Facebook/Justin BieberJustin Bieber is 5’7″.

Singhal explained in a recent interview that Google has learned a basic understanding of what is known as pronoun and anaphora resolution. So the robot Android woman replies to him, understanding that the second question refers back to the first proper noun.

“Search has been, in the past, a one-shot deal. But for the first time, ‘he’ meant ‘Justin Bieber!’ No one else does that,” said Singhal.

(The Biebs measures 5'7", same as Tom Cruise and Al Pacino, which took me a third Google search.)

“Today I showed you a two-sentence conversation,” Singhal said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a year or two, we’ll see a much broader conversation happening within search” — where users can talk to a search engine as if they’re talking to a person.

More Than an Interface Problem

For years, online search has trained us to speak its odd and stilted language. Type a demand for information. Isolate the keywords. Start from scratch with every query. Use quotation marks to specify a phrase. It’s enough of a foreign language that some people call it “Searchese.”

One thing binding together much of the work Google and other companies are doing around search these days is that they’re making it more natural and conversational.

Conversational search is search that tries to understand context, that makes educated guesses, that takes voice input, that parses homonyms and adapts to mobile environments, and that understands the same user across multiple devices.

These ideas have been around since at least the 1990s, part of research projects like AT&T Labs’s Watson and MIT’s Jupiter, a phone service that could understand a wide range of queries about the weather.

While on the surface, making search conversational sounds like an interface problem — just figure out an easier way for people to access the same underlying information — in reality, it cuts deep into artificial intelligence and the world outside of computers.

Plus, it’s a descriptor that’s much more accessible than other recent search coinages, like Google’s “Knowledge Graph.”

Getting back to Singhal’s Bieber example, Bing search director Stefan Weitz said it’s true that Microsoft doesn’t yet handle many multipart queries, with the exception of structured search for content titles on Xbox.

But Bing is also working on many fronts to make search more natural and conversational — for instance, in its work to disambiguate queries, its semantic search effort Satori, and personalized apps like Local Scout.

“When you talk about conversational search, you’re really talking about machines being able to understand the last thing you said or the path you’re heading down,” Weitz said. “The real challenge is deconstructing the digital world using the Web as a very high-definition physical proxy.”

So, for instance, Bing can now answer queries like “the movie with Tom Cruise and a unicorn” or “the tallest mountain in the world,” even though they take a good bit of extrapolation, Weitz said. (The answers are “Legend” and Mount Everest.)

Unlearning Awkwardness

At Google, the first conversational search launch was probably Google Suggest, a “20 percent” project from way back in 2004 that auto-completes likely searches while a user is typing. It was the predecessor to Google Instant, which launched in 2010 and displays likely search results for those queries.

John Boyd, a research manager at Google, runs a team that brings in users to observe their experiences with new products, and designs studies to evaluate what they might want in the future.

John Boyd at work in the Google user experience research lab

Speaking in one of those one-way-mirror rooms containing a computer fitted with an eye tracker, Boyd said that one of the stranger parts of his job is that volunteers who are brought in to campus for studies and interviews often fail to notice whatever it is that Google is testing. When his team ran user tests on Google Instant, some lab rats guessed that what was new was an older navigation bar on the left side — not the results appearing smack-dab in front of their faces.

Without a before-and-after comparison, it’s hard to pick up on what’s new, even on a website you use every day.

But that’s not necessarily bad. One of the things about Google search that Boyd most wants to change is to subtly guide people away from learned behaviors and back to natural conversation.

“Google is magic,” said Boyd, who directed research at Yahoo for five years before joining Google five years ago. “But because we stay out of the way, it allows people to get into bad habits.”

What does he mean by that? Well, some people think search works better when you type in queries in all caps. ACTUALLY, it doesn’t.

This is an example of B.F. Skinner’s “superstitious learning,” Boyd said. For instance, some searchers tend to overuse double quotes to try to tell Google that we really want to find a set of words in the order we entered them. What’s the harm in that? Quotes are not always necessary, they’re extra work, and in some cases they exclude worthy results, Boyd said. You can tell that little bit of inefficiency actually gets under Boyd’s skin.

On a broader level, Google should have a better idea of what we want to know, Boyd said, so we don’t have to ask a question from scratch every time.

But What Do You Really Want to Know?

To that end, last year Google conducted a study of 150 participants by pinging them through a custom mobile app at multiple random points throughout the day to ask them what they wanted to know.

Boyd showed me the file of one female participant, whose information needs included “How do I get $200 in eight days?” “How long does state have to indict somebody before they get charged?” “What is string theory?” “What does a cuttlefish look like?” “How do I make my daughter leave me alone?” “How to make my tooth stop hurting?” “How do I find a bail bondsman?”

Meanwhile, another male participant said he had car problems, a dog that may have had fleas, a need for cash, a smoke detector that needed to be reset, and interest in buying a car for his granddaughter.

Monterey Bay Aquarium This is what a cuttlefish looks like.

Besides being fascinating slices of life, the list of questions large and small is helping Google think about how to better understand how it might be helpful to people.

For instance, the woman asked a whole bunch of questions around the theme of jail; Google could do a smoother job of helping her with that topic. And the man’s list of to-dos is pretty hectic; perhaps Google could help organize and execute them.

Two of Google’s main thrusts to help people in the moment are voice search — especially useful when you’re driving, or your hands are otherwise busy — and the Google Now smart personal assistant for Android.

Voice is a natural format for conversation, Boyd noted. “The conversational component opens up a dimension of ‘did you mean?’ or ‘have you thought about it this way?’” That tends to be a lot more awkward and slow in text, he said.

Meanwhile, the Google Now Android app rides along with users and takes note of their habits, showing things like sports scores and weather and traffic, based on their personal search history. Recent additions to the app trigger previously purchased movie tickets and boarding passes to pop up when a user enters the theater or the airport at the designated time.

“There are so many different situations when our users need help,” Google Now product manager Baris Gultekin recently told me. “My goal is to anticipate all your needs, and anticipate the right thing when you need it. It’s a huge undertaking. We are basically trying to focus on trying to get you information you need, when you need it, before you ask.”

For those who are okay with the privacy implications, these are significant and exciting leaps forward. But we are a long way from engaging in any old casual conversation with our computers. Google Now only understands a very few things in the world, and each new one is being added manually through partnerships with Fandango and United Airlines and the like.

And while voice recognition is much better than it used to be, I often find myself falling into a new sort of voice “Searchese,” where I carefully enunciate words in a monotone and speak out punctuation. It’s far from the most natural thing in the world.

Sixteen tables line the sides of the showcase at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Grinning merchants man each one, enticing customers with their wares. For these startups, it’s their chance to make that major sale and perhaps win the support of a venture capitalist.

One vendor happily completes a transaction with the flourish of a fuzzy, flower pen. Another group advertises their deluxe options — laptop stickers that range from “I <3 Justin Bieber” to “One Directioner.”

If this sounds a bit junior high to you, you’d be right: All the companies have been started and run by seventh grade girls.

Welcome to Entrepreneurial Night for the Girls Middle School, a progressive intermediate school in Palo Alto, Calif. Founded by tech entrepreneur Kathleen Bennett in 1998, the school’s goal is to foster girls’ curiosity in typically male-centric areas — namely, entrepreneurship and science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

“Middle school is the time when [girls] stop identifying as liking those subjects or being good at those subjects,” said Dan Glass, GMS’ director of communications.

Parents agree. “Boys tend to hog the mic in classrooms, especially on those types of topics and especially in Silicon Valley where their fathers are all engineers,” said Brad Williams, a GMS parent whose daughter, Caroline, currently attends the 6th grade. “The idea was that girls in a girls-only environment have an unobstructed path to choosing science, technology, engineering, math if they’re interested without it being selected away from them by a bunch of boys who are more assertive.”

GMS curriculum is Silicon Valley to the core. Students follow a six-day course rotation that cycles through a regular five-day week to make room for unconventional requirements, including computer science and entrepreneurial studies.

The mandatory entrepreneurial program is one of the school’s centerpieces, with 150 companies started since the program’s inception. Recruitment starts in sixth grade and is focused on building teamwork, as the girls are thrown together on various camping trips and other bonding activities. They work together at open tables.

After observing the students’ work habits throughout the year, they are then grouped together to begin writing their business proposals and learning the importance of teamwork.

Like actual entrepreneurs, the girls learn basic accounting, write up a business plan and go through a prototyping process with focus groups, with their goods targeted at other middle school girls.

And, if groups pitch similar business plans, they must diversify. For example, Snuggle Up creates custom pillows and blankets, while Pillow Pockets makes animal pillows with, as the name suggests, a pocket in the back to hold small items.

Though they receive plenty of support and mentorship along the way, students are ultimately required to run the business on their own, with no outsourcing to parents allowed unless they’re willing to be hired at the standard $2 per hour rate. Each girl receives a designated title as the vice president of communications, finance, marketing or manufacturing.

Each startup is expected to develop a product and sell enough to pay back the school’s initial loan — usually between $100 and $200 — as well as donate some profits to charity. Leftover materials are liquidated at the end of the year.

“You walk into a seventh grade classroom and you’d see one group of girls with scissors and sewing machines,” Glass said. “And one group of girls is working on printing on water bottles.”

Whether or not GMS actually inspires the next generation of female entrepreneurs remains to be seen. The school is only 15 years old, which means its oldest alumni haven’t even exited their 20s yet. But, according to Glass, a number have gone the entrepreneurial route, including one who started a jewelry-making business.

GMS holds an Entrepreneurial Night as a culmination of the girls’ achievements. By the time the event rolls around in late January, most, if not all, startups have more than repaid the school’s initial loan. Here, they have a chance to make their grand pitch in front of a panel of real-life venture capitalists, along with an audience of more than a hundred people.

“They learn that communication is most essential when you have to present to investors and present to your parents,” humanities teacher Amoy Walker said, with the girls learning self-presentation skills including inflection, body language and eye contact.

For parents who feared their daughters would lose their voices to outspoken boys, it was clear at Entrepreneurial Night that those voices were definitely present, loud and strong.

Of course, there were still nerves. As the young entrepreneurs filed into Hahn Auditorium, some closed their eyes and did breathing exercises. GMS parent and entrepreneurial coach Roberta Friedman cheered on her charges.

“You’ll be fine! You guys know what you’re doing!,” she reassured them.

The presentations covered the basics of the product, the girls’ journey from conception to execution, competition and a proposal to the VCs for a $100 loan with the promise of full repayment, plus three percent of their total profit. Some girls spoke clearly and confidently, while others were visibly nervous and stumbled. However, overall, the girls exuded professionalism with a healthy dose of endearing, preadolescent charm.

One Pillow Pockets VP assessed her products’ main competition — Pillow Pets.

“They’re a pillow and a pet,” she declared. “But we’re a pillow, a pet and a pocket!”

Another startup, CTRL + ALT + DEL explained the story behind its name. The girls recycle old keyboard keys and remote control buttons to make jewelry and key chains.

“Somebody asked for a CTRL + ALT + DEL pin to wear during meetings but we had no idea what that meant because we all have Macs,” the girl stated matter-of-factly. However, they liked the name so much, they adopted it.

In the end, each VC invests in two startups — with everyone receiving funding. So not exactly the ending for every Silicon Valley startup, but it’s certainly a nice beginning.

No need to show you the video, since you’ve already seen it, over and over.

But perhaps you’re like me, and have never seen the previous reigning champ: Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” So here you go:

And here’s a chart from YouTube-tracker ChannelMeter, which shows how Psy’s crazily fast ascent hasn’t tailed off in the last month. ChannelMeter figures the clip has been generating some 6 million views a day since its debut in July, while Bieber gets about 400,000 — he’s been around for nearly two years.

ChannelMeter predicts Gangnam will hit the billion mark on December 16.

What does it all mean? I assume many crappy thesis papers on that subject are being cranked out right now, but my hunch is that the answer is something like: YouTube is very big + K-pop is very big + YouTube is very big with Asians and Asian-Americans + random chance.

Fun thought experiment: Get in the way-back machine and imagine that we had YouTube in 1994. How much bigger does the Macarena get?

And if you end up at LiveNation.com today, you’ll probably end up doing the same thing. But the live events giant is hoping that you’ll start doing more there, as a result of a site overhaul. It’s supposed to give you a reason to stay longer, and maybe even pay a visit when you’re not going to pay for a show.

As always, it’s a lot easier for you to visit the site than for me to try to explain what it looks like.

That said, there are a couple of things you’ll want to pay attention to when you’re there: There’s a lot more video and other material produced by Live Nation itself, in cooperation with the performers it is doing business with. And there’s a lot of stuff produced by fans themselves, who are now generating content for the site without knowing it.

That second feature is what Live Nation is calling “Showbook,” and it’s quite clever. It harvests photos that fans have taken of a particular event, then posted to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., collects them in one place, and sorts them by date and show. It works as a preview for the show you’re going to see, and a reason to come back after, because you can see your pictures, and lots of pictures from people just like you.

This seems straightforward to an ignoramus like me, but Eric Garland, who heads up Live Nation’s digital team, assures me that it’s not.

Head over to the listing for Justin Bieber’s upcoming show in New York for a good example.

The idea, says Garland, who came aboard last year when Live Nation bought his BigChampagne entertainment data company, is that while all of that stuff might be of interest to your Facebook friends, Twitter pals, etc., most of them probably don’t care about it at all.

Meanwhile, there are lots of people who don’t know you, but who do love Bieber, and they’d like to see your snapshots: “We’re bringing all of those moments together in the right rooms, for the right people.”

The challenge for Garland and his group will be convincing people that they should be checking out LiveNation.com more than a couple times a year, when they want to buy a ticket. Right now the site gets around three million visitors a month.

One of the reasons music sites have struggled to get scale on the Web in general is that unlike “TV” or “sports,” most people aren’t fans of “music” — they like specific bands and specific genres.

So if they’re Bieber believers or crusty Neil Young fans or whatever, they end up on sites that cater to that narrow band. But Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino figures there’s still an open space for him to create a consumer brand that people associate with “live entertainment,” and the site overhaul is supposed to be a first step toward that.

We’ll be talking with Rapino in February at our Dive Into Media conference, so we can check up on the strategy then.

How did I miss this fantastic holiday commercial for Macy’s, featuring teen heartthrob and singing sensation Justin Bieber?

Called “Screamers,” it’s a very sly take on the proclivity of people to emit high-pitched utterances around the Biebs.

But this time, it works.

Adorkable all around:

A neat karaoke iPhone app called StarMaker will let you lay down your voice to today’s hottest pop songs, with a little — or a lot of — help from instant Auto-Tune. Then you can submit your track to the greater StarMaker community, and win prizes for your natural-born and/or computer-aided talent.

Due in part to its founders’ history doing brand promotions in the music industry, the seed-funded, 10-employee StarMaker Interactive already has music licenses from the major labels, including EMI, Sony, Warner and Universal. The company’s current catalog isn’t huge — about 500 songs — but it contains Justin Bieber and Rihanna, plus karaoke favorites like “Baby Got Back.” Tracks, which come with timed lyrics, instrumentals and guide vocals within the app, cost less than a dollar each.

StarMaker CEO Jeff Daniel showed off how his flagship app works in a video interview this week, and he didn’t even blink when I asked him to sing for us.

Daniel isn’t sharing too many usage stats just yet, but StarMaker is one of the top App Store free music offerings, with millions of recordings made per month, he said. Users tend to upload the same song over and over again as they perfect their performance, which Daniel described as a show of true fandom that he thinks will help continue to convince labels that licensing music to StarMaker is a good idea.

StarMaker gives out prizes every two weeks, based on user votes, with a current contest sponsored by Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales candies. Upcoming features will make StarMaker feel more like a game, with user feedback and scores on vocal skills, Daniel said.

Users can’t yet download their masterpieces as MP3s, but they can stream them and share them on Facebook and Twitter. (Here’s a link to a user profile page with a particularly good rendition of “DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love” that the StarMaker folks recommended.)

San Francisco-based StarMaker is seed funded by investors including Qualcomm Ventures and Grupo Reforma Ventures.

I also recently interviewed another karaoke start-up called Singboard, which incorporates official music videos.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110902/play-american-idol-from-the-comfort-of-your-phone-with-starmaker-karaoke-app/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110406/viral-video-thats-why-the-lady-is-a-bieber/ http://allthingsd.com/20110406/viral-video-thats-why-the-lady-is-a-bieber/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:02:28 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42383

As many know, BoomTown is a Belieber.

Which, loosely translated, means I love me some Justin Bieber.

Which is why this video of a woman who looks exactly like him is so obvi compelling. It’s both disturbing and hilarious.

Here’s Dani Shay’s parody of Bieber’s hit song “Baby”:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110406/viral-video-thats-why-the-lady-is-a-bieber/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110329/how-about-dontvoteforme-so-boomtown-gets-the-no-140-spot-in-times-tweet-off/ http://allthingsd.com/20110329/how-about-dontvoteforme-so-boomtown-gets-the-no-140-spot-in-times-tweet-off/#comments Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:35:45 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=42086

Yes, it is perverse, but I really want to come in dead last in Time magazine’s “140 Best Twitter Feeds.”

Why? Well, there’s no way I am getting near the top with the likes of Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga in the same list, so I felt the 140th–get it?–slot on a Twitter poll is the next best thing to aim for.

Here’s the deal, according to the magazine’s Web site:

“TIME picks the 140 Twitter feeds that are shaping the conversation. Take a look and vote on whether you think these top tweeters should be on our list.”

The list is split up into categories, such as authors (Neil Gaiman, who is #1, and Margaret Atwood), celebrities (Gaga and the inevitable Justin Bieber) and companies (Zappos and Whole Foods).

There is also a technology group, with luminaries such as New York VC Fred Wilson, man-about-Web Kevin Rose and, of course, the King of Tweets Robert Scoble.

I am in that group too, with the description: “When this woman reports a rumor, you can pretty much count on it to be true.”

Thanks…I think–although I prefer to call it reporting a fact.

In any case, early on, I was doing badly in the voting–as I had hoped and is entirely correct considering I am unknown to anyone but certain geeks–and was right near the bottom with some suspect deal sites.

But by last night, GigaOm’s Om Malik had dropped below me, along with Wilson. I was at the unacceptable 131 spot.

This will not stand! Thus, so I can shoot the moon, I urge everyone to vote for:

132 Mike Allen
133 Om Malik
134 Amazon Deals
135 Fred Wilson
136 DealDivine
137 Nieman Lab
138 Best Buy Deals
139 Coupons.com
140 Steven Johnson

A well-known writer and entrepreneur, Johnson has 1.4 million followers on Twitter and does not deserve this ignominious loss as much as me.

Tweet that.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110329/how-about-dontvoteforme-so-boomtown-gets-the-no-140-spot-in-times-tweet-off/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110211/viral-video-never-say-never-to-bieber/ http://allthingsd.com/20110211/viral-video-never-say-never-to-bieber/#comments Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:14:44 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=40719

Guess what movie BoomTown is being force-marched to this weekend by the Swisher boys?

Not just “Gnomeo & Juliet,” but the debut of the Justin Bieber movie hagiography “Never Say Never” in 3-D is much on the list I was presented without any ability to negotiate terms.

Now I’m a BeLieber.

Oddly enough, I am looking forward to it, because it’s looks charming and has gotten some pretty good reviews. Also, there is the hair.

Enjoy one of the trailers–this one has gotten close to 150 million views on YouTube:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110211/viral-video-never-say-never-to-bieber/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110119/theres-a-one-in-200-chance-youre-tweeting-from-inside-justin-bieber/ http://allthingsd.com/20110119/theres-a-one-in-200-chance-youre-tweeting-from-inside-justin-bieber/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:28:40 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=28262 From the “awesome to know, now what?” file: Something like one out of every 200 Twitter users claims to be filing their dispatches from Justin Bieber.

Or at least somewhere very close to the teen idol: Some Twitter users report that they are located “in Justin Biebers heart” or “Bieberacademy” or “Bieberville, California.” That comes from a new study from the august Palo Alto Research Center, which had an intern comb through the “Location” fields on 10,000 Twitter user profiles.

The PARC report says that 66 percent of users filled in the field with “valid” information. Another 18 percent left it blank altogether, and 16 percent used it to make a joke and/or an expression of their Bieberlove.

But even that 66 percent number is a bit misleading, since “valid” is a very vague term. Check out this great deadpan:

This includes those who merely entered their continent and, more commonly, those who entered geographic information in highly vernacular forms. For example, one user wrote that s/he is from “kcmo–call da po po”. Our coders were able to determine this user meant “Kansas City, Missouri”, and thus this entry was rated as valid geographic information (indicating a location at a city scale).

Big picture: The PARC report explains convincingly that you shouldn’t take the self-reported geographic information in Twitter profiles at face value. And, I’d argue, that extends to the rest of the information as well. On the other hand, if you’re an advertiser trying to find a lot of Justin Bieber fans, this stuff may be very, very useful.

(Thanks to YouTube’s Hunter Walk for the tip. Via Twitter, of course.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110119/theres-a-one-in-200-chance-youre-tweeting-from-inside-justin-bieber/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110112/andrew-masons-goat-rodeo-of-groupon-investors-will-be-fun-to-watch/ http://allthingsd.com/20110112/andrew-masons-goat-rodeo-of-groupon-investors-will-be-fun-to-watch/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:01:22 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=39446

Next week, at the DLD conference in Munich, Germany, BoomTown will be interviewing one of my favorite start-up CEOs: Andrew Mason of Groupon.

And what’s my very first question for the adorkable toast of the digital town, who has just collected a billion dollars in funding, giving his hot social buying site a $4.75 billion valuation?

No, it’s not about what Mason is going to do with all that moolah.

Not, it’s not about why Groupon spurned the $6 billion acquisition offer from Google (and the Yahoo one before that).

No, it’s not about what hair care products Mason uses to get his hair looking so much like Justin Bieber’s coif.

Most of all, what I want to know is how he’s going to manage his ridiculously large–and, let’s be honest, very opinionated–investor group, which is made up of a big chunk of the digital arena’s most prominent VC firms, institutional investors and angels.

Consider the list, which is much more diverse than Facebook’s at a similar time in its gestation (and, in fact, it feels a lot like the social networking site’s current investor stampede):

Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mail.ru Group (formerly DST Global), Maverick Capital, Silver Lake, and Technology Crossover Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Capital Group, Morgan Stanley, former AOL exec Ted Leonsis and others.

(How in the world is the ubiquitous Ron Conway not shoved in this pig pile? Or is he?)

And, of course, the inevitable Allen & Company acted as financial advisor for this massive funding, which also feels like a bit of a private pre-IPO.

It will be interesting to see exactly whom among this shareholder group that Mason and the other top Groupon execs will listen to and who will have the most influence over the next year.

None of the new moneybags got a board seat, which is probably a good thing. As most entrepreneurs know all too well, investors can be a tricky thing–at once helpful and then not so much.

Mason, a clearly gifted exec, certainly has his hands full now, managing expectations for the fast-growing company, as well as the business itself.

Let’s hope that now that this surreal investor sideshow circus is over, that Groupon’s precious time can be focused on just that.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110112/andrew-masons-goat-rodeo-of-groupon-investors-will-be-fun-to-watch/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101217/viral-video-ustreams-top-10-of-2010-from-chilean-miners-to-bieber/ http://allthingsd.com/20101217/viral-video-ustreams-top-10-of-2010-from-chilean-miners-to-bieber/#comments Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:02:27 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38738

Here’s a really fun video of Ustream’s top 10 live moments of 2010.

The most-watched stream was, no surprise, the rescue of the Chilean miners, but Justin Bieber and Kayne West also scored.

The winners on the live video platform include, in descending order:

10. Disneyland’s “World of Color” Live
9. Golden Globe Awards Red Carpet Live
8. Ochocinco’s Live Date
7. Taylor Swift’s Exclusive Album Announcement
6. “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” Premiere Live
5. Kanye West’s First Ustream
4. Justin Bieber on AMAs Backstage Live
3. Snoop Dogg’s Live Mafia Wars Stunt
2. Paul McCartney’s Live Chat With Fans
1. Live Chilean Miner Rescue

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101217/viral-video-ustreams-top-10-of-2010-from-chilean-miners-to-bieber/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101215/d-dive-into-mobile-the-full-interview-video-of-foursquares-dennis-crowley/ http://allthingsd.com/20101215/d-dive-into-mobile-the-full-interview-video-of-foursquares-dennis-crowley/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 17:05:57 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=38555 As promised, All Things Digital will be publishing the full videos of the interviews we did last week at our D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco.

The first extension of the event, it produced some very newsy sessions. We’ll be posting them all this week and next.

Today, we check in–ha, ha, get it?–with Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley (pictured here).

The co-founder and CEO of the popular social geolocation service was actually quite up-front about a wide range of topics, from acquisition interest to Foursquare’s recent funding to an analysis of the increasing competition for the innovative mobile service.

Crowley also talked a lot about where Foursquare is heading as a business.

And he took it well when BoomTown compared his hairdo to Justin Bieber’s.

Here’s the video:

Next up: Spotify’s Daniel Ek!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101215/d-dive-into-mobile-the-full-interview-video-of-foursquares-dennis-crowley/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101214/hit-me-up-was-facebooks-breakout-slang-in-2010/ http://allthingsd.com/20101214/hit-me-up-was-facebooks-breakout-slang-in-2010/#comments Tue, 14 Dec 2010 08:00:18 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1211 I suppose I’m a sucker for year-end trend lists, given I’ve written up reports about trends from YouTube, Twitter and Google in just the last few days. In short: Bieber, Bieber, Bieber.

Next up is Facebook, which offers aggregated data about trends in the status updates posted by its members, including their activity around major news events and their usage of slang.

The best anecdote from the bit is about a newly popular acronym on Facebook, “HMU.” This comes after Facebook noted in 2009 the growth of the trendy whine “FML. (Explanation: We’ll leave the “F” open to your imagination, but the “ML” stand for “My Life.”) Here’s the whole explanation of HMU by Facebook data scientist Lars Backstrom:

The shorthand for “hit me up” was this year’s biggest surprise. In early 2009, the acronym HMU was virtually unheard of. Only a few posts a day contained HMU, and half of them were probably typos. By May, however, it started to grow slowly and was averaging about 20 posts a day. The volume roughly doubled every month, and by the end of 2009 it had risen to 1,600 posts a day–too modest of a number to be on our radar for last year’s list.

However, HMU continued to grow aggressively throughout 2010, increasing by about 75 percent each month. By the end of summer, HMU reached 80,000 mentions per day.

In early September, an interesting pattern emerged in how people use HMU. Until that point, it was spreading like wildfire, but was being used with roughly equal frequency throughout the week. In September this changed, as usage rates started going through huge swings from day to day. The reason? Before September the demographic most likely to ask their friends to “HMU” was on summer break and looking to hang out most nights. Then many of these folks headed back to school, and HMU became a weekend-oriented request.

Some notable stats from the Facebook 2010 roundup:

• At key moments in certain games during the World Cup, as many as 50 percent of all new status updates were World Cup-related.
• “Toy Story 3″ was the movie most mentioned in status updates, followed by “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” “Inception,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Iron Man 2.”
• Mentions of the iPad and iPhone 4 accounted for 25 million total Facebook status updates. (I’m not sure what the total number of status updates for the year was.)
• A day after the Haiti earthquake Facebook was receiving 1,800 posts per minute on the topic.
• Yes, Bieber. People talked about the teenage pop star throughout the year, but the single greatest statused-about Bieber moment was the MTV Video Music Awards.
• Facebook could identify 33 separate activity spikes for when each of the Chilean miners was rescued.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101214/hit-me-up-was-facebooks-breakout-slang-in-2010/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101213/youtube-in-2010-gregory-brothers-top-indie-chart-bieber-crushes-all/ http://allthingsd.com/20101213/youtube-in-2010-gregory-brothers-top-indie-chart-bieber-crushes-all/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:10:57 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1174 “Hide your kids, hide your wife!”–a remixed interview from a local news report was the most-watched YouTube video of 2010 (excepting major label music videos through Vevo). The catchy “Bed Intruder Song,” made by the Gregory Brothers in collaboration with accidental lyricist Antoine Dodson, has been watched more than 47 million times since being posted this summer.

In second place on YouTube’s annual Rewind list is Key of Awesome’s parody of Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok,” with 51 million views since being released in February. (The original music video by Ke$ha herself has only 34 million views on YouTube.)

And third is sixth-grader Greyson Chance’s school performance of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi,” which blew up online and scored him a record deal with Ellen DeGeneres. It’s been seen 34 million times since April.

Both the Gregory Brothers and Key of Awesome are affiliated with independent (though closely aligned with YouTube) video shop Next New Networks. And it’s notable that every one of the top three videos is musical–an original, a parody and a cover song–with two of them taking inspiration from current songs by pop stars.

Also on the 2010 most-watched Top 10: YouTube star Annoying Orange, advertising phenomenon the Old Spice guy, the Double Rainbow guy, an OK Go music video (the band left its label deal after a YouTube embedding rights spat), the “Twilight: Eclipse” trailer, a Jimmy Kimmel short involving Justin Bieber and a stunt-driving video by Ken Block.

YouTube split out major label music videos, as their viewing numbers are in a different stratosphere. Plus, the top-watched music videos list is more boring, with Bieber, Shakira, Eminem and Lady Gaga accounting for all 10 spots (and Bieber, who was discovered through YouTube, taking four of the top 10). Bieber’s video for his song “Baby,” which took the top spot, has been seen more than 408 million times since February.

Aside from videos, YouTube also released some additional stats, including its most-searched-for terms by month. YouTube has been measured as the top U.S. search engine after Google itself.

January – Haiti
February – Luge
March – eclipse trailer
April – iPad
May – Eminem Not Afraid
June – shakira waka waka
July – double rainbow
August – bed intruder
September – halo reach
October – whip my hair
November – firework

And lastly, YouTube also launched today a site aimed at the media called YouTube Trends, which explains the most viral content on the site at any one time.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101213/youtube-in-2010-gregory-brothers-top-indie-chart-bieber-crushes-all/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101213/shocking-bieber-upset-oil-spill-tops-twitters-2010-trends/ http://allthingsd.com/20101213/shocking-bieber-upset-oil-spill-tops-twitters-2010-trends/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:00:33 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1147 Although World Cup tweeting caused record high volume and infrastructure demands on Twitter, the most-discussed topic on Twitter in 2010 was actually the Gulf oil spill, said the San Francisco-based company tonight. The South Africa-hosted World Cup came in at No. 2.

(Of course, Twitter hasn’t revealed the secret formulas that helped it aggregate, tabulate and rank these topics.)

In the Twitterverse, after the BP oil spill and soccer, the next most popular topic of conversation in 2010 was the movie “Inception,” followed by the Haiti earthquake and the vuvuzela. The iPad, Android, Justin Bieber, Harry Potter and Pulpo Paul round out the top 10. It’s an odd list, indeed.

The person most discussed on Twitter in 2010 was obviously he of the dedicated servers, Mr. Bieber. (It’s somewhat shocking that world events and tech gadgets were able to keep the teen phenom out of the overall top spot.) Beating out her royal highness Lady Gaga, the No. 2 person on Twitter was Brazilian president-elect Dilma Rousseff (pictured).

Here’s the full 2010 list, courtesy of Twitter, followed by 2009′s list for comparison.

2010 Twitter Trends

Overall Top Trends:
1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

News Events:
1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. Haiti Earthquake
3. Pakistan Floods
4. Koreas Conflict
5. Chilean Miners Rescue

People:
1. Justin Bieber
2. Dilma Rousseff
3. Lady Gaga
4. Julian Assange
5. Mel Gibson

Movies:
1. Inception
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
4. Despicable Me
5. Karate Kid

Television:
1. MTV Video Music Awards
2. Pretty Little Liars
3. True Blood
4. Walking Dead
5. Grammy Awards

Technology:
1. Apple iPad
2. Google Android
3. Apple iOS
4. Apple iPhone
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops

World Cup:
1. FIFA World Cup
2. Vuvuzela
3. Pulpo Paul
4. Dunga
5. Diego Maradona

Sports:
1. LeBron James
2. Wimbledon
3. Manchester United
4. Brock Lesnar
5. Celtics

Hash Tags:
1. #rememberwhen
2. #slapyourself
3. #confessiontime (hash tag started by Usher)
4. #thingsimiss
5. #ohjustlikeme

2009 Twitter Trends

News Events:
1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09

People:
1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale
10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)

Movies:
1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe

TV Shows:
1. American Idol
2. Glee
3. Teen Choice Awards
4. SNL (Saturday Night Live)
5. Dollhouse
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. VMAS (Video Music Awards)
8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica)
9. BET Awards
10. Lost

Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues):
1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees
10. Liverpool

Technology:
1. Google Wave
2. Snow Leopard
3. Tweetdeck
4. Windows 7
5. CES
6. Palm Pre
7. Google Latitude
8. #E3
9. #amazonfail
10. Macworld

Hash Tags:
1. #musicmonday
2. #iranelection
3. #sxsw
4. #swineflu
5. #nevertrust
6. #mm
7. #rememberwhen
8. #3drunkwords
9. #unacceptable
10. #iwish

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101213/shocking-bieber-upset-oil-spill-tops-twitters-2010-trends/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101209/viral-video-2010-as-told-through-google-products/ http://allthingsd.com/20101209/viral-video-2010-as-told-through-google-products/#comments Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:10:29 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=1084 For 2010, Google dressed up its annual Zeitgeist list of fastest-rising search terms with nifty HTML5 data visualizations and a music video that sums up the year while simultaneously demonstrating uses of all sorts of Google products, including new ones like Google Instant search, voice dialing in Gmail and YouTube Leanback:

Google says its single fastest-rising search term of the year was “Chatroulette,” which peaked way back in March. However, it appears from the explainer page that Google may have included searches for the generic term “chat” in the category.

Also on the fastest-rising list (as compared with 2009′s) were the iPad; pop stars Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry; the social sites Twitter and Facebook; the ringtone site Myxer; and the game sites Friv (extremely popular in Albania and Colombia) and GameZer (big in the Middle East). Less popular this year were swine flu, New Moon and Myspace Layouts.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101209/viral-video-2010-as-told-through-google-products/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101129/googles-groupon-offer-5-3-billion-with-700-million-earnout/ http://allthingsd.com/20101129/googles-groupon-offer-5-3-billion-with-700-million-earnout/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 2010 06:58:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=37775

According to sources close to the situation, Google has offered $5.3 billion for Groupon, in what would be its largest acquisition yet, if completed.

Sources said the deal for the Chicago-based social buying site seems likely to be struck, even as early as tomorrow, although it certainly could fall apart right up to the end.

But, if done, it will move the search giant instantly to the top spot in local commerce online and give it huge troves of data about consumer buying habits and merchant information across the globe.

Combined with its pending $700 million acquisition of ITA Software, the travel data firm, that should freak out regulators worldwide and could be considered Google’s own version of a jobs plan for antitrust lawyers.

That said, it is a killer move for Google–despite the high price–given it has long tried to enter the local advertising space, with decidedly mixed results.

With its more than $33 billion in cash and strong stock, it had previously tried to buy local reviews site Yelp, in a deal that fell apart for reasons that are still unclear.

In contrast, Groupon, founded in 2008, has taken off like a Roman candle and dominates the huge market for social shopping and discounting.

While the $6 billion Google is considering paying seems high, Groupon’s fast-growing revenue and profitability make its multiples less daunting, said those familiar with the matter.

It will certainly be a big payoff for Groupon’s investors, including Silicon Valley’s Accel Partners, as well as Battery Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Russia’s DST Global.

Groupon has gleaned about $170 million in venture funding from them, most of which it has not needed.

That’s because it has reportedly attracted upward of $50 million in monthly revenue.

It has done this by offering “daily deals”–getting a massive discount from local retailers in return for delivering customers via marketing via email and on social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter.

Typically, local merchants rely on less effective newspaper circulars or paper couponing.

In what will certainly be one of the deal’s ironies, Google could own a start-up that is largely powered by rival Facebook’s massive skein of social networking connections.

Facebook, of course, recently introduced its own Facebook Deals offering.

BoomTown first wrote about the deal discussions between Groupon and Google two weeks ago, noting the price would be well above the $2 billion to $3 billion offered by Yahoo.

That interest from Yahoo, which was first to sniff around the fast-growing social buying site, was first reported here too–mostly because I apparently like to stalk Groupon CEO and Justin Bieber lookalike Andrew Mason.

(And I will personally be fascinated to see how he’ll mesh with Marissa Mayer, the former search experience head who is now leading local for Google.)

The New York Times–which does not ever seem able to give credit, as All Things Digital and other blogs always do happily and without fuss–is also reporting a $6 billion price tag for Groupon.

While we all await the outcome of this potential blockbuster of a deal, here is a video interview I did with Mason this summer in Vancouver, where I asked him specifically about Google’s interest (actually, I suggested he mug Google co-founder Larry Page for dough).

Note the Bieber haircut:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101129/googles-groupon-offer-5-3-billion-with-700-million-earnout/feed/ 30 http://allthingsd.com/20101129/twitter-gets-a-hollywood-guy-omid-ashtari/ http://allthingsd.com/20101129/twitter-gets-a-hollywood-guy-omid-ashtari/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:58:54 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=835 Twitter has hired its first official liaison to the stars: Creative Artists Agency veteran Omid Ashtari. His first day at the microblogging service was today.

Ashtari told me he is “going to be Twitter’s L.A. person” and will be dealing with media companies and celebrities. His role is not yet fully defined, but he said he sees opportunities for famous people to better use the Twitter platform.

Twitter confirmed the hire tonight, saying in an email that Ashtari’s assignment is “Entertainment Business Development” and that he “will lead efforts to assist the entertainment industry, including actors, musicians, and athletes, to make sure they are getting the most out of their use of Twitter. Omid will be based in Los Angeles, CA, but the scope of the job is global.”

Celebrity usage is a huge part of Twitter, of course, with well-known tweeting stars like Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber employing the platform to give millions of followers a real-time window into their lives.

That has happened mostly organically. Twitter has hosted many visiting celebs and dignitaries at its offices, and participated in tweet integration for events like the MTV Video Music Awards, but it has never dedicated personnel to famous people.

Ashtari left CAA late last year, after serving as an agent and a business development exec for nearly 10 years. At CAA, he negotiated deals for high-profile original Web video projects, such as Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” and “Gemini Division,” starring Rosario Dawson.

After that he caught the digital media bug and sought to get more involved in the tech world. This fall he joined ScreenTribe, a social television company trying to build on its early success with an Apple iPhone TV guide app.

Ashtari joins Twitter’s media and business development team led by Chloe Sladden and Robin Sloan.

You can follow him on Twitter here.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101129/twitter-gets-a-hollywood-guy-omid-ashtari/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20101129/bing-search-trends-the-year-of-the-kardashian/ http://allthingsd.com/20101129/bing-search-trends-the-year-of-the-kardashian/#comments Mon, 29 Nov 2010 18:51:19 +0000 Voices http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=33203 It’s that time of year again when we are privy to a peek (disturbing as it may be) into society’s collective news appetite as reflected by the year’s search trends. Today, Microsoft’s Bing offered its insights. While last year’s top search queries included serious topics like the stock market, swine flu and Michael Jackson, this year’s Top 10 is almost all celebrity names. The single most popular search on Bing in 2010: Kim Kardashian, by a wide margin over No. 2, Sandra Bullock. The list from there: 3. Tiger Woods; 4. Lady Gaga; 5. Barack Obama; 6. Hairstyles; 7. Kate Gosselin (the sole repeater from last year); 8. Walmart; 9. Justin Bieber; and 10. Free.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101129/bing-search-trends-the-year-of-the-kardashian/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101126/target-buys-black-friday-from-twitter-but-wal-mart-gets-justin-bieber/ http://allthingsd.com/20101126/target-buys-black-friday-from-twitter-but-wal-mart-gets-justin-bieber/#comments Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:52:02 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=26361 You don’t have to go near a big-box store or an e-commerce site today to watch a Black Friday brawl. Just head to Twitter.

Once you’re there, you’ll see that “Black Friday” is the day’s Promoted Trend. And if you click on the term, you’ll see that Target has purchased the phrase for the day. Which means that anyone who clicks through will see this ad/Tweet:

And then lots of other Twitter chatter about Target.

Don’t know what Target paid for the privilege, but it seems like a reasonably good way to deploy marketing money.

Except! Scan down the list of the day’s other top trends–the phrases that Twitter doesn’t sell, but are based on whatever Twitterers are Tweeting about–and you’ll see that Wal-Mart makes the list, too. How’d that happen?

Twitter PR tells me that “Walmart=organic.” Which is pretty funny to type, but not exactly true.

Because I’m pretty sure the reason that Wal-Mart is a trending topic today is that Justin Bieber, who has more than six million followers on Twitter, Tweeted about it:

So that’s not the same as “Wal-Mart” simply bubbling up because lots of Twitter users are talking about it without prompting.

There’s almost certainly a commercial relationship between Bieber (or, more likely, Universal Music Group, his label) and Wal-Mart. And that’s why Bieber (or, more likely, someone he pays to type out Tweets) is Tweeting about Wal-Mart instead of Target or Best Buy or… what other stores still sell music these days?

But since Twitter itself isn’t making money off  the transaction, the Twitter folks can count it as “organic.”

Question for another time: If Justin Bieber–or his label, or Wal-Mart–is going to use Twitter to advertise goods and services, why doesn’t Twitter make money from that?

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101126/target-buys-black-friday-from-twitter-but-wal-mart-gets-justin-bieber/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20101101/viral-video-biebermania-and-yes-its-in-3d/ http://allthingsd.com/20101101/viral-video-biebermania-and-yes-its-in-3d/#comments Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:13:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=36544

Here’s the new trailer for the documentary “Never Say Never,” about the mop-topped, teenage singing sensation named Justin Bieber.

Given BoomTown’s advanced age, not getting this musical phenom is no surprise. But it is kind of remarkable to see what a good drummer Bieber was as a toddler.

The movie is out in February–on Valentine’s Day, natch.

Enjoy:

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