Social news sites and all of the other social networking sites are not going anywhere, in fact the communities are growing everyday and many of the top news stories worldwide first break in these social networking communities. Every week the social communities are buzzing with many big stories. Now, every Friday, we’ll bring you a weekly wrap-up of some of the biggest stories in the world of social media.
Breaking news from… Twitter?
Just yesterday, when the bombings in Jakarta happened, the first people to report on these bombing were Twitter users. This also goes to show how important social networking has become to society today, and it also enables anyone to bring breaking news to the web in real time. Real time reporting has been seen a lot in recent weeks and months via sites like Twitter and Facebook, another recent example were the Iran political protests and how the people caught up in them were able to update via social communities. That was important as well because it showed the power of the groundswell when many users turned their avatars green and also changed their time settings in Twitter to make it harder for the Iran government to try and block their citizens from reporting on Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter Hacked…again
That’s right, Twitter was hacked… again. This time, documents were stolen from an employee’s email and posted on numerous blogs around the web. Techcrunch has published some of the more interesting documents, while some of the other blogs held little back. Twitter has contacted lawyers, but they should know as well as anyone that when something catches on in the social world it is almost impossible to stop, this has been coined “The Streisand Effect” and it is something many people do not fully understand, but I would assume the folks at Twitter know about it all too well.
The fall of MySpace
Reports of MySpace showing a steady decline in it’s user base surfaced this week, as many people are running from MySpace and embracing Facebook. MySpace has recently been coined as the “ghetto” of social networking communities due to the unappealing layouts and rediculous page load times. Where MySpace has remained relevant is when it comes to a networking tool for musicians. Being a musician myself I have seen firsthand what is possible for bands networking and promoting themselves on MySpace. Perhaps MySpace should really target and focus on if they want to have a place in the future of social media. When bands and other entertainers embrace social networking amazing things can happen, and Myspace has helped launch a number of careers (for better or worse).
Real Time Search is still a hot topic
Real time search has been an increasingly hot topic and it is proof that the future of search will be geared more towards real time search results. Let’s face it, when you do a search you don’t want to find outdated information on the subject, most would prefer something that is totally fresh and relevant. Real time search has been revolutionized by Twitter and now many sites are implementing this concept, including Friendfeed, which is another popular networking site where you can integrate feeds from all of your different social profiles.
Integrating TV with Social Media
As more and more companies start embracing the social media phenomenon, we will see more technological advancements in the social world. One example of this is the new social network TV service Verizon is offering their FIOS customers. This application will enable users to watch TV together online and communicate with each other as they watch. The services will also be fully integrated with Twitter and Facebook as well as other user generated video sites on the web, such as Dailymotion and Blip.tv.
The lighter side of Social Media (this week)
Some of the more entertaining stories we have see in the social world this past week include a dancing bear that has been invading webcam chatrooms on Stickam and causing hilarity to ensue. The dancing bear prank was done by Ryan Perera, who thought it would be funny to invade random chatrooms for fun. The prank raised quite a few eyebrows in the social world because of how random and funny it truly was, and the folks in these chatrooms got a good laugh watching the dancing bear on cam.
We were also graced with some funny images that were a big hit on numerous social media websites and gave people some nice laughs, one being the man who cant afford beer and then we also had the humorous directions that involve a kayak. The Dairy Queen sign in this image is most definitely a huge fail on their part, but made many say WTF! Or was good for another chuckle to many others.
Here was an interesting image which shows 4 different Newsweek covers, and obviously you can see exactly why mainstream American media sucks (and the exact reason people are embracing social networks for unbiased news).
Last but not least in interesting social media stories we have the girl who was arrested for swearing during a 911 call. I’ll let the video do the talking.
Hope you enjoyed our wrap-up…until next week!
