My Five: Five things worth sharing from the last week (or so), brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Craig.
1. Brandwatch release new Twitter study
A new study from Brandwatch analysed 1000 twitter accounts chosen with a random number generator, looking at a total of 10,000 tweets. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in the report, which you can download here, but one of the most marketing-relevant statistics in my mind was that 3.6% of tweets are about brands – even more than the number of tweets about celebrities and music. BrandWatch also found that TV/film, sports and music were the 3 most tweeted about topics. In another significant but unsurprising finding, it was found that TV shows that promote a hashtag get tweeted 63% more than those that don’t.
2. The Xbox 180
Microsoft’s video-game division has pulled a complete about-turn in regards to their previously prohibitive Xbox One Digital Rights Management (DRM) measures. Under the old plans, the Xbox One would have to connect to the internet once a day to verify that the console hadn’t been hacked and wasn’t being used to play unauthorised games. They also planned to seriously damage the used game market and severely restrict sharing and lending of games, prompting Sony to create this pitch-perfect retort.
In an announcement this week Microsoft essentially said that none of this was happening any more, claiming that they had listened to gamers wants and needs and were happy that the public were helping to shape the next generation of games. It seems much more likely that the Xbox One being beaten by the PS4 in the pre-order charts and Amazon poll is the real reason for this unprecedented change of heart. It may be too little too late though, as many gamers feel that Microsoft showed their true colours with their original plans.
3. Facebook lets you comment with images – all social communication now handled via memes
A little icon of a camera signalled the end of written communication this week as Facebook started allowing users to comment using pictures. Users of sites like Reddit and 4chan already communicate almost solely with outlined impact text overlaid on images – it looks like the rest of the world will soon be joining them.
Or, in the parlance of the near future:
4. Russell Brand appears on American TV, exposes anchors as idiots
In a segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program the comedian, actor, author and activist Russell Brand was objectified, mocked and spoken about in the third person. Though civil and polite throughout, Brand made it clear that he thought that the show was being ran by impolite imbeciles, and the hosts did nothing to prove otherwise. Brand then offered to do the anchors jobs for them, talking about superficiality in the media, Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning an the NSA PRISM scandal. You can watch the whole hilarious ordeal below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJhErmJuoQ
5. Google Glass privacy concerns raised by seven nations
Larry Page, Chief Executive at Google, has received a letter questioning him on privacy issues relating to Google Glass. The letter comes from privacy officials from seven different nations. It asks Page about compliance with data protection laws, safeguarding, ethics and facial recognition software.
Though Google have announced that they have banned facial recognition (and pornography) apps on Glass, surely it won’t be long before the technically minded jailbreak the technology and use any apps that they want. Not having facial recognition software built in to the program also doesn’t guarantee that video uploaded to the cloud from Glass wouldn’t be retrospectively analysed by government organisations like the NSA. Let’s hope Page has some good answers to these legitimate questions and concerns.
