Category: Internet

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The Google oracle

Thanks to a post at The Inquisitr, I’ve found a whole new way to waste time: letting Google suggest the questions we should be asking.

Screenshot of Google asking "Why does he..."

Just start type in the first part of a question, like “Why does he…”, and Google tells you what’s important to people.

  • Why does he do that?
  • Why does he ignore me?
  • Why does he like me?
  • Why does he love me?
  • Why does he cheat?
  • Why does he push me away?
  • Why does he lie?
  • Why does he stare at me?
  • Why does he text instead of call?
  • Why does he hurt me?

Screenshot of Google asking "Why does she..."

Asking the same question about females gets a similar-but-different result.

  • Why does she stay lyrics?
  • Why does she stay ne yo?
  • Why does she ignore me?
  • Why does she cheat?
  • Why does she stay lyrics neo?
  • Why does she love me?
  • Why does she like me?
  • Why does she lie?
  • Why does she play hard to get?
  • Why does she stay youtube?

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Stephen Fry and Graham Linehan on Twitter

Apart from my own astoundingly wonderful critique of that “research” on Twitter by Pear Analytics, I’ve been directed to two extraordinarily well-written responses by the redoubtable Stephen Fry and by Graham Linehan, creator of TV series Father Ted and The IT Crowd. I particularly like Linehan’s observation that Twitter has given us humanity’s first truly global conversation. A hopeful romantic?

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Why Twitter is useless for covering conferences

[Update 9.40pm: It’s only 40 minutes since I posted this, but discussion has already turned to the topic of the government’s role in developing new services rather than the original Twitter-as-Chinese-whispers theme. Hey, join the discussion!]

Twitter bird cartoon by Hugh MacLeod

Even though I’m one of Australia’s most prolific Twitter users, and even though it seems like I’ve spent half the week defending it from half-arsed criticism, I’m also well aware of its limitations. Like tonight.

Earlier this evening I attended the Government 2.0 Taskforce‘s Road Show in Sydney. At one point, I tweeted:

Nicholas Gruen seriously says that the government should have created community good like Google, Facebook and Twitter. #gov2au

That was soon picked up by people who weren’t in the room, who hadn’t heard the context. Hours later we’re still seeing tweets like this one:

@skaye: “The Govt should have invented twitter, flickr…” LIKE WTF?? #gov2au *shudder* (via @NickHodge) They struggle with discounts on utes!

Notice how the content mutated as the message was passed on? “Created” becomes “invented”, Flickr is added to the mix, and the “community good” qualifier has vanished.

Here’s what really happened…

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Twitter babble twaddle

Crikey logo

Forty percent of the messages on Twitter are “pointless babble”, claims a story doing the rounds at Fairfax and ABC News and elsewhere this morning. It’s rubbish.

In a piece for Crikey today, I dismantle this claim by market intelligence firm Pear Analytics. Their categorisation is vague and arbitrary, and completely misses the point of phatic communication.

Marketer Stephen Dann is even more scathing. In the comments Sarah, who works for Pear Analytics, digs an even deeper hole as she explains her methodology.

If some DJ posted on there they were playing at a club tonight, I counted that as Self Promotion. If some guy tweeted that he was “at the club with his niggaazz and ho’s”, I put it into babble.

So, if they’re a DJ it’s “promotion”, but “some guy” it’s “babble”. How is Sarah judging people’s value here? By whether they’re a DJ or not? By whether they’re communicating business and work needs rather than social? By whether they use “correct grammar” rather than street slang? That’s just snobbery, and possibly even racism.

It’s all just tawdry low-rent pseudo-science at the level of the Ponds Institute. And, as my Crikey piece explains, t’was all just to pimp a product.

The reason the original bullshit story was picked up and spread so fast, though, was that a Twitter backlash has been foretold. More about that tomorrow.

[Hat-tip to @crikey_news for the headline.]