social media
The 10 Most Noteworthy Photos on Twitter This Week [PICS]
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15 January 2012
In an effort to find the most interesting photos from Twitterover the past week, rather than merely the most retweeted,Mashable worked with our partner, social media search engine Skylines, to tweak our method of choosing such pictures.
Why? Often the top 10 was full of pics from boy bands, which was more a measure of the bands’ popularity than a testament to the quality of the photos.
So, this week we’re trying something a little different. Skyines focused on the most popular Twitter trends (hashtags) and took the most popular pictures from these tags.
The photos analyzed are culled from the week ended Jan. 13. We’re hoping the new method will yield a wider range of high-quality photos.
This Web-Connected Robot Gives Your Tweets and Facebook Comments a Smell
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15 January 2012
company has found a way to incorporate smells into the Internet. Imagine, your significant other mentions you on Twitter and magically you smell his/her perfume. If someone tags you in a Facebook video, the scent of buttered popcorn or fruit fills the room. Olly makes an Internet with smell possible.
Olly — a web-connected smelly robot — created by London and New York-based company called Mint Foundry will give all your online notifications a scent. The creators figured since the web incorporates sight and sound, it’s time to experience it in a different way.
Olly would scent anything from a tweet on Twitter, Like on Instagram, to a photo tag on Facebook.
As seen in the video, Olly is a compact white box that has a removable space in the back that can be filled with any scent you desire. The company suggests essential oils, fruit, perfume, cologne or a drop of gin. They can be stacked, so you can give all your online accounts a different smell.
The process would involve downloading an application, signing in with a username and password into the Olly app and having the physical Olly reader.
Olly is not available for purchase yet. The company is working to garner backers for the project.
Tim Tebow: The Meme that Won’t Die
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15 January 2012
By now, you’re probably familiar with Saturday Night Live’s skit in which Jesus visits the Denver Broncos locker room after their win against the Chicago Bears. It’s one among many, many spoofs, satires and weird mashups to have hit the Internet since the Broncos’s winning season began — thanks to the team’s starting quarterback, Tim Tebow.
The Internet responded to Tebow media-mania after “Tebowing” became globally recognized as an American football meme. Jared Kleinstein and a few other Denver natives took a picture mimicking Tebow kneeling on the sidelines. The response was overwhelming. Soon a Tumblr was created, followed by the meme.
After the Broncos beat the Steelers last Sunday, Twitter responded with a record peak of 9,420 tweets per second, the second most tweets-per-second in history. Fueling the fire were congratulatory responses and the many comparisons to Bible verse John 3:16, which reads, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Since then, the Internet and mainstream media have continued to buzz over Tebow fever, and it doesn’t seem to be stopping, at least until the game against the Patriots on Saturday.
Jimmy Fallon gave a riveting “Tebowie” performance Thursday night during his late night show, donning a Broncos jersey and full Ziggy Stardust makeup. Rather than “Ground Control to Major Tom,” Fallon replaced the lyrics to represent a conversation between Jesus and Tim Tebow.
Among the photoshopped images and artwork swirling the web, sports blogger Matt Ufford takes the prize with his digitally altered pictures of Tebow as a centaur.
And then there are the dozens of YouTube videos being shared around the web. Here are just six of the TebowTube tributes we’ve seen. Some videos have clearly taken a dedicated amount of editing and time, while others are just plain strange.
Google Nails 2011: Portrait of a Banner Year
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13 January 2012
It has proven to be a monumental banner year for Google. It’s hard to believe that one year ago, things such as Google+ and the now all-familiar +1 button were nonexistent. The company has come far from being just a search engine. For some, it is an office suite, email service, music player, social network, and much, much more. We’re not exaggerating when we write “Google Nails 2011.”
This year, Google underwent some major changes, both internally and externally. Some old faces returned, such as current CEO Larry Page, and some interfaces went away, as we saw when the new Gmail appeared. The company acquired dozens of startups, made some significant environmentally-friendly investments and faced a couple of antitrust issues.
Google’s first acquisition of 2011 was eBook Technologies, a company that focused on hardware and software distribution of e-books and e-readers. In the same month, Google also acquired SayNow, a telephony startup.
It was announced in January that Larry Page, Google’s first CEO from 1998 to 2001, would replace Eric Schmidt as head of the company, effective April 4. Schmidt would then take on the role of executive chairman.
In 2010, Google attempted to buy Groupon, but was rejected. Instead, the search giant launched its own service, Google Offers.
Google Interface Designs: Welcome to Dullsville
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13 January 2012
Google Gmail for the iPhone may have had just an hour or two in the sunlight before Google pulled it, but that was more than enough time for people to decide they hated it. The dislike didn’t discriminate. Users hated the feel, the lack of functionality (only one Gmail account?!) and the buginess. For me, though, I couldn’t stand the look of the thing. So stark, boxy and cold.
Google will solve the feature and bug issues and soon enough the Gmail app will be back on iOS devices. What Google is unlikely to change, though, is the design. Black, white and boring. What happened to Google’s signature use of color, its sense of impish fun? Its name is literally built out of five, bright primary colors. This is the company that regularly brings us wonderfully imaginative Google Doodle logos— which all do wild things with that simple, yet attractive logo. It’s the same company that has some of the most entertaining corporate offices I have ever seen (I took a tour, I know).
Yet, something is happening in the halls of Google. Google’s new design language has, essentially, two words: black and white.
It’s not just this new HTML5-based Gmail that is awash in two-tone colors or that brings sharp edges to Apple’s always curved world. I’m reading Steve Jobs’s biography right now and learned that he hated — HATED — corners. Everything had to be curved. He was obsessed with chamfers. Take a look at your iPhone or iPad and you’ll see that design sensibility. Google, though, is going the other way.
Gmail for the iPhone is all hard lines of black, white and gray. There are thin lines and black bars. The icons are simply reverses on their black backgrounds.There’s just a tiny bit of color and impishness in there, like the use of a 3.5-inch floppy icon for “Save.” Otherwise, it’s the culmination of a trend that’s been running through all of Google’s products for months and accelerating in recent days. The new Google Reader, for example, is white, with gray accents and black type. It’s more open than the old version, but somehow less friendly and inviting.
This week, Google also waved the magic wand of starkness over Gmail for the desktop. No more color, no more bounding boxes. It’s super stark and seems ready to slide apart. If I were making it into a game, I’d put it on a tablet and use the accelerometer to judge just how flat you’re holding the screen. If it tips one way or the other, part of Gmail’s interface simply slides off. Google News was probably the first of Google’s many services to get the decolorization makeover. It used to look a tiny bit like a newspaper layout, but no more. Google Apps are no better. The menu bar in Google+ is pretty much the same. Icons are gray, the discussions float in a sea of white and gray lines. When I do see a colorful icon in any of Google’s products I’m now tempted to throw it a lifeline.
Seriously, who is Google’s interface designer these days, and why has he decided to drain all the fun and life out of every single Google product? Some might argue that this is a return to Google’s roots. Its homepage is still essentially just its logo, a search box and an “I’m Feeling Lucky” search option. I’ve always appreciated that Google didn’t junk that up, but I have grown accustomed to Google’s different looks within its standalone apps and services. Now someone is cracking the whip and shoving them all into monochromatic shape.
It’s not attractive and I’d like it to stop.
It was the year of Angry Birds domination. The popular game is the most-downloaded mobile app of 2011, rounding out the list of top 10 apps of the year ahead of Facebook, Twitter and Fruit Ninja.
Many people think of YouTube as a place to watch cat videos and post clips of their kids singing silly songs. However, marketers should take YouTube as seriously as they do Google.
One upon a time, Facebook game companies like Zynga fattened up their user counts thanks to viral distribution to non-gamers through the news feed. Facebook later curtailed this channel, forcing developers to concentrate on paid marketing and true word of mouth to grow. A new boom period could be coming, this time for mobile developers, as Facebook announced today that it is testing game stories in the mobile news feed. This could attract devs to its recently launched HTML5 mobile gaming platform with bait of reaching hundreds of millions of daily active Facebook mobile users.
Feeling housebound by Facebook addiction? Facebook just released “Suggested Events,” which uses your own check-in information to point out events you might want to go to in the real world.