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Shocking Bieber Upset: Oil Spill Tops Twitter's 2010 Trends

Liz Gannes — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:00:33 +0000

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

Viral Video: 2010 As Told Through Google Products

Liz Gannes — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:10:29 +0000

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.

Microsoft to Newspaper Publishers: Seriously. We're Not Bailing You Out.

Peter Kafka — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:56:27 +0000

Just in case newspaper publishers are still fantasizing about cashing big Bill Gates checks in exchange for bailing on Google, Microsoft wants to be clear: Don’t count on us.

Yes, there could be some kind of deal between Microsoft (MSFT) and some publishers. And yes, that might involve some kind of payment. But the company is signaling, loud and clear, that it’s not going to pay the huge sums necessary to fund a real Google (GOOG) boycott.

That’s what All Things Digital reported last week. And that’s what the Associated Press echoed in a subsequent story this week. And that’s what Microsoft said today, more or less. Except this time it was on the record.

Here’s Satya Nadella, who heads up R&D for Microsoft’s Online Services Division–i.e., Bing–at a San Francisco press conference, per Kara Swisher’s account:

Then comes a question about premium, or “non-Google,” content. Nadella avoids the question, and instead focuses on “scaffolding” the data.

“We’re not as focused on getting exclusive content,” he says flatly. Uh-oh, publishers! As I reported, Microsoft is not forking over the dough.

…Nadella gets another question about paying to de-index Google.

“There is no real intent here that is focused on getting a whole bunch of content that is de-indexed from Google,” he said.

Nadella went on to say that Microsoft is happy to feature different kinds of content, as a way of differentiating itself from Google. Like the work it already does with the Mayo Clinic on health searches: Plug in “swine flu” and you’ll see information from the clinic prominently featured, via a licensing deal.

But that’s a far cry from handing over a sack of cash in exchange for abandoning Google altogether.

Obligatory “to be sure” graf: Say Microsoft was interested in handing over sacks of cash to publishers like News Corp. (NWS), which owns The Wall Street Journal (as well as this site). You wouldn’t hear Redmond bellowing that out loud, anyway.

That’s certainly what the News Corp. folks hope. Or alternately, they’re hoping that all this talk of a Microsoft-publisher alliance spooks Google. But, as the tough guys like to say, hope is not a plan.

AT&T Dead Last in Consumer Reports Survey

John Paczkowski — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:00:15 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

A Bing Bug? If Not, How Did This Dude Beat Out Megan Fox and the Even Prettier Robert Pattinson for Most-Searched Celeb?

Kara Swisher — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:25:39 +0000

Since Bing only debuted at mid-year (and launched at the D: All Things Digital conference too), BoomTown is willing to cut it some slack.

Until the Microsoft (MSFT) search service revealed on its blog last night that Perez Hilton–the irksome entertainment gossip blogger–beat out “Transformers” hottie Megan Fox and “Twilight” hottie-er Robert Pattinson for the top celebrity searched using Bing in 2009.

Clearly, its algorithm needs some tweaking by real people.

Bing is the first of the top search lists to come up for 2009, to be followed soon by Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO).

“If you’re curious how we determined the top searches, we analyzed billions of search queries and developed the list based on searches made with Bing,” wrote Bing GM Danielle Tiedt.

“Not surprisingly, we saw a lot of folks using Bing for quick access to favorite sites like Facebook, MSN, YouTube and Craigslist. We also saw a lot of more complex searches such as product related queries in which people used Bing to help decide what MP3 player to buy and travel searches to help find the best deals on a tropical vacation.”

But this time of year, it is mostly about the lists, so Bing noted that Michael Jackson–no surprise–was the top trending topic, followed in order by: Twitter, swine flu, stock market, Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Cash for Clunkers, Jon and Kate Gosselin, Billy Mays and Jaycee Dugard.

In other words, Bing users are celebrity death-obsessed, econalypse-worried, plague-wary people who cannot be without information about the worst married couple ever.

Cybercrime Capitalizes on Swine-Flu Fears

Marisa Taylor — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:48:13 +0000

Cybercriminals are capitalizing on swine-flu fears by pitching sales of fake Tamiflu, security firm Sophos said.

Networks of fraudsters use spam and malware to direct Web traffic to phony pharmaceutical sites, wrote Graham Cluley, a technology consultant for Sophos.

“Although unwitting buyers do often receive some kind of drug as result of the transactional exchange, at best the drug doesn’t work and at worse it can pose serious health risks,” he added. Cybercriminals are “putting their customers’ health, personal information and credit card details at risk” with these counterfeit versions of Tamiflu.

Many of these fraudulent pharmaceutical sites originate in Russia, Sophos’s Dmitry Samosseiko noted in a paper on the topic. One network called GlavMed, for example, has more than 120,000 online pharmacy sites selling generic drugs under the name of Canadian Pharmacy.

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App Watch: A Mobile Swine Flu Tracker

Andrew LaVallee — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:40:15 +0000

The creators of HealthMap, a Web site that aggregates disease information world-wide, have created an iPhone application that lets consumers keep tabs on nearby outbreaks and submit reports of their own.

Outbreaks Near Me includes a map that is updated hourly with reports from more than 30,000 information sources. Users can sign up for alerts on specific diseases, such as swine flu, and see where outbreaks are occurring.

John Brownstein, an assistant professor at Children’s Hospital Boston and one of HealthMap’s creators, said the goal of the free app isn’t to spark panic about the H1N1 virus. “In no way are we trying to tell people not to go into certain areas,” he said. On the other hand, if a serious outbreak occurred, the app could help notify users and get information to them quickly.

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Could Swine Flu Take the Internet Down?

Matthew Rivera — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:59:39 +0000

If the H1N1 swine-flu pandemic arrives this fall, one thing that may break under the strain is the Internet. Emergency planners say that school-age children and telecommuting adults could be accessing the network simultaneously, potentially overloading the public Internet’s capacity.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates absenteeism during a pandemic could peak at 50 percent during a six-week period. Many businesses have created emergency plans that assume that absent employees will be able to work from home. It’s not clear, however, that the Internet will behave in a crisis the way it does during typical days.

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DOJ Checking Out Google Books Settlement

John Paczkowski — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:00:25 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Tracking Swine Flu on Google, Twitter

Marisa Taylor — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:00:24 +0000

In the wake of the outbreak of swine flu, a debate is emerging as to whether social networking sites and technology are just creating panic rather than helping the populace stay informed.

On Twitter, the terms “swine flu,” “#swineflu,” “CDC” and “Mexico” were among the top phrases used on the social messaging service on Monday, after the U.S. declared a public health emergency.

Google.org (GOOG) introduced Google Flu Trends at the end of 2008 as a way to keep Internet users informed about flu trends more rapidly than with traditional surveillance from the Centers for Disease Control. And with this recent outbreak, users can also use Google Maps to track the spread of swine flu as cases are reported across the world.

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