14 May

Facebook, Twitter & Betty White: This Week’s Top 10 Social Media Stories

Posted by Brenna Ehrlich, under Adobe, Android, Apple, Celebrities, Facebook, Flash, Google, Social Media, Television, Twitter, blackberry, iPhone, ipad, pop culture

This week, social media news was dominated by three things: Facebook privacy concerns, Twitter troubles and one seriously golden girl, Betty White.

If you missed anything over the course of the last seven days — we know, the thought of losing all your Twitter followers was so tragic as to be totally debilitating — we’ve got all the top stories right here. Read up, get educated and wow all your Twitter followers (who have been thankfully restored) with your ample knowledge of all things social media and tech.

1). Betty White on “Saturday Night Live”: Every Single Sketch: Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live, realizing the dreams of more than 500,000 Facebook users. Reception from fans and critics alike was mostly positive, and a day later White’s gig led Google searches and Twitter conversations.

2). Twitter Bug Lets You Control Who Follows You: Twitter had an embarrassing bug on its hands –- one that allowed users to make anyone follow them.

3). Another Next Generation iPhone Found, Dissected: A company generally well-known for its secrecy, Apple has been losing the next generation iPhone left and right; this time, a slew of images and a video of another iPhone 4G prototype appeared on a Vietnamese site.

4). AT&T Has iPhone Exclusivity Until 2012: It was speculative before given the lack of independent confirmation, but now apparently Apple has gone on record to confirm that the original deal signed with AT&T for iPhone exclusivity back in 2007 was a five-year deal.

5). Google and Verizon to Launch Tablet Computer: Add a big new twist to the tablet computing wars. The Wall Street Journal is confirming that Google plans to bring a tablet computer to market with Verizon Wireless.

6). NYU Students Raise More than $100,000 to Build Facebook Alternative: Four New York University students have a vision to build Diaspora, “an open source personal web service that will put individuals in control of their data,” or essentially the anti-Facebook.

7). Adobe Responds to Apple’s Attacks on Flash with New Ad Campaign: Two weeks ago, Steve Jobs published his now infamous “Thoughts on Flash” memo on Apple.com. Adobe has now responded with its own message, a message of “love,” “choice” and “open markets.”

8). Obama: iPads Make Information a Distraction: Although before his inauguration U.S. President Barack Obama was rarely seen without his BlackBerry, he has criticized the current crop of popular consumer gadgets for helping make information a “distraction.”

9). BlackBerry Tablet to Launch This Year: Research in Motion is set to enter the tablet computing market with plans to unveil a 8.9-inch BlackBerry device later this year.

10. Android Now Outselling iPhone: Smartphones carrying Google’s Android operating system outsold the iPhone in the first quarter of 2010, according to new research from NPD.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Antagain


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Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, Twitter, iStockphoto

Tags: adobe, android, apple, blackberry, facebook, Flash, Google, ipad, iphone, television, twitter

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12 May

Facebook Wants Betty White to Host EVERYTHING

Posted by Brenna Ehrlich, under Celebrities, Facebook, Film, Humor, Television, Top Stories, music, pop culture

Not content with the glorious victory that was Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live, the denizens of Facebook have now turned their eyes to still more lofty goals: the Emmys and the Oscars.

As of right now, “Getting Betty White to Host the Academy Awards” is the most popular page, with 53,023 members at the time of posting. Then there’s “Betty White to Host the Oscars,” with 12,600 members. Both pages appear to be fan labors of love, much like “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!”, and they’re already garnering copious amounts of media attention.

And then there’s “Betty White Must Host 2010 Emmys!”, which was launched by blogger Abe Gurko and has a little more than 2,000 fans. Gurko told us his reasoning for nominating the Golden Girls star: “I think that the Emmy awards shows over the years have been horrible. Bad writing, coupled with bad timing by the hosts. As these award shows have decreased in ratings, who better to put on hosting — or even co-hosting duties with Jimmy Fallon — than Betty. To give the show a much needed boost. Betty IS television.”

Just a few days ago, the Los Angeles Times covered this trend, pronouncing in the headline: Hipster Culture is Having a Senior Moment. While I would assert that the affinity for elderly stars etc goes far beyond the “hipster” set, I would agree that older folk — and especially White — are, indeed, becoming what amounts to an Internet meme.

Fans are enjoying the power they have come to wield, even when striving for goals that initially seem rather lofty (like having an older, less culturally relevant star host a major awards show). See also: Can This Onion Ring Get More Fans Than Justin Bieber?

Sure, White does have legit fans who want to see her succeed (Gurko and Co. seem extremely sincere), and, yes, she kicked serious ass on SNL last weekend, but, in the end, getting behind Betty seems like it’s becoming a bit of a trend.

It remains to be seen how effective campaigns like this will be as more and more continue to launch.


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Reviews: Facebook, Internet, Twitter

Tags: facebook, humor, pop culture, television

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07 May

Top 12 Social Media and Tech News Stories This Week

Posted by Brenna Ehrlich, under Apple, Business, Celebrities, Facebook, Google, Humor, Political, Politics, Social Media, Television, Twitter, iPhone, ipad, mashable, pop culture, trending, webbys-2010, youtube

This week was positively schizophrenic when it comes to social media news: web coverage of major news events, Google search’s makeover, Twitter innovations, Facebook privacy gaffes, Apple-centric controversy and, of course, the Webbys.

If you’re still reeling from yesterday’s market madness and have subsequently forgotten everything you learned over the past seven days, never fear — Mashable has a list of the top 12 social media and tech stories of the week.

1. Google Search Gets a Major Overhaul – After months of testing and speculation, Google is finally releasing the next edition of Google search to the public, complete with a left-hand menu bar and even an update to the well-known Google logo.

2. Facebook Chat Down for Maintenance Following Privacy Lapse – The feature was presumably disabled following a report that exposed a Facebook security bug that allowed users to access and view friends’ live chats, friend requests and friends in common.

3. iPad Coming to Nine More Countries on May 28 – Residents of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, rejoice: The iPad will be available in your country on May 28.

4. Google Adds App Store for Analytics – Google is giving users even more tools for finding and understanding their website’s visitor stats. The company has just announced they’re opening a full App Gallery for Google Analytics.

5. Twitter to Launch Embeddable Tweets – Screenshots of tweets begone — you can now embed individual tweets on your website. There’s still some bugs, though.

6. Mashable Wins 3 Webby Awards – Mashable is honored to have won three Webby Awards in the categories Best Cultural Blog (Webby Award) and Best Business Blog (Webby Award and People’s Voice). We’re thankful to all the readers who voted for us.

7. Chrome Gains, IE Slumps in Browser Wars – Google Chrome was the fastest growing web browser for the fifth month in a row in analytics company Net Applications’ April market report, while Microsoft Internet Explorer again lost market share.

8. More Fallout at Digg: 10% of Staff Laid Off – Social news site Digg has just laid off 10% of its staff according to a representative from the company. The move comes a month after Jay Adelson’s sudden departure as CEO, in which he was replaced by company founder Kevin Rose.

9. Greece Riots as Seen on Twitter, YouTube – As riots explode in Greece, pictures and videos are flying around the social web, shared from news sources and folks on the ground.

10. Nashville Flooding: Twitter and YouTube Tell the Story – Nashville and other parts of Tennessee were hit by the region’s greatest rainfall in recorded history this weekend, resulting in a severe flood that has devastated the region and even swept away buildings and cars.

11. Apple Has Sold 1 Million iPads – Apple has officially confirmed it has sold 1 million iPads. The company sold its one millionth iPad on Friday, April 30, just 28 days after the device’s release.

12. Apple Isn’t Laughing at Ellen’s iPhone Commercial Parody – After airing a send-up of an iPhone commercial on Monday’s Ellen DeGeneres Show, the comedienne apologized for the parody at the behest of, well, Apple.


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Reviews: Australia, Digg, Facebook, Google, Google Analytics, Google Chrome, Mashable, Twitter

Tags: apple, facebook, Google, humor, ipad, iphone, television, trending, twitter, webbys-2010, youtube

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28 Oct

Celebrities Using Facebook To Manage Their Relationships And Reach Fans

Posted by Nick O'Neill, under Celebrities, news

While Twitter may be the primary resource for many celebrities to blast out updates to their fans, celebrities are turning to Facebook to manage their actual relationships. Twitter-loving celebrities also appear to be turning to Facebook as one of their resources for sending updates to fans. Earlier this week, Randi Zuckerberg posted a screenshot of the first mobile update sent by Demi Moore to her Facebook Page, with the hopes of continuing the trend.

-Demi Moore Randi Zuckerberg-

Other celebrities are finding Facebook to be an excellent resource for expressing their love to their significant others. Take Amy Winehouse for example, who has been continuously posting love messages to her boyfriend Blake Civil on his Facebook page, according to Perez Hilton. While some celebrity wall posts may not be as tacky as Amy Winehouse’s, they all appear to be flocking to the site.

For example, Vin Diesel continues to attract fans at a rapid pace with over 6 million fans and growing by over 60,000 fans a week. Recently Tiger Woods posted a video of his block party golf clinic, in which he gives advice on how to swing more effectively (view the video here). With over 300 million users (and probably over 325 million at this point), Facebook is the single best community for a celebrity to reach out to fans.

With the privacy settings provided to users, celebrities also have the opportunity to post updates without worrying about the wall posts ending up in magazines. Unfortunately, sometimes the celebrities don’t get the privacy settings right or their friend will leak a picture to the press (as was the case with the Amy Winehouse photo below). Earlier this year Facebook set up a page to promote those celebrities who are on Facebook.

If you want to keep up to date on the celebrity activities on the site, I recommend joining the Celebs on Facebook page.

-Blake Civil Profile Screenshot-

-Amy Winehouse Wall Posts Screenshot-


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