Showing posts with label Social Web. Show all posts

Could Romantic Elvis Presley Have Shaped the Social Web Differently from Daring Lady Gaga?

Facebook has amassed a gigantuan membership of over a billion people and Twitter aims to catch up with new features like Vine, taking micro Blogging to new levels. This spectacular growth of the social web, no doubt, is largely due to its nature as a free place for social interaction.

However, the role in the growth and evolution of social web, of pop stars and celebrities like Lady Gaga andJustin Bieber who have enhanced their fan base and interact with their fans through social web, is also undisputable.

But what about Elvis Presley, who sent millions around the world in a frenzy hardly ever stepping out of the US soil and just by singing I can't help falling in love with you, when no one had even heard of the social web? Could he have shaped the social web to be a totally different place from as we know it today?

There is no denying that without the Television neither Elvis Presley nor Lady Gaga would have reached the level of popularity they attained. So the integration of the social web with television by most recent technological advances like social streaming and social DVR, which allows for real time interaction over social media with time shift would have evolved naturally.



However, the popularity of Lady Lady Gaga, who is a singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, and activist on the social web is largely based on her daring stage appearances and the issues like bullying and causes like lgbt which the artist actively support.
Her achievement like being invited to speak at Harvard is more of a reflection of her belief and support of the issues she has chosen to champion for. As a result, the technology she sought was some means to interact with her fans on the web on those issues, enhancing her presence among her fans, which created her famous back room chats with her fans and which rendered her role of counselling her fans possible.
But in the case of Elvis Presley it was his talent, good looks, sensuality, charisma, and good humour which endeared him to millions, as did the humility and human kindness he demonstrated throughout his life. Known the world over by his first name, he is regarded as one of the most important figures of twentieth century popular culture. He has been described as the sexiest man of his generation, so manly yet beautiful!
In the words of music historian John Robertson, Elvis was a flirtatious teenage idol with a heart of gold, a tempestuous, dangerous lover, a gutbucket blues singer, a sophisticated nightclub entertainer and raucous rocker.
Years after his death, fans continue to yearn for him with comments like "We will never have someone like him again... Elvis, unique, wonderful, our king forever!!!!"
Obviously, the persona of Elvis Presley, which had no need of a social web for the entire world to swoon for him, might have attracted the entire world to Facebook, if he were to have a fan page!
Given the wild passion and infatuation his fans felt for him as was evident from his concerts, It is conceivable that tactile technologies like the remote kissing devices would have found their place in Facebook much head of simple chat.
May be you could have enjoyed an on demand virtual concert by Elvis Presley singing I can't help falling in love with you, just for you.
Perhaps a new version of the Aloha from Hawaii music concert that was headlined by Elvis Presley, and broadcast live via satellite around the world on January 14, 1973, in which fans could rejoice by touching Elvis, using this invention, wherever they happened to be could have been broadcast through Facebook or whatever name the media would have been called.
There is of course many things one can imagine as was possible. The predominant factors would be the key elements which made Elvis irresistibly humane and accessible to millions. One thing is sure, whatever shape the social web would have assumed, it would have done more to bind people of the world in romance, love, passion and compassion, qualities which Elvis was graced with in abundance.

You Don't Have to Chuck Your DVR in the Bin If You Are Addicted to the Social TV



Here is a relatively obscure snippet of news, which could have made the corporate honchos of the leading makers of DVR like TiVo, Motorola, RCA, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba and cable companies like Time Warner, Comcast and Cox which offer TV packages that include a DVR, sit up and take note.

DVR Falls Victim to "Social TV"
"Social TV," in which young viewers use cell phones to communicate with friends about shows they are currently watching, is reversing the trend to record shows on DVRs and watch them at some later time, according to a survey conducted in the U.K. by Digital Clarity. According to the study, 80 percent of users below the age of 25 communicate with their friends while watching TV, with 72 percent using Twitter, Facebook or other mobile applications. "Rather than social networks and television competing for attention it seems that young people are happy to embrace both and use one to enhance their enjoyment of the other," the study said. Digital Clarity founder Reggie James suggested that Social TV's actual victim has been the DVR.
"Social TV has changed this completely by turning programs into online events where you have to watch them as they happen," he said.

If the DVR marketing guys didn't take note, at least their dwindling sales projections should have given the first warnings of the changing trend.

However, ARKTAN, a Silicon Valley technology upstart, which has pioneered the social streaming technology, which enables the Social TV, has seen the writings on the wall and has come up with innovative solutions which allow social streaming to integrate with the DVR technology, which they call Social DVR.

So all those, who don't want to miss the fun of sharing what they watch in the privacy of their homes, with their friends on the social web, don't have to really give up their DVR just because they can't share their joy, excitement or anger with their friends on the social web unless they are glued to a telly.

With groundbreaking stuff like Social DVR, anyone can have his cake and eat it too! You can have the fun of watching your telly with social web and the convenience of a DVR when you want it, when you are ready for it and not as dictated by a channel's pre-determined schedule.

Keeping all the exciting features of DVR like pause, fast-forward, add, skip, etc. in tact, the Social DVR, with its time-sync capability is a technology enhancement that brings you the convenience of the DVR with all the fun and excitement of the social web. If you were at work and missed that climax of your favorite serial or a clinching moment your favorite team missed a goal with your friends, as and when it happened, you can still enjoy the moment as if you were with your friends, with SocialDVR bringing you their live tweets, comments, etc. as it happened at that moment.

So how do such amazing features become a reality? For a start, the developers have already successfully implemented their social streaming solutions with integration and curation technology for various platforms like social TV, celebrity homepages and curated social hubs.

TV shows like Dallas and Falling Skies and interactive web presence of celebrities like Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and a host of others, powered by this social streaming technology implemented by media groups like UMG, place this technology provider ahead of the pack.

The developers have simply added additional features like time sync and support of additional functions, so that you don't have to mess with a second remote control, to robust APIs which allow you to capture and curate real-time social web content and conversation from multiple social platforms

Good news for those who are always on the move is that the time-syncing feature and social DVR capabilities are available for live and on-demand videos of TV shows and video programming playbacks across all platforms, including mobile.

If you are excited and want to know when this technology will be available to you, the website of Univision, is powered by both Social Streams and Social DVR, is live from October 2012. The site has already registered millions of viewers and thousands of videos on demand.

Apart from delivering the fun of live media with live social media, the effect of this technology might be far reaching. For example, reactions to events like the tragic gang rape in New Delhi or the Sandy Hook school shooting could be wider and spread over days, with decisive impact on shaping public opinion as more people will be sharing the impact of events.

Least of all, the enormous effect on an industry which will otherwise be facing a downgrading due to a product no one wants any more cannot be under estimated.

Fortunately, with Social DVR everyone can keep on smiling and hoping for better times both on the telly and on the social web.

How Long Will You Give GOOGLE Before Everyone Scoop.it? A Year, Two, a Decade?



This is not mere Google bashing which has become very fashionable these days. It is not about the deterioratingsearch quality of Google everyone is starting to notice or why Microsoft's Bing is any better.

It is really about how the cyber world is changing and shaping the needs and expectations which have evolved beyond mere key word search and how services likeScoop.it will meet those because Google won't. Pretty soon the question will be "have you scooped it?" rather than "Have you Googled it?"

With the exponential growth of speed and capacity of the internet and cloud computing, the cyberspace has witnessed unprecedented creation and sharing of knowledge, especially through Blogging. If we used to search for information by punching in a keyword in to Google 5 years back, now everyone is searching for actionable knowledge and trickles of wisdom they can rely up on.

Mere information or the meaning of or explanation of something one doesn't know no more satisfy human mind. Thanks to the abundance of global information instantly made available through information technology and big strides in education, we are much better tuned to analyse, compare and judge before accepting anything.

In other words, we are likely to be looking for expert advice, guidance, opinion or recommendation we can trust on what we are searching for, even if we have no intention to use it right away. And there are plenty of those in the Cyberspace. Only problem is Google's search juggernaut can't deliver such 'condensed' knowledge. You need to wade through web page after web page, Google's powerful search machine will flash in front of your eyes even before you type in exactly what you are looking for. Who needs such boring and arduous labour anymore?

When it comes to human nature the observation of Bill Gates is so canny.
I will always choose a Lazy person to do a difficult job because definitely he will find an easy way to do it.
Well, in the search for easy grabbing of curated knowledge, that is exactly what the lazy world has done. They have encouraged a host of services like Scoop.it to pop up, which are ready to cull information and dish up curated knowledge on everything you wish to know.

Services like Scoop.it depend on a community of millions of hard working experts who wonder what to do with the wealth of knowledge and wisdom they have accumulated in life and are happy to share it if there is an easy way to make any good of it for fellow humans. Thankfully there is also an army of lazy, time constrained and content hungry, bloggers too to lap up what the experts can share.

Scoop.it in fact is a lot of fun. If you have ever cherished being an editor and creating a colourful magazine like Hello everyone will go gaga about, you can do it easily with Scoop.it. If you have enjoyed cutting and collating things in to your scrap book in school, you already know how to use Scoop.it and what you can do with it.

In fact the power of Scoop.it is in its capability to pull together visually appealing web pages rather than inanimate links to the urls which hide the information behind them.

The way Scoop.it will help you build your powerful magazine is simple. Once you chose the key words you are interested in and like to curate, and you christen your magazine, Scoop.it will scourge the social web tocollate a list of web pages, tweets and comments etc and will present to you the latest of them every time you visit your dashboard. All you need to do is to literally drag what is relevant in to the column and curate by adding your bit of endorsement, comment of approval, disapproval etc.

It is a win-win situation for everyone. You give extra traction to the publisher of the web property you select to add to your little magazine, you add your stamp of little satisfaction to it and dish it out to someone who trusts your views or expertise. Everyone is happy with Scoop.it.

At the end of the day, Scoop.it, which is free, is the right answer for information seekers and providers as well as the experts who like to show off their expertise.

A happy meeting place where the cyber world is fast moving in to at the cost of Google!

Article first published as How Long Before You Will Scoop.it Instead of Google It? on Technorati.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Posted by Unknown

Do You Wish You Could Drive Your Blogging on Steroids? Try Triberr Today.

What is most interesting about Triberr is the friendly approach of its creators Dino Dogan and Dan Cristowho understand the pain and peril of bloggers and are willing to help. A lot of what they have put together and are giving away could be highly commercialised, yet Triberr offers all of those to needy bloggers, in the warmth of a tribe around a bonfire.

This is not to say that everyone you meet there has given up his or her nasty and selfish human streaks to become a friendly tribal.
To put it bluntly and to save a lot of words, Triberr adds the power of Multi Level Marketing to your blog. But the comparison ends there because Triberr has none of the 'shades' of the "dirty picture" MLM is associated with. If you rush to join Triberr hoping to make a quick buck or a Platinum membership you will be thoroughly disappointed.
In fact Triberr imbibes the most natural process of "survival of the fittest" by bringing the best ofcontent to widest of audience by personal endorsement, a process millions of bloggers who have no access to financial or other resources to publish their material, hope existed.
Triberr is organised around a theme of tribes, so you come across strange sounding terms like, tribes, bones, bonfire and so on which are all synonyms for popular terms on the social web you know about. There is excellent explanation of all of these on Triberr.
Despite the complex appearance, reaping the benefits from Triberr is simple for bloggers who are already active on the social web with membership of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and StumbleUpon. Triberr brings you a stream of blog posts of other bloggers whose groups you join or who join your group, as and when they are posted on the individual blogs. You can curate and approve the posts you like, which will then be broadcast to your followers in a scheduled and systematic way.
Naturally, your personal stamp ensures that the content you recommend is really worth it for your followers to spread the word.
Triberr is still under development and all of its potential power is yet to be realised. For now you can schedule your tweets about an approved post, but you must post manually to Facebook, Google+ and StumbleUpon.
Some of its very interesting features are currently available only through Triberr Wordpress plugin and only for self hosted Wordpress accounts. These include reading the posts and commenting within Triberr before you approve or ignore the posts. A floating comment system lets you comment instantly. The reblog facility allowing you to import a post in to your blog, with all accreditation in tact, makes guest posting very easy. This feature can get your posts published in endless number of blogs if you are lucky, much like a syndicated news item.
However, the branding feature for the Tweets you send out from Triberr, available now, is the best of the freebees Triberr offers to bloggers. This allows you to insert a link to your blog in every tweet you send out increasing the link density vital for SEO.
There is also a facility to "push" a worthy post, approved by Triberr, to the type of audience you decide for a payment. You can also earn points for marking posts good or bad which can offset what you spend.
Most important is the system is entirely transparent with each triber's status accessible to all members, also with access to Google analytics of clicks on individual posts.
If all of these sound very technical, there is plenty of help available. Every aspect of the process isexplained through info graphics in simple terms and step by step instructions.

One thing you don't get with Triberr is instant success or recognition. You get attached to a tribe you can choose from a list when you join, but membership of a tribe is only by invitation. You can create any number of your own groups and invite other bloggers to join. The forums offer possibilities to get invited and invite others but this is no sure way of getting other bloggers in your group.

Still, if you care about your blog and quality content, Triberr is the best platform today to help you achieve popularity for your blog, like steroids for athletes and body builders. Unlike steroids, Triberr is entirely legal.

Article first published as Triberr Looks to Help Bloggers Pump Up Their Content on Technorati.

Is It The Social Web That Gave The Verdict In Oscars Vs Baron Cohen?


The independence of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and of the United States of America is admirable. The sheen on its prestigious Oscar awards night, as the second most watched event in the US, has only got brighter in recent times. However, it looks like the social web can now influence how the Oscar award ceremony is conducted and will continue to do so in the future.

Every year the controversies around the award night, which surface both before and after the gala event, generate more interest and discussion than the event itself.
This year it was the turn of Sacha Baron Cohen to kick up the storm and grab his share of attention by intending to appear in the outfit of his role in his upcoming movie "The Dictator" with an urn of the 'ashes' of his friend, the real world dictator Kim Jong-il, even as many people felt that it was too much self serving and the Academy threatened to refuse him admission
Proving how the academy worried about the disruption to the biggest event in the industry and the fall out in its reputation, the Academy President Tom Sherak has issued a statement dismissing the speculation that the Academy was somehow in on the whole stunt of Baron Cohen.
"I'm telling you the truth, this is not a stunt that we were involved in at all. We can have another conversation about how things happened and whether we overreacted - but trust me, it was not like we helped make this up."
That raises the question why did the Academy object to the request of Sacha Baron Cohen to appear in his now famous uniform in the first place? Judging from his contribution to the motion picture industry and the record of box office success of his films, the Academy had only reason to welcome him as an honoured guest, especially as a cast member of Hugo, which received several recommendations and was considered a front runner for the top award.
It seems his reputation as a 'Controversy's child' and his Jewish origin have more to do with the reticence of the Academy than a mere intention to let his pranks annoy the guests and ruin their show. As mentioned in a piece on the Wiki about Baron Cohen:
"Aside from the comic elements of his characters, Baron Cohen's performances are interpreted by some as reflecting uncomfortable truths about his audience. He juxtaposes his own Jewish lineage with the anti-Semitism of his character Borat."
No doubt, the character of Admiral General Aladeen could have had unpredictable reactions in a world unsure about the gentle breeze of the Arab spring, which the Academy was in no position to judge and perhaps causing nightmares to its members who were trying to foresee the repercussions.
The Academy also has failed to reckon the genius of Sacha Baron Cohen, who perhaps unintentionally, has blunted any adverse reaction by releasing his famous clip but certainly meant to underscore his main theme of ridiculing dictatorship by the act of spreading the ashes of Kim Jong-il on the famous red carpet and thus send his real message to the whole world.
However the 'viral' and positive reaction to his clip of objection released on the web two days before the Oscar night must have given as much relief to the Academy members as the pressure of negative world opinion, if he were to be banned from the event for his prank which more and more people were ready to accept as such.
It appears that, after all the showing up of a "Dictator" for the Oscars could be a funny prank and nothing objectionable, thanks to the collective wisdom of the social web, which has the sea change in attitude towards dictatorship the Arab world has recently witnessed to its credit.
Baron Cohen was not alone to get an admission to the Oscar 2012 night thanks to the power of the social web. Uggie, the ten year old dog who was refused an entrance to the event on grounds many people will consider frivolous on the part of the Academy, finally got to share the Oscar and the stage with his co actor Jean Dujardin. The appearance of Uggie on various shows like the TMZ live before the night prompting public appeal on TV and the public outcry on and off the web has earned Uggie the fame and place in history he so well deserved.
With sentiment analysis tools like Wisewindow, which can listen in on the 'chatter' on the social web and analyse with natural language algorithms, is now possible to gauge what the world thinks and how it intends to act on various issues.
Applying such sophisticated tools on the social web allows you to anticipate the winners, taking some of the surprise and excitement from the award night gala. But, more importantly, the social web is also silently changing the politics and morals of the Oscars.
There are in fact plenty of reasons why the Academy should listen to the voice of the world.
Article first published in The Huffington Post as  Has the Social Web Tamed the Oscars if Not Sacha Baron Cohen?
Follow Sreedhar Pillai on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lastingrose
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Posted by Unknown

Did Whitney And The World Love ‘Whitney Houston Going Home.’?


‘Whitney Houston Going Home.’ Did Whitney And The World Loved It?

Judging from the paltry coverage of her funeral service by the world media at large, except by celebrity sites like TMZ, it looks like much has been already said and written about the ‘Going Home’ ceremony of another of 20th century Icons, the much loved pop singer Whitney Houston. So what more is there to say?
There are many events and occasions which have left indelible marks on human memory for the visuals and voices they carried and in some cases for profound changes in world opinion and attitude.

However, certain occasions like the Kennedy assassination and the death of Princess Diana spring to mind as events which left the world shocked out of wits and saddest at the time but somehow despatched the real grief home only during the funerals, which were grimmest of affairs in grandest of settings.

The funeral service of Whitney Houston turned out be an ordinary affair in an ordinary church, yet caught the attention of the world and evoked feelings of loss and bonding of a different kind, which has made Whitney more endearing and human to millions of viewers who have turned more sympathetic.

Like thousands of others, Whitney Houston probably died of a quiet heart attack, after eating a ham burger with some satisfaction. An ordinary event in the life of a celebrity, which shot out of proportion and shocked the world thanks to the aura of negativity given by the media and the instant technology at its disposal today.

The bottom line is, Whitney actually belonged to a station in life which is home for a large majority of the people in the world. Like in the case of Lady Diana, it was the   special corner of love and sympathy Whitney somehow managed to secure in the hearts of millions which sent the pain around in huge dollops rather than the heights she could carry her music with her wonderful melisma.

That is why, the ‘Going Home’ ceremony so affectionately and caringly organised by her mother and relatives turned out to be something the world could watch and relate to and something which would have made Whitney Houston enormously happy.

It was in fact a Home Coming celebration for some one who completed a very successful journey in life which Whitney Houston, accomplished diva and singer was denied by her untimely death. It was entirely in order to give her a send off where everyone could have thanked her and she could have thanked everyone who helped her along and the right thing to do.

More than anything else, the speeches and the songs sung in her praise by other famous performers like by Kevin Costner and Stevie wonder have put on some wonderful colour and shades to the caricature, perhaps somewhat distorted, the world had in its mind.  At the end of that entire protracted event, the diva of Newark had certainly come out in shining armour as a sweet darling of the entire world, ready to be carried off by the angels for the only performance Whitney Houston ever had to give. Certainly Whitney Houston couldn’t have gone home happier!

Perhaps one of the biggest rewards of living in the 20th century and carrying on in to the 21st is the enormous shock, grief, despair, anger, excitement or joy one get to share with the whole world simultaneously from events defining our times around the world, which wouldn’t have been possible without the marvellous 20th century inventions in communication.

Monday, February 20, 2012
Posted by Unknown

What On Web Has Changed For President Obama This Election?


Twitter is no longer enough to win an election.
Move over Google, Twitter and Facebook. Enter WiseWindow, Arktan and Percolate. Search, tweet and like are out. Sentiment analysis, taxonomy, social stream, passive curation and second screen conversation, are a few of the new buzzwords President Obama and anyone else aspiring to win the US election needs to master in a hurry!

These innovative technologies, with amazing data collection, filtering, analysis, curation and interaction capabilities, can tell what people are thinking right now and their intentions before they become action, enabling you to curate and chose what you tell them and how you interact with them so that you can shape the world and the market place the way you need, all in real time. That is why who wins the next US election is going to badly need them!
WiseWindow, which specialise in sentiment analysis, is in fact ahead of the presidential candidates. Partnering with The Daily Beast (now a part of Newsweek), they have created the "Election Oracle," which scans 40,000 social media sites, listening to millions of daily comments, and creating a 10-day moving average that is mixed with traditional polls to create their predictions.

Apart from President Obama and artists like Lady Gaga who has a fan base of about 20 million, who will need these new, mind boggling technology products of branding and influencing human race? Well, in the words of WiseWindow, anyone with management responsibility that belongs to the C-suite:

• CEO - Chief, Chief
COO - Go-to-Guy
• CIO - No.1 Nerd
CMO - Brand Boss
• CFO - Money Mogul
• Consumer Researchers
• Customer Support Personnel
• Common people, that's you and everyone else!

In reality you, the consumer, are most benefited by the new collective power derived from the application of these technologies, to influence like never before in the history, what the media, politicians, entertainers and the Industry at large will deliver.
Any organization, politician or brand  aiming to stay ahead of the market and fickle consumers and supporters, whose tastes change seemingly overnight, will need to heed to this collective power, which is already flexing its muscle in the media and entertainment industry.
Reuters recently launched 'Social Pulse', a new social media hub designed to show you the most talked-about news, companies and influencers across the Web, which features, with technology and service provided by WiseWindow, a revolutionary stock sentiment module, based on opinions from hundreds of thousands of sources captured and curated, clearly demonstrating the predictive abilities offered by the technology.
Using Percolate, Reuters has created Counterparties, a way to build more engagement with two of their finest journalists, Felix Salmon and Ryan McCarthy. A combination of algorithmic filtering of most interesting content which they react to allows an audience to follow along and engage with these editors all day.
Universal Music Group, who manage Mindless Behavior, Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Dr.Dre, Justin Bieber, and their official websites is using Arktan's Life stream to deliver aggregated and curated content on the official websites of the artists. With the ability to add comments and reply to posts, the social influence of the artist sites has grown dramatically.

WiseWindow, a sentiment analysis/measuring company, turns the chaos of online chatter, what people are saying online now in blogs, tweets, status updates, and reviews, in to a database which illuminates consumer sentiment across hundreds of dimensions and then provide a stream of consumer sentiment and intention data that can be integrated with business intelligence systems so that organizations can become more agile and responsive.
Arktan on the other hand is primarily about building "interactive" curated social experiences. Arktan provides very deep interaction capabilities, like the ones on the websites of Lady Gaga, with the ability to respond to comments, likes, social sharing, aggregated conversation, etc in real time. These much richer curation capabilities, which give brands the control they want and sentiment analysis capabilities including Natural Language Processing as well as analytics, set Arktan's technology apart from passive curation tools.
Percolate which is primarily about letting a brand build passive curation experiences, scrapes five million sources daily, turning a brand's strategy into the interest engine and using proprietary algorithms to sort and bubble up only the most relevant and interesting content for a brand editor to comment on and publish to social platforms and websites.
If you are excited and want to have a quick look at how these breaking technologies can affect you, check out TweetSentiments.com which provides Sentiment Analysis on tweets using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning technologies and Storify where you can have a go at curation and create your own article with content from the web.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Posted by Unknown

Do You Want The Guys At TMZ To Serve Up Hot News Even Hotter? They Can!


Technology is changing how celebrities like Lady Gaga build up a fan base of 20 million and then interact with them to keep them hooked to her magic.  Now the guys who follow the celebrities and serve up the news they make like TMZ.com are learning a thing or two about the ways celebrities use social media.

Taking a leaf out of the new book of how to get the hook swallowed even deeper, TMZ has added a much greater and innovative punch to their delivery. The TMZ live is a terrific example of how you can spice up what you serve with what is available on the social media right now and create an ever increasing fan base of loyal followers.

The show which is presented as a talk show actually cuts in to the studio workplace and gets everyone else to chip in making it wider and give it an ambiance of an office. Everyone can relate to this as this is very real and what happens in every day life in any office where people work together.

The show is brisk, informal, and chatty and dwells on the hottest topics for just enough time to keep them hot.

4:30) Did Whitney know she was going to die? Mike reads the eerie Bible verse she quoted before her death.
(
13:50) Whitney's death sparks a serious debate -- would you rather live fast and die young ... or boring and die old?
(
21:04) Kobe was caught smooching Vanessa last night -- people rightly shocked she'd take him back.
(
22:50) Evan says Kobe "loves" Vanessa so much ... that he constantly cheats on her (allegedly).
(26:30) The Heart Attack Grill -- which sells an 8,000 cal. burger -- had a diner literally have a heart attack there this week.
(28:45) The owner of the restaurant calls in -- defends his gut busting menu to an inch of his life.
(32:12) Our fatty good loving staffers totally have the owner's back on this one. Shocker.
(34:30) Is Kate Upton too big for
Victoria's Secret?
(38:00) Another argument to wrap up the show -- is buying $100,000 handbags the biggest waste of money ever?

The hosts take in live calls and get the callers to participate in live discussion.

A simultaneous twitter stream lets anyone farther away, even on other continents, like the UK where I watched the live show, send in their take by tweets which scroll up on a side box for everyone to see.

A live stream of comments gives you an in depth feels of what those who are eager but can’t jump in and speak their mind have to say.

To boot it all, a live survey with related questions, sort of gives you a chance to put a line under, say a last word on the topic.

Overall, the entire combination has turned TMZ, which has started as a blog, to a totally new category of media, yet to be christened but sure to be imitated.

For millions of people, celebrity gossip and news is addictive like drugs. Their life depends on a sizable doze of it which was being served by tabloids before the internet and social media. Now they are hooked to it even more because modern technology can provide the experience of being with the news makers where the news happens in real time and even interact with them as on the website of Lady Gaga, where her ardent followers even have a backstage entrance to interact with her.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Posted by Unknown

Did Whitney Houston Plan The Grandest Of Her Exits?


The world is in shock of loosing yet another music prodigy of modern times!
It may be too soon to speak without being disrespectful to the departed, but whether the diva, famous for her sensational concert exits often with her signature piece “I will always love you” wished it to be or not, her death in reality has turned in to her grandest of exits!


According to reports her body was removed only around midnight from her hotel room. Has this given her a chance to share an exceptional honour even in death?  Whitney’s mother, Cissy Houston, spoke to her on the telephone half an hour before she died and Miss Houston was said to have been looking forward to the party.

“A surreal scene unfolded at the hotel as the party continued while Miss Houston's body remained in her room on the fourth floor, which was sealed off with yellow police tape.”

No one in history, except Julius Caesar, perhaps had his or her praise sung to the world and immortalised, while the soul which was separated from the body must have been looking down on it and smiling in greatest of joy at the fulfilment of the life just ended.

"Whitney Houston, simply put, had the greatest voice in the world. She was a gift of God. Hearing her sing was like listening to magic. If it wasn't for Clive Davis, the world may not have known about this miracle voice," Combs

It must sound cruel and uncaring to think of still holding a party when an invited has just departed, especially if it happened in the next room. But in the case of Whitney, who has been honoured with six Grammy awards, it was not just a party she was supposed to attend that evening, it was her mentor and music producer Clive Davis's customary pre-Grammy party, typically one of the most fun-filled highlights of the week leading to the music industry's top awards ceremony

For Whitney, it would have been a party held by her mentor who made her the Whitney Houston the whole world pines for, where she would have found herself the happiest. How could Whitney have asked it to be stopped, if her soul could, it would have sung “I will always love you” for all in the party hall to hear!

"Simply put, Whitney would have wanted the music to go on and her family asked that we carry on,"

Though some statements have been issued by the coroner about the cause of Whitney’s tragic death, and we may never ever know exactly, one thing seems to be true. Whitney Houston may not have asked for it but God has granted her the best stage she could have wished for a final performance.

Article first published as Did Whitney Houston Plan The Grandest Of Her Exits? on Technorati

What On Web Will President Obama Need To Win The Next Election?


Move over Google, Twitter and Facebook. EnterWiseWindow, Arktan, Percolate and Klout. Search, tweet and like are out. Sentiment analysis, taxonomy, social stream, passive curation, second screen conversation, are a few of the new buzzwords President Obama and anyone else aspiring to win the US election needs to master in a hurry.

Whoever wins the election, one thing the 45th US president can be sure about is the unprecedented power the country has gained to shape the future of the world, thanks to the internet giants and new technologies of upstarts like WiseWindow and Arktan.

These innovative technologies, with amazing data collection, filtering, analysis, curation and interaction capabilities, can tell you what people are thinking right now and their intentions before they become action, enabling you to curate and chose what you tell them and how you interact with them so that you can shape the world and the market place the way you need, all in real time. That is also why who wins the next US election is also crucial to the world than ever!

"You can think of social media as a hole that has opened into the collective consciousness and we're tapping into it." Sid Mohasseb, CEO WiseWindow

Apart from President Obama and artists like Lady Gaga who has a fan base of about 20 million, who will need these new, mind boggling technology products of branding and influencing human race? Well, in the words of WiseWindow, anyone with management responsibility that belongs to the C-suite:

• CEO - Chief, Chief
• COO - Go-to-Guy
• CIO - No.1 Nerd
• CMO - Brand Boss
• CFO - Money Mogul
• Consumer Researchers
• Customer Support Personnel
• Common people, that's you and everyone else!

In reality you, the consumer, are most benefited by the new collective power derived from the application of these technologies, to influence like never before in the history, what the media, politicians, entertainers and the Industry at large will deliver. Any organization aiming to stay ahead of the market and fickle consumers, whose tastes change seemingly overnight, will need to heed to this collective power, which is already flexing its muscle in the media and entertainment industry.

Reuters recently launched 'Social Pulse', a new social media hub designed to show you the most talked-about news, companies and influencers across the Web, which features,with technology and service provided by WiseWindow, a revolutionary stock sentiment module, based on opinions from hundreds of thousands of sources captured and curated, clearly demonstrating the predictive abilities offered by the technology.

Is a Local Language Essential to Preserve Cultural Identity on the Social Web?



"If music be the language of love, sing on in English" will be how Shakespeare would have framed his famous quote if he were alive today! In the age of globalisation and social web, English seems to have acquired the status of a global currency, in which you can trade your emotions without losing your identity.

Jayalalitha, the chief minister of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, whose delirium tremens and tantrums have become a part of the new X factor politics destroying India, has issued in true Taliban style, a diktat that all children in her state must learn Tamil!

You can't blame her! The poor soul, despite her 65 years on earth probably has never heard of Shakespeare let alone realise how the world has changed with globalisation, and social web, how regional language no more is an essential element of regional culture.



For Jayalalitha, a film actress of yester years whose mother tongue is not Tamil but Kannada of the neighbouring state of Karnataka where she was borne and brought up, evoking chauvinistic emotions has nothing but political expediency.

For millions of Tamil speaking people, who have wasted hours staring at Jayalalitha on the silver screen, movie after movie, because of a complex and weakness they have for her fair skin, however, "Kolaveri Di" is the new sound of Tamil music which makes them proud rather than her sermon on the virtue of Tamil.

“Kolaveri Di” is a Tamil song video created in English, which went viral on the social web scoring 150 million hits and was parodied in numerous languages, all because people everywhere could relate to its real music content and simple lyrics about the throngs of love as they were penned in English of a sort.


In fact the song dominated the media for better part of past three months since its release, invoking such universal enthusiasm which provoked the youth from Tokyo to The Hague to burst out in spontaneous song and dance sequences of Kolaveri Di in public and private venues.

Doing the whole video in a universal language has no way taken away anything ‘Tamil’ from the wonderful production which is nothing but an expression of genuine creativity. If anything, it has only helped to introduce Tamil along with its creator Dhanush and his team to the whole world.

This is not the only example why language shouldn’t matter for true understanding and harmony between cultures. A similar video production created a few months earlier by the popular American artist Akon with a team from Mumbai also bear proof that power of music as food of love has not changed from the days when the Bard of Avon proclaimed it.


Through a song titled “Chammak Challo” created for an Indian film of Sharukh Khan, a famous Indian screen actor, the American singer and rapper Akon has proved the point.

Akon, with very little effort and time, managed to muster the few Hindi words in the lyrics written in English and managed to sing the song to music composed of elements from the middle east, all to enchant and capture the hearts of an Indian audience.


As it turned out, the song and its video recording turned a viral hit on the internet proving yet again that, when it comes to music as food for love, cultural assimilation happen pretty fast and the social web is the modern platform where it happens.

It is really amazing that two productions which as music or artistic expressions of young artists have nothing much to write about, have become phenomenal success with an international audience in such a short time. Then isn't that the case with most of the hits with pop music?

One can hope that this is a trend which will catch up and bring more of such unifying efforts from all languages and culture on to the social web.

It looks like at least on the social web no one really cares what language people communicate with as long as it is English. As in the real world, real talent not ethnicity or cultural background which matters. As far as the language of love is concerned, it looks like the easiest way to some one’s    heart is just saying ‘I love you’ rather than ‘Je t'aime’ or ‘Ya tebya lyublyu’

 Follow Sreedhar Pillai on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lastingrose



Wednesday, February 08, 2012
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