Twitter Tells Tall Tales

Do you believe everything you read on Twitter? You shouldn't. Since Twitter was created, there have been several hoaxes that have made it to top trends. In 2009, "RIP Kanye West" soared to the top of the trends, when Kanye West was, in fact, still very alive. Perhaps this occurred as a result of West angering Taylor Swift fans at the VMAs that year. Regardless of why it started,  the rumor spread to thousands of people in just a short amount of time. This week, for whatever reason, "RIP Jackie Chan" is a trending topic.

People seem to create rumors about anything. There are several instances of false AMBER alerts as top trends. These rumors spread so quickly because Twitter users will re-tweet something without doing their own research on the subject. It's easier just to believe what someone says is true, and simply re-tweet it. The Kanye West trend was the first big rumor I experienced since joining Twitter, and since then, I Google all topics before re-tweeting them to my followers.

Why do you think people re-tweet false statements without first looking into them?

Rebecca Black's Claim to Fame

Rebecca Black is all over the Internet, and has been for a couple weeks now. In case you haven't heard, her music video for the song, "Friday" has created buzz for all the wrong reasons. But any publicity is good publicity, as this has proven true through Black's blow-up on YouTube. "Friday" now has more views (38 million) than Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" video (24 million).

So how does such a bad song/video become so popular? "In part because Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black are two sides of the same Internet fame coin: Black is like the anti-Justin Bieber; her “Friday” video has all the trappings of pop star gloss, with none of the talent," says TechCrunch blogger Alexia Tsotsis. While Black's parents paid $2,000 to have a professional video made, Bieber was discovered through homemade YouTube videos. Each star is at the opposite end of the extreme, and both are successful.

What does this say about our society? That we'll popularize a music video because of how terrible it is? It means we are hungry for entertainment, whether that takes talent or not. I don't know how many status updates and tweets I've seen lately referring to "Which seat can I take" or "Tomorrow is Saturday/And Sunday comes after...wards." Even celebrities are tweeting about her. Rebecca Black has remained a top trend on Twitter since March 13. Whether or not Black wanted this much fame, and for these reasons, her name is well-known and everyone seems to be talking about her.

Social Media Aids in Japan Crisis

On Friday, March 11, Japan was shaken by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake, causing damage with blackouts, fire and tsunami. While cell phone networks were blocked from all the calls trying to go through, the Internet remained intact, thus becoming an important means of communication for the Japanese.  The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo encouraged people “to continue your efforts to be in contact with your loved one(s) using SMS texting and other social media (e.g., FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) that your loved one(s) may use.” Less than an hour after the quake, the number of tweets from Tokyo topped 1,200 per minute, according to Tweet-o-Meter, and Facebook activity was high as well.

The message from the Embassy also suggested people use online services such as Google Person Finder and the Red Cross's Family Links website to help locate loved ones.

While cell phone networks couldn't hold up the magnitude of calls being made during this tragedy, the Internet proved worthy and enabled many people to get in touch with family and friends. 

http://mashable.com/2011/03/14/internet-intact-japan/

80,000 Followers Lost Over Hair

We all know Justin Bieber is everywhere, and so was his trademarked "Bieber" hair. Until he cut it. Then tweeted about it. He lost 80,000 followers in just hours after the tweet emerged. Not that the 80,000 likely affected the 17-year-old singer -- he still has almost 7.8 million followers.

This relates a lot to my last post about Kenneth Cole, in how much just one tweet can affect. The actual tweet stated, "Yeah so it's true...i got a lil haircut...i like it...and we are giving all the hair cut to CHARITY to auction. Details coming soon." Thousands of fans were upset and obviously 80,000 were upset enough to unfollow the celebrity. This just once again goes to show the powerfulness of social media and how many people it can actually affect. However, this isn't an example of poorly using the social media tools, rather just an unfortunate occurrence where fans didn't want change.