It's been years since I last attended a proper concert, and back then, even bringing a cell phone to the arena was not allowed. And a camera? Forget about it!
This Sunday, I saw MUSE in concert. Great show from a great band, but what struck me was how technology has changed the experience. A few points:
The arena, Oslo Spektrum, had an open wireless network, "muse", available for everyone.
A few people, granted, not many, tweeted before, during and after the show, and posted pictures to their Facebook profiles, thus instantly spreading the word.
This photo was taken at the beginning of the show. How many cameras and iPhones do you see?
Sometimes, I don't have the time or energy to write a post of my own. But when I read, and share, a few stories on a daily basis, I figured I might as well share those posts here as well. So here are my recommended posts for this weekend:
At some point this week, some 70 of my 1,600 or so followers on Twitter "disappeared." I, along with a lot of other tweeple, wondered what happened, and now Twitter gives us the explanation:
For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.
However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.
Now, I wasn't aware I had that many spam-followers, but I guess Twitter's right. And I'm not missing any obvious contributors either.
Have you lost a lot of followers, and a were they all spammy? And by all means, if you're not a spammer, feel free to follow me...
A couple of weeks back, the story about NBA star LeBron James being dunked on was all over social media. Not because of the dunk itself, but because photographers and videographers had their tapes (or the digital equivalent) confiscated by a Nike representative. The whole story is described in full at The Hoop Doctors.
So did this prevent the dunk from getting out? Of course not. Now, not one, but two videos have surfaced. One is from TMZ, the other from eBaum Nation.
Is the dunk really an embarassment to LeBron? Personally, I don't think so, but you might be of another opinion. Is the handling of the case an embarassment to Nike? I think it certainly is...
For a while, I've been trying to find a way to put my followers on Twitter on a world map. With an open API and a bunch of other mash-ups, you'd think this should be a breeze, but I haven't been able to find a good solution.
Until now. Foller.me launched in June, and digs deep in your Twitter stream to extract some interesting data.
You input a Twitter name into the searchbox and hit enter. Foller.me gets access to the profile of that user via the Twitter API, scans all the public info and the latest 200 tweets and builds up three tag clouds: topics, #hashtags and @mentions, all based on the user’s recent activity. In addition, you get a nice little Google map where your followers, at least some of them, are marked.
I suppose I should mention that this service seems very much in beta, and I did have to try a few times to get it to work.
By now, I'm sure everybody interested in social media has heard about United Airlines and the company's apparent hatred for the guitar as a musical instrument. Earlier this week, Mashable wrote that the original video has been watched 3 million times on YouTube, a number that now has passed 3.3 million.
If you're not familiar with the story, take a look at the original music video, which sums it up nicely. It's a catchy tune as well.
Later, Dave Carroll issued a statement further explaining what he wants from United, and it's not cash.
In addition to Sons of Maxwell, the band that will probably sell thousands of records after this, the big winner is California-based Taylor Guitars. In this clip, Bob Taylor lends his support to Dave Carroll and guitar players everywhere. Plus, he manages to squeeze in some advice on traveling with your guitar and information about Taylor's new Factory Service Center. Nice one, Bob Taylor!
So, Sons of Maxwell and Taylor Guitars will both benefit from this incident. The loser, or "bad and ugly" if you like, is obviously United Airlines. Once again, a big company manages to put its foot in its mouth, and add to the injury by not saying anything. However, when Carroll's guitar was used as a frisbee, what could United have done? Weren't the company doomed to begin with? And how could United have saved their reputation in this matter?
