Twitter

anti-social networking

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Much is written about teens abandoning social networks like Facebook and Twitter but not a huge amount on why.  Ever wondered why your kids or niece / nephew’s phone never stops beeping yet they rarely post anywhere?

It’s all about the anti-social networking. …

When my digital media students are sitting, waiting for class to start, and staring at their phones, they are not checking Facebook. They’re not checking Instagram or Pinterest or Twitter. No, they’re catching up on the news of the day by checking out their friends’ Stories on Snapchat, chatting in Facebook Messenger or checking in with their friends in a group text. If the time drags, they might switch to Instagram to see what the brands they love are posting, or check in with Twitter for a laugh at some celebrity tweets. But, they tell me, most of the time they eschew the public square of social media for more intimate options.

Full article from Quartz here.

The King of… Twitter meets telly (@c4kingof)

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Channel 4 has commissioned a new multi-platform comedy talkshow with Twitter at its heart. King Of… will turn to the twittersphere each week to canvas audiences at home on their opinions about all manner of subjects, to gauge which musical, newsreader or supermodel, for example, is considered leader in their field.

The show will be hosted by presenter and journalist Claudia Winkleman who will encourage viewers on Twitter to follow @C4Kingof and join in and continue discussing the topics by using the #kingof hashtag.

@C4Kingof will then retweet the best comments and at the end of each episode pronounce someone King of Tweets.

via C21Media:

Will be interesting to see how well PRs can respond to the outcomes and make the most of the results via other channels. (hat tip: @robertandrews)

hedging bets on Tweeters’ sentiment

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

News junkies are not the only ones who have taken notice of the value of information coming out of Twitter. Derwent Capital Markets is developing a “Twitter hedge fund” that will make market predictions solely based on sentiment analysis of Twitter users (based on research out of MIT). Based on initial investor interest, Derwent Absolute Return Fund Ltd is expected to launch with approximately $100 million in assets.

via Twitter Is About To Get Bigger – Kashmir Hill – The Not-So Private Parts – Forbes.

Twitter by #numbers

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Five years ago this week, a small team of people started working on a prototype of the service that we now know as Twitter. On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey (@jack) sent the first Tweet.

Today, on every measure of growth and engagement, Twitter is growing at a record pace. Here are some numbers:

#tweets

3 years, 2 months and 1 day. The time it took from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet.

1 week. The time it now takes for users to send a billion Tweets.

50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago.

140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month.

177 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011.

456. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time).

6,939. Current TPS record, set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.

#accounts

572,000. Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011.

460,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month.

182%. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year.

#employees

8. 29. 130. 350. 400. Number of Twitter employees in Jan 2008, Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011 and today.

via Twitter Blog: #numbers.