Twitter May Launch Reality TV Shows

Twitter, the next big reality TV platform? The social networking site is reportedly talking to Hollywood producers and networks about launching several reality TV shows that would stream on its site.

According to an AdWeek report, serious talks are already underway for the initiative. A source close to the matter said content would be similar to popular MTV reality shows such as The Hills and Real World.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

The move would be a part of a greater effort to enter the broadcasting world. It’s been recently reported that the company is partnering with NBC during the 2012 Olympics to serve as a hub dedicated to covering the event. Meanwhile, Twitter similarly worked with ESPN in May to create custom ad programs around major sporting events.

Twitter will likely have dedicated pages for each reality show, along with an embedded video player. The site has also been discussing advertising opportunities with potential partners that could bring in deals in the $4 million range, AdWeek said.

Would you watch a Twitter-branded reality show? Would you watch a show in general on the social network? Let us know in the comments.

Worlds first Social Media driven light show. #Energy2012

During the 2012 London Olympics, the positive and negative response to the games will be displayed in lights on the London Eye. Using the Twitter hash tag “#energy2012”, spectators of the games will create the first ever social media driven light show.

The lights will represent the general feeling towards how the Olympics are going; if the reaction is mixed, only half of the London Eye will be lit, while a mostly positive response will light up a larger section.
EDF Energy – official sponsors of the games - will analyse the general feeling of Twitter users and light up the famous attraction accordingly. Gold indicates positivity, while purple represents a negative response.

The 24 minute show will also feature gold, silver and bronze lighting, which will change depending on the colour of the medals Britain wins, and displays of the Union Jack flag.
The concept is already proving popular; with many Twitter users encouraging followers to use the hash tag in a bid to positively light up the London Eye.

During the Olympics, over 100,000 Tweets are expected to be posted every day on the subject of The Games – for the most part, the comments have been optimistic, with many people getting excited about the upcoming event.

Olympic decathlon gold medallist Mr Daley Thompson has introduced the unique idea, which will be displayed every night of the games at 9pm. He believes it is important for partakers to know their country is supporting and encouraging them.

He stated: "We want to make the EDF Energy London Eye a spectacular showcase of national support for the athletes - and one that will inspire them every night of the Games."

(CNET.co.uk, 2012)
(thehindubusinessline.com, 2012)

Facebook Mobile Now Lets You Edit Recent Activity

Facebook is rolling out Activity Log to mobile, a privacy feature that was only available in your computer-bound account. The log lets users monitor and control what shows up on their Timelines.

This means you won’t have to wait to delete automatically generated “stories” such as the dozen times you listened to “Call Me Maybe” on Spotify.

If you have the new log, you can find it on your Timeline profile page in the listing that includes About, Photos and Friends. (If not, be patient. You should see it soon.) From the mobile activity log, you can see the privacy setting associated with each action you took on the social network or with a Facebook-connected app. You can delete any of the activities in the list by clicking on the circle next to an item.

The mobile log is a stripped down version of what you’ll find on your desktop. Located under your Timeline cover photo, the Activity Log lets you change each activity’s privacy settings, rather than just delete items. Only you can see your Activity Log.

On the desktop, you can adjust who sees your activities and how each will appear on your Timeline. Choosing “featured” enlarges the selected story, so it spans the page, “allowed” is the default setting and a post you’ve made is shown in the regular single-column size, while “hidden” hides the story from view, but still lists it in your log in case you decide to show it later. And like mobile, you can delete an item altogether.

YouTube Becoming Increasingly Vital Platform for News

For many, YouTube is a beloved repository for humorous content, how-tos and general entertainment. However, YouTube is increasingly becoming a platform for news.

For four months between January 2011 to March 2012, the most searched-for terms on YouTube were related to news events, according to a Pew Research Center report released Monday.

The most popular videos on the web’s third most-visited site concerned natural disasters or political upheaval since videos with “intense visuals” tend to perform best, says Pew. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami was the most popular news event on the video network: In the week following the disaster (March 11 to 18), the 20 most-viewed videos related to the tragedy were viewed more than 96 million times.

The elections in Russia and unrest in the Middle East were the second and third most popular news topics, respectively. If the focus on international events seems unusual, remember that 70% of YouTube’s traffic comes from outside the U.S.

The footage itself was mixed — 58% of those included in the survey were edited; the remaining 42% was raw footage. Unlike much of the rest of the YouTube, personalities did not play a large role in a video’s success; no one person was featured in more than 5% of the most popular videos in the “News & Politics” section of YouTube between January 2011 and March 2012. Length, too, varied. The median video length was 2 minutes and 1 second, far longer than the average segment on local TV news, which is 41 seconds, and shorter than the 2-minute-and-23-second average national network evening newscasts allocate to a single story.

Both citizens and professionals are playing a role in video creation and distribution. A little more than half (51%) came from news organizations — or, at least, bore the logos of news organizations. Thirty-nine percent of the most-viewed videos came from citizens. Five percent came from corporate and political groups, and the sources of the remaining five percent could not be identified.

In many cases, the videos and their distribution were collaborative. As Pew notes, “a complex, symbiotic relationship has developed between citizens and news organizations on YouTube, a relationship that comes close to the continuous journalistic ‘dialogue’ many observers predicted would become the new journalism online.” Citizens are creating and posting their own videos, and even responsible for uploading more than a third of the content from news organizations. News organizations, in turn, are including citizen-produced content in their own reporting. The interplay, Pew observes, is creating a new kind of television news.

The collaboration is promising, but issues still exist. Although YouTube has guidelines for content attribution, not everyone adheres to them, nor do they offer a solution for every scenario. News organizations sometimes post citizen-captured video without clear attribution; in turn, citizens are repurposing copyrighted material without permission. All too often, the source of a video cannot be identified altogether, creating opportunity for manufactured or even falsified information to spread.

What’s perhaps most interesting about news-watching on YouTube is the way it enables consumers to set their own “on-demand” news agenda. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami registered among the most-viewed news subjects for three consecutive weeks following the disaster, for example.

And what does that mean for news organizations? Lots of positives, says Pew. YouTube offers considerable opportunities to grow one’s audience, brand and ad revenue — a thing perhaps best exemplified by YouTube’s revenue-sharing scheme with the newswire Reuters. It’s also a rich source for raw video footage.

For a deeper dive into the findings, see Pew’s full report here.

Twitter’s New Search Features

Microblogging platform Twitter overhauled its search this week, making finding users, hashtags and mentions easier.

Twitter’s “simpler search” lets users discover more news in real time. The search updates also let users connect more efficiently. Just think about all the times you’ve input the wrong name or misplaced a letter and subsequently missed out on results.

Even when a search term is misspelled or slightly off, Twitter now pulls up results for what you may have meant. The spelling correction feature and related suggestions are improving the Twitter search experience tremendously.

Twitter will be rolling out autocompletion to users over the next few weeks, Twitter’s product team tweeted. Around the Mashable newsroom, the feature doesn’t mean to be working widely for users just yet. If autocomplete is working for you, typing in a keyword will prompt a list of queries and relevant users. The spelling corrections feature, however, is a go for all users.

On Tuesday, Twitter also updated its iPhone and Android apps to include autocomplete. Other mobile updates include video tweets and expanded tweets from the platform’s media partners, which includes Mashable, MLB and C-SPAN.

Twitter search — on the web and on mobile — is still lacking aspects users would love to see, such as the ability to search within one’s tweet history. What search updates would you like to see? Share with us in the comments below.

Social Media Is the Top News Source for Brits Under 25

Social media is the news source of choice for Britain’s under 25-year-olds residents.

According to the first Reuters Institute Digital Report, 43% of people between 16 and 24 get their news from social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, rather than search engines, such as Google, the Telegraph reports.

Over 45-year-olds’ use of social media for getting news pales in comparison to the younger demographic — just 11% say they get news from the social web. For 33% of British people over 45, search engines are the online method of choice.

Between different social networks, Facebook is the most popular place to share news. More than half (55%) of people share news on Facebook, beating email, where 33% of people share, and Twitter, where 23% of people share. Few people responded that they share frequently to Google+ or LinkedIn.

The report’s editor, Nic Newman, found that Europeans are generally less interested than Americans in sharing news or engaging otherwise digitally.

As far as what they like to read goes, UK readers are more interested in science and technology news (23%) than business and financial news (19%).

Where do you get your news — search engines, media outlets or social networks?