMediaBuddy: wooooord

let me know if there is ever any damn thing I can do for you

but it seems like you HAVE a life

so I won’t expect it

Joel: Nah, LOL, I just hustle it a different way, I let it either go or not. Using Twitter a LOT… probably too much.

SocialMediaBuddy: ah

I’ve started to use it more

if I were to ask you to retweet stuff – would you think about it?

(always looking for the angle)

Joel: Maybe, but I don’t RT stuff when ppl don’t RT my stuff, so the answer is actually no UNLESS I find it good personally and worthy of people’s eyeballs.

SocialMediaBuddy: ah cool

I feel the same way

but please ask me

I want to feel like I do something for you.

Joel: Hehe. You crack me up.

SocialMediaBuddy: wooord

Joel: I’ve pretty much got out of the “request hustle.” It just makes my day stressful.

SocialMediaBuddy: yeah I hear that

I’vve got to cool it

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/star-trek-xi/feature-trailer

this thing just gave me a hard on

Joel: hehe, dang man… I totally have to agree. I had no clue they were making such an amazing Star Trek. …. by JJ Abrams. Damn!

I’ll actually drag my ass out and see that without a doubt, looks awesome.

In reference to the hustle… it works a lot better on Twitter.

You just RT ppls stuff and they yours, no asking and all that.

SocialMediaBuddy: totally

that’s the way to go

(some private stuff censored here)

SocialMediaBuddy: can I steal your followers

haha

Joel: You can steal anyone’s followers, that’s the beauty of Twitter.

SocialMediaBuddy: yeah good point

okay I’m going to do it now

hahahahaha

Joel: I thought you might take a 2nd look…

Join me on the journey to social media orgasm.

lol

SocialMediaBuddy: haha

dude

I would follow you anywhere

(removed a lot of talk of TweetDeck.com, new Twitter site being implemented etc.)

Joel:

Here’s an article I wrote on the GOOG and Twitter a couple days ago…

http://openpresswire.com/internet/birth-of-the-real-time-google-hybrid-twitter-search/
You don’t have to actually read it, but you might want to install the nifty little greasemonkey plugin.

SocialMediaBuddy: okay

looking for the greasemonkey plugin

you got me kinda excited

where is the greasemonkey plugin

SocialMediaBuddy: Levar Burton has 81,000 followers

and he has a tattoo

SocialMediaBuddy: ha

http://twitter.com/levarburton/

Joel: Yeah, I’ve checked him out quite a few times.

www.twitterholic.com

SocialMediaBuddy: WOW

Reg is at 45,000

so this is the future huh?

why?

just talk at me

Joel: Twitter levels the playing field. It brings equilibrium to the social media industry. It eliminates (for the most part) typical social media spam because it’s decided on a conscious decision whether you follow someone or not. If you can’t stand the person you don’t have to follow them. The true secret of Tweetdeck though, is that you can follow anyone and still filter them out.

Reddit, Digg, Mixx, Propeller, StumbleUpon etc. have lag times of 6 – 36 hours in transmission of content to the masses. On Twitter, if it’s powerful information or breaking, it will spread within mere minutes to an overwhelming saturation point.

SocialMediaBuddy: really?

Joel: Twitter frees information for all to see by removing stupid algorithms to decide, removing biased moderators to censor and allows the information to flow squarely on the merit of it’s true value.

SocialMediaBuddy: ahhhh

can you give me an example – a story?

that shows this?

(makes sense by the way)

Joel: Well the big examples are what’s made Twitter get to the point it is at today. Plane crashes, car chases, fires and disasters… these all have been covered and reached “breaking” status touching thousands of ppl in only minutes where on social media sites, it takes at least 6 hours.

You can test it yourself, find a story you know will be hot submitted on a social site (an old school one) then plug the title or bits of the keywords into Twitter search and see how many mentions it has already. Then, sit back and watch in real time the story develop on Twitter w/ it’s real-time search feature.

I might use our conversation as a blog post…. hehe.

SocialMediaBuddy: ah

maybe it might be good not to identify me

as it makes me look like a big dummy doofus

God forbid they should know the truth.

Joel: I definitely won’t identify you!

We’re all goofs man, I didn’t know shit about Twitter 2 weeks ago and I didn’t care to either.

SocialMediaBuddy: HAHAHAH

I have been simmering under the surface with it

starting to see its viral power in terms of helping with digg

Joel: That’s why a lot of social media addicts come to Twitter, however, Twitter will replace Digg without a doubt. Ends to a means. People come to promote their Digg stuff and then learn that Digg becomes old school when they see the instant exchange on Twitter. Digg will still have it’s place probably for the next few years but honestly…? It’s like an old stuffed animal in the attic.

SocialMediaBuddy: whoah

wow.

that’s tough for me to hear….

because it’s become my bread and butter.

such a tool to bring page views

(don’t know if I want this part in public)

very private stuff here

Joel: Twitter can feed Digg though. You can still get your pageviews from Digg but Twitter will be the stream of information that flows into Digg’s crappy algorithm, bias, censoring and power users.

SocialMediaBuddy: right

Joel: Let’s not jump to conclusions, I’m talking about a few years here. Digg is not disappearing, in the U.S. alone it still has 35.4 million unique views a month. Twitter itself only clocks in at 5.9 million unique views a month in the U.S. There is a major discrepancy here however. Twitter cannot be measured in the same context as an “old school” social media site because of it’s fantastic API and 3rd party products.

SocialMediaBuddy: tinyurl, etc.

it hardly shows up in my metrics

but I KNOW it is moving more people

Joel: Twitter doesn’t have a single frontpage. Twitter’s frontpage data is aggregated from hundreds of sources using hashtags, keywords, retweet statistics, power user mentions and link and source rankers. I haven’t come up with an accurate way to calculate Twitter’s reach yet… I’m sure at this point only Evan knows this information which is why he is so tickled when ppl ask about his business model and competition from other sites like Facebook.

Your stated concerns that Digg is your bread and butter are probably industry wide in the social media circle. However, I don’t see the need for worry as long as information, stories and content you are promoting is the source. Who cares how the information is shared with people as long as it gets done.

SocialMediaBuddy: yeah

I can see that is possible

Joel: My point is this, people often steal tweets on Twitter. If you have a great one, they will take your source link, remake a new link (another shortener etc) and Tweet it as their own or they’ll go to another social media site like Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx (you get the point)… then they submit or broadcast… but if you’re the source of information… all their theft is doing is promoting the source. So in this thought, unique content rules in the viral distribution model.

The problem of “dupes” on sites like Digg becomes irrelevant at this point. Enter the power of Twitter and the future of social media.

SocialMediaBuddy: AHHHHH

holy shit

well – what about facebook and its coming changes?

Joel: Facebook is making wonderful changes. They’re just proving that Twitter’s model is the future. Duplicating a business model is the best compliment one can have.

Facebook could possibly steal the show but somehow I don’t see that happening. Just as no one has ever really stolen the online auction show from eBay (because they were first) … well truthfully there was one little site that took the rug from under eBay… it was Craigslist.org. Then eBay saw it and tried to compete with Kijiji.com and alas, the 1st on the scene still prevails. Kijiji will never be able to compete with Craigslist even with all of eBay’s corporate dollars pushing it.

My point is… if Facebook is going to win in this instance, they will have to build a better mousetrap, innovate beyond Twitter, not just copy them, just like Craigslist.org shook up the business model of eBay, they just gave it away.

Facebook has the biggest weapon of all really though, users and worldwide adoption. Twitter is still new. However, if Facebook thought it was “in the bag” for them, they wouldn’t have tried to buy Twitter.

SocialMediaBuddy: ah

when did they do that?

Joel: Twitter has developed into quite the international sensation too though. It’s just a horse race at this point. In terms of users Facebook is winning… but really the sites are just too different to compare. Twitter is more sleek and lean at information transmission, Facebook is a big social smorgasbord. Twitter really just compliments Facebook or enhances it. It would be in Facebook’s best interest to adopt Twitter into their model or try again to buy them with Microsoft’s money.

SocialMediaBuddy: hahaha

wow.

a lot ot take in

Joel: A good cover on how Facebook failed to buy Twitter can be found here: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc2009031_743025.htm

Well, I certainly think I’ve blabbed too much. I’ll shut up now. Quit thinking about Twitter and go jump in the pool.

SocialMediaBuddy:

Ima go to bed

take care man and thanks for letting me into your world a little

Joel: Haha, no worries. See ya in Twitterville!

SocialMediaBuddy: OH wait – before you go….

what about the revenue generation!

don’t leave!

twitter doesn’t have any

Joel: We’ll talk about that another night!

SocialMediaBuddy: (yet)

well just say one little thing about it

it’s pretty important!

just anything

Joel: Business intelligence, brand protection / promotion, brand surveillance and contextual sponsored integration (stealing from Google’s model with a most likely innovative twist).

SocialMediaBuddy: okay – explain more to me another night — take care Joel

Joel: You too. Night!

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Birth of the Real-Time Google Hybrid / Twitter search

joelmackey — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:51:55 +0000

I’m actually so incredibly excited that I can barely type this post! You see, it’s been literally weeks that I have been speaking Twitter-evangelism to my Internet Mentor Clients. Every week I do a conference call called the, “Internet Mentor Call” (NO this is not a sales pitch, it’s a private call)… anyway, I’ve been trying to talk everyone into getting on Twitter.

In my normal ranting fashion, I have gone off on passionate shpheels about how Twitter is much more than what people see it at face value. For the last three weeks I have been sounding the alarm that Twitter is a pre-cursor to the coming age of Internet wisdom and search. Internet Search is reaching a major point of seismic shifting that will change the Internet and how people use it.

I’ve been blabbing how search.twitter.com is a glimpse into the future of search because of it’s real-time capabilities. Well wouldn’t you know by golly someone has gone and done it. His name is Mark Carey and he has crafted a GreaseMonkey script that integrates Twitter and Google into one beautiful collage of real-time and authoritative ranked results. Mark only recently became a member of UserScripts.org on February 27th, 2009. This shows that Mark was truly inspired by Twitter and Google and has made his scripting debut on the website with this diddy: Twitter Search Results on Google.

My friend Mark Murnahan over at Twitter posted this Tweet:
http://twitter.com/murnahan/status/1273062100
RT @murnahan: Does Real-Time Search Make Twitter a Google Killer? http://bit.ly/uzEG

And I replied with this one:
http://twitter.com/webaddict/status/1273068001
RT @murnahan: Does Real-Time Search Make Twitter a Google Killer? http://bit.ly/uzEG [no way, it just shows the future of a hybrid Google]

Just about an hour after that… this script was released… or at least that’s when I started seeing it talked about in the Twitterstream.

Now before you make the jump and try installing this script… let me show you a few things that will hopefully open your eyes to the birth of the Real-Time Google Hybrid / Twitter Search.

Some examples to get your neurons firing and your creativity juicing are as follows:

1. I was talking with a cool new Twitter buddy of mine @elidet and she mentioned the California Unemployment Rate as being 7.1%. Being the absolute news junky, social media dork I am, I had to correct her, it had just been updated to 10.1% less than 24 hours before her mention. So let’s take a look shall we? (Sidenote: Please bare with me, I use Photoshop like a kindergardner!)

I’ve done my best to make it real simple here, LOL. GREEN is GOOD and RED is BAD. Okay, I’m stretching it a bit but you get the point. What we’re looking at is my Google search after I’ve installed this simple yet amazing little GreaseMonkey Script. On the top you see the Real-Time Twitter results and below that you see the authoritative ranked results by Google. Now don’t get me wrong, Google has changed ALL of our lives. But what you will notice is that Google results are providing outdated California unemployment numbers at: 8.7% and 7.7% accordingly.

What does Twitter have to say? Well, really it’s not Twitter at all, it’s YOU, yes YOU are telling us what the current unemployment rate is in California, ehem, Social Media anyone? Or how about Social Intelligence? Or Social News (Digg, Mixx, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Propeller, etc.). Okay, so wonderful, we get the most current number for a statistic we all don’t want to hear (unemployment). Now let’s look at another one. (Sidenote: That link to Digg back there is to where my old account used to be until Digg banned me for using a GREASEMONKEY script to add a diggit link under all posts in Friend Submissions, don’t get me started!)

Now let’s sit over here in this corner for a second and laugh like little school kids. HAHAHAHA! ROFL! LOL! If this results page above doesn’t just crack you up then, well, you’re probably just normal unlike me. However, let’s break this down here. We searched for “real-time search” on Google with the GreaseMonkey Real-Time Google Hybrid / Twitter Search made by Mark.

What do we find? Well, Twitter gives us Real-Time results talking about this crazy GreaseMonkey Script that allows you to have, “GOOGLE + TWITTER search.” Now if we look below to our trusty old authoritative Google results we’ll see that we can OBSERVE Real-Time search (not participate or use it) and the next result is DogPile Search. I have to admit, DogPile’s Search Spy is nifty in a wonderfully voyeuristic type of way (…wait isn’t that what Twitter is too?). Anywho, skipping on down to the next result we have the frisky little site that created all this mess with their silly new Real-Time Human Thought powered search engine. HERE is where it gets comical… the next result? “Twitter *kills* Google in real-time search (Scripting News).”

Obviously that 4th organic result proves that Google doesn’t censor their results to pound away their competitors. So there you have it, two interesting examples of how the “Real-Time Google Hybrid / Twitter Search” is going to change your life and searching habits.

Now before I ramble on forever, I want to send you in the right direction to get this thing installed and be on your way so you can bring up real-time results and be filling your brain full of lots of useless garbage. Directly from the blog post that released this plugin which can be found here, is this:

Get realtime Twitter results on your Google searches:

If you don’t already have it, install the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox.
Click the “Install” button on the “Twitter Search Results on Google” page on userscripts.org.

Now if you’re a little green, a little new or as some call the new netizens on this planet, a n00b. Then take a deep breathe and realize this is a piece of cake. If you’re new, I guarantee you don’t have Greasemonkey installed. Click the link in #1 and install it FIRST. Then skip on to #2 and go to that page…look up to the far right and click INSTALL. Now, go to Google and get your Real-Time Google Hybrid / Twitter Search.

Here is my plea to @google, PLEASE don’t buy Twitter! Let them fester around, innovate and create new products with their companies “uncorporate” way of thinking. Then, when Twitter runs out of money because the economy is in the tank, step in, buy them and we’re off to the races.

Okay, I think this post will do. I hope this inspired you to use this wonderful new plugin and to open your eyes up to a new empowering way of search the InterTUBES. You can find me on Twitter @webaddict or you can find me on other social networks at the Social Links I mentioned above.

Peace, Love and Chicken Grease,
- webaddict

Click the following link to Tweet a message on your Twitter stream about this article!

Tweet This Message

“Birth of the Real-Time Google Hybrid / Twitter Search http://bit.ly/realtimesearch #Google #Twitter #Gwitter”

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You know it’s a Monday Morning when Twitter says so

joelmackey — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:29:09 +0000

Well there is no denying it. It’s Monday Morning whether I believe it is or not because the Twitterverse told me so. When I was looking at this TwitScoop Column in TweetDeck it was my revelation how RELEVANT Twitter and the 3rd Party Tools are in terms of Human Thought search abilities, especially when compared to Google.

While Google provides very relevant data to factual queries, it is not as Real-Time as Twitter.

One word that’s in this little TwitScoop summary is coffee… not time for that yet, I have to sleep first, it’s only 2:12am.

I need to be able to filter my TwitScoop view by timezone. I’m sure percentage of PST Timezone Monday Morning and Coffee mentions are below 10%.

Anyway have a good Monday Morning.

There is one more interesting Twitter Geek thing I found. Sorry this one is really sweet too. When I was adding in the links to this post for Monday Morning and Coffee, I noticed these two suckers racing against each other. At 26 live mentions on Twitter in 5 minutes Coffee is beating Monday Morning at 21.

The speed is going to pick up like crazy soon. It’s already pushing 52 live mentions now of Coffee. Anyway, there’s the winner. Before people let loose about their Monday Morning they grab coffee and caffeinate.

Hope that ramble made sense!

Oscar Piracy created due to Hollywood Stupidity

joelmackey — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:37:43 +0000

You may have spent your Sunday night on February 22nd, 2009 catching the 81st Annual Academy Awards. Most likely, you watched the Oscars being handed out on your TV on ABC. The diversity shown at the Academy Awards this year definitely increased worldwide interest in the broadcast. On Twitter, messages abounded looking for an alternative way to watch the broadcast. Messages like these:

“Wanted to watch the #oscars the only channel I found broadcasting it in the Middle East was around an hour late. Bleh ill just sleep 5am”

“I want to watch the #oscars but have no TV – anybody got a link to online streaming coverage?”

It wasn’t long after the pleas and requests were made that a response was found on Twitter offering a link to a live broadcast being offered on Justin.tv. The link is here:

“LIVE Oscars 2009 81st Annual Academy Awards Broadcast – Enjoy! http://bit.ly/iORUu #oscars” – webaddict

There were also other live streams found on Ustream.tv too. What about YouTube? Well, YouTube provided a nice collection of pre-Oscar information and interviews but no live stream. The Oscars also offered their Official Oscars Channel which was also mentioned on the Inquisitr Blog. The Official Oscars Channel provided, “Road To The Oscars.”

In other parts of the Internet people were pounding Google with searches like: “oscar live stream, watch academy awards live, watch oscars live online, oscar live, oscars live stream, oscar stream, oscars live feed, watch oscars online, watch academy awards online, abc, academy awards 2008 live, academy awards live feed, watch academy awards live, watch oscars live internet, watch oscars online, watch academy awards online” …….. you get the point, right? Guess what, there are thousands more!

About two hours after the Oscars broadcast Google Trends was still showing they keywords: “Oscar Live Stream, Watch Academy Awards Live and Watch Oscars Live Online” in the top 100 most search terms in the United States.

So lucky for the people that could find it, they found their Live Academy Awards Stream on Justin.tv or over at Ustream.tv.

It just goes to show that the big networks, media companies, Hollywood and record companies have to take a beating before they learn. ABC.com could have broadcasted the Oscars Live on their site and collected ad revenue but instead they wanted to try and force everyone to watch it on TV. As usual, the Internet proved easy in circumventing that problem by broadcasting live streams in surpring good quality.

Do you think that next year the Oscars will be broadcast live on the Internet or will the networks decide to go ahead and let Justin.tv collect Google Adsense clicks and pageviews? Only time will tell but if you had to ask us? The record companies are just now catching on because they saw that providing legitimate easy online access to products can work as a business model.

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Facebook CEO is youngest self-made billionaire in history

joelmackey — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:32:32 +0000

At only 23 years old, the founder of social networking website Facebook Mark Zuckerberg reign in as the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. Announced by Forbes magazines yearly billionaire list Mr. Zuckerberg shot up to #785 on the list. You can view his bio page at Forbes here.

Matthew Miller, Forbes Associate Editor announced that billionaire history had been made when he stated, “He is the youngest billionaire in the world right now and we also believe he is the youngest self-made billionaire in history.” Mark Zuckerberg is even hanging around the likes of Oprah Winfrey who has $1.5 billion network. Although Winfrey is ranking above Zuckerberg they are both stated to be worth $1.5 billion.

One question that has been raised was how Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth was calculated. Some argue that Mr. Zuckerberg is much richer than $1.5 billion when taking into account the $240 million dollar Microsoft invested in Facebook for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook in 2007. With Microsoft’s investment it places Facebook at market valuation of $15 billion. Mark Zuckerberg holds a 30% stake in the company which would have placed him with $5 billion in net worth.

The Forbes magazine made a statement about how they came up with the valuation when they said, “Would it really fetch that much today? Some analysts — and a few Facebook investors — doubt it.” The Facebook valuation is said to be stated on the estimated annual sales of $150 million dollars. The annual sales were mainly in advertisement revenue deals with Microsoft.

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in February 2004 from his Harvard dorm room. After dropping out of school and moving to Silicon Valley Facebook found venture capitalists ready to made their stake in the fast growing social network. Now Mr. Zuckerberg can have his bragging rights, he is the youngest self-made billionaire in history.

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Digg Revolt Chat Room Jan 23rd Transcript

joelmackey — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 09:27:14 +0000

While it is easily debatable whether the Emergency Drill Down meeting was a true Digg Revolt, we still wanted to provide you a transcript. Since most people know this even as the “Digg Revolt 3″, this should help others find it. This really ended up being a pre-revolt that was Digg’s users calling out for input from Digg staff.

We have provided a static version of the transcript to ensure that as many people can access it at once as possible. No matter the tweaking done to WordPress it still loves to crash unless you have clustered servers or have it running completely static in itself which is worthless.

Please leave any comments you have on the transcript, the Digg revolt or Digg algorithm changes on this post. We will NOT censor, filter or remove any comments as long as they do not promote personal website spam, porn or gambling. Whether you are a top digger or a brand new digger, we want you to have a voice in this matter. Please express your opinions here freely.

Digg Pre Revolt 3 Chat Transcript Link

File sharing site Rapidshare shut down by anti-piracy officials

joelmackey — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:38:59 +0000

Another blow to file sharing was made public on January 19th, 2008. As user’s cries and pleas rang out through forums and blogs on the Internet, news continues to leak about the shutdown of Rapidshare.com. Currently as this is released Radidshare.de is still functional, however, all Rapidshare Premium account holders have stated they cannot download.

Wikipedia has had over 20 different versions of the account with some of the first statements from RapidShare themselves. At first it was announced that over 360 Rapidshare servers collapsed due to overload and that the servers would be up within hours. As the clock ticked by users have become more irate and confused. There is now information hitting the press wire that German anti-piracy officials are involved.

An organization called, GEMA, which is a society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights has obtained from the District Court in Cologne temporary injunctions against the operator of the data exchange services www.rapidshare.de and www.rapidshare.com. The dot com version of Rapidshare was specifically targeted as GEMA members claimed their copyright protected works had been used in an unlawful way.

RapidShare services are well known throughout the Internet for file sharing. In fact, according to Alexa traffic metric’s service Rapidshare.com is ranked as the #11 website in the world. According to another competing and generally more reliable traffic analytics service, Compete.com, Rapidshare.com holds a ranking worldwide of 879. You can see screenshots from these ranking services below:

The RapidShare service allows users, both free and premium, to upload files onto their servers making the files publicly available and searchable through different search engines. A detailed press report from Heise Online states that the GEMA spokesman Hans-Gerwig Geyer believes that both Rapidshare sites should be taken down and not allowed to operate in their present way.

Very broad statements have been made by Harald Heker, the chairman of the executive board of of GEMA saying that this injunction and process could have sweeping effects for other sites like YouTube and MySpace. Mr. Heker sums it all up by saying, “the mere circumstance of shifting acts of use to users and the purported inability of the operator to control content do not relieve the operator of a service from the copyright liability he/she/it possesses for the content made available for download from the operator’s website(s).”

With statements being made about the Web 2.0 sites like YouTube and MySpace user’s have also been brought into question. It has also been stated by sources that GEMA officials and other related anti-piracy officials are looking into pursuing legal action against users who distribute and download pirated copies of software and movies from these servers.

openpresswire.com » Internet

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Facebook CEO is youngest self-made billionaire in history

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Digg Revolt Chat Room Jan 23rd Transcript

File sharing site Rapidshare shut down by anti-piracy officials

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