LB's Rambles

Who's Tweeting?

I don't always follow Twitter as closely as I probably should - but then, I do find that it takes an inordinate amount of time out of my day if I really look closely and frequently to see what my friends are posting. Twitter's growth has been phenomenal, by all the numbers - but who is really out there tweeting?

Now we have some useful numbers, from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, that give us a clearer pictur about who's tweeting. Pew says it's their first-ever Twitter-only study. It finds that , about 8% of American Internet users are also Twitter users. Among the heavy users are African-Americans and Latinos, younger (18-29) users and urban residents. Another interesting figure: about a quarter of all Twitter users say they check in more than once a day to catch up on posts from other users - but about one in five say they never check in to see what others are saying.

You'll find a good summary from Jack Loechner at MediaPost's Research Brief blog. It suggest an enormous growth potential still for Twitter - though it still doesn't really answer my question about how I can keep up with all those I'm following and still have time for a life...

Snow, Twitter and Mayor Booker

This week's blizzard and snow emergency situation in the northeast has brought renewed attention to the work of Newark, New Jersey's, tweeting Mayor Cory Booker. While another mayor of a large city fairly near Newark has been getting nothing but bad press and complaints about his city's slow response to the snow, Mayor Booker has been getting a lot of praise - deservedly so, I think - for the way he's been using Twitter to find people who need immediate help and then getting that help to them. Vanity Fair and Wired have some excellent examples.

This is not a surprise to me - I've been following @CoryBooker for some time, now, as my home town is adjacent to part of Newark. He's no newbie on Twitter - he's been posting there regularly, usually several times a day, and a lot more frequently, obviously, in the latest snow crisis. Yes, HE's been posting. He has more than a million followers now, so when he posts, he has a pretty good network available to him for reaching a lot of the people he needs to reach. I can't think of a better or more timely use of social media by a politician who's trying to grapple with a major problem. Kudos to Mayor Booker!

Hat tip: SmartBrief on Social Media newsletter

"Murder Begins at Home"

Our review on this week's Classic Mysteries podcast is of "Murder Begins at Home," by Delano Ames, a screwball mystery-comedy from 1949. You can listen to the full review here.

"Murder Begins at Home" follows newlywed (and newly arrived from Britain) couple Jane and Dagobert Brown. The couple set out to drive from New York to Detroit by way of...New Mexico, which, Dagobert insists, is "more or less on the way." They wind up at the New Mexico ranch of a woman whom Dagobert met during World War II - and she promptly turns up murdered. With some help from the local sheriff, Dagobert and Jane eventually do get the matter straightened out and discover which of their fellow house-guests is also a murderer. It's a light and funny book, the second in a series of mysteries featuring Jane and Dagobert.

End Run on Net Neutrality

I suspect strongly that we haven't heard the last of "net neutrality," despite the FCC adapting rules on the controversial proposal which advocates say will benefit consumers. Opponents are not so sure of that. They also point out that many consider it an end run by the FCC, meant to do bureaucratically what Congress could not do legislatively and what the courts say the FCC shouldn't be doing either.

Others are far better plugged into this than I am, so let me suggest the following items, which may help you understand better the arguments - I think compelling arguments - against the FCC's actions:

PC Magazine on what the ruling means to consumers;

IT World on why they think it's a bad idea;

the Wall Street Journal's John Fund on the political maneuvering behind the scenes;

and an interesting proposal from the Denver Post's David Harsanyi, who says the FCC ought to be abolished.

How about the other side? I'm sure there are readers who think Net Neutrality is a good idea and/or that the FCC has made the right move. I'd welcome your comments below.

 

 

The Inevitable Happens

It appears that the advertising market has made the inevitable turn. According to eMarketer, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, advertisers this year will have spent more on Internet advertising than they will on newspaper ads. It's not even close: according to those figures, advertisers have spent $25.8 billion on Internet ads, as opposed to $22.8 billion on newspaper ads.

It's hardly a surprise to anyone - the trend has been obvious for several years now. It's only going to get grimmer for print publications, which is why intelligent publishers are trying to beef up their web outreach. It's not easy, and there's really no clear picture of what will emerge eventually - but it makes for interesting times...

"Before Midnight"

As I write this post, one of our national lotteries is up to a $145 million dollar prize - not unusually large or particularly rare these days. Given that fact, perhaps it may seem a bit odd, or even quaint, to see the kind of havoc caused by a fictional advertising contest in the 1950s where the total in cash prizes was one million dollars. But that's the situation in Rex Stout's "Before Midnight," which is reviewed on this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, which you can listen to here.

The contest is sponsored by a perfume, called "Pour Amour." When the contest's creator is murdered - and the answers to the final round of questions apparently stolen from the body - Nero Wolfe is hired by the advertising agency to find a way to salvage the contest and their reputation. The murder? The agency is far more concerned with the contest, although Wolfe has a great deal of difficulty persuading the police that he is not trying to solve the murder. Eventually, there will be a shocking crime in Wolfe's brownstone, and Wolfe will need all his genius - and Archie's practical sluething skills - to find a satisfactory solution. It's a fine entry in Rex Stout's chronicles of the Nero Wolfe cases. The book is in print, and there's also edition for the Amazon Kindle e-reader..

Your Face and the Dilbert Factor

So it appears that face recognition software is coming to (or has already come to) Facebook. JP Mangalindan, writing at Fortune/CNN Money, reports on a new Facebook test of software that can recognize your face and quickly "tag" you in photos uploaded by you or a selected group of friends, for sharing with others.

As usual, privacy advocates are raising concerns, although, as Mangalindan points out, similar software is already available and in use both through iPhoto '09 and Microsoft Windows Live Photo Gallery. Big deal, he says, and I tend to agree.

But I think that Dilbert - as is often the case - has a better take on the possible perils of using this kind of software. Scott Adams posted today's Dilbert comic strip, in which Dilbert tries to introduce himself to a young woman - who proceeds to scan his face onto her smart phone and have it search the social media for matches. It's right on target. And hilarious.

Hat tip (for the face recognition part, anyway): Shelly Palmer.

Bell Tolling for DVDs?

Is the funeral bell tolling for the DVD business? Apparently so, if you believe the latest study from In-Stat, as reported by CNET. They don't talk about funeral bells, of course - just note that the video-streaming and download business is rising sharply, while there's a corresponding decline in DVD sales.

Oh, technology, you've done it again! And - dare I predict it - something will be coming along in the not-too-far-distant-future that will supplant streaming video and video downloads. Which will cut into the business done today by, say, Netflix. Which means Netflix and similar companies will have to change and adapt in order to stay alive.

It's how technogy and business function, folks. Videotape came along and became the centerpiece of our video lives until DVD technology surpassed it. DVDs were cleaner and brighter and fabulous until Blu-ray came along. And now streams and downloads are supplanting the physical technology, and DVDs in particular are feeling the pain. It's technological evolution. The only constant is change.

Hat tip: Shelly Palmer

"Aunt Dimity's Christmas"

Something a little different today on the Classic Mysteries podcast: a 1999 Christmas mystery, featuring advice and consultation from a ghost. The book is "Aunt Dimity's Christmas," by Nancy Atherton, and it's one of fifteen (so far) books featuring Aunt Dimity, the ghostly adviser to protagonist Lori Shepherd. You can listen to the full review here. The so-called "paranormal" element actually isn't played up very much in these books - Lori and her friends generally solve the mysteries with only some common-sense guidance from Aunt Dimity.

In "Aunt Dimity's Christmas," Lori finds a homeless man nearly frozen to death in the snow outside her cottage, which she inherited from Aunt Dimity. Who is he, and why did he go far out of his way to get to the cottage? Many secrets are uncovered, and Lori learns a great deal about herself and her neighbors as well. It all makes for a good seasonal cozy mystery, and - like most of the series - it's a lot of fun.

"Holy Disorders"

This week on the "Classic Mysteries" podcast, you'll find a review of Edmund Crispin's 1945 book, "Holy Disorders," which is a nicely-constructed combination of an impossible-crime murder with a spy story and suspense thriller. The murder is committed inside a locked (and largely inaccessible) English cathedral, when the victim is found crushed beneath an enormous slab that has been used to seal a tomb. The spy thriller part? Well, it's set in England during World War II. And, on top of everything else, there's a pretty nasty streak of devil-worship and some truly evil antagonists.

As always, you can listen to the full review here. Crispin wrote several fine mysteries, at the tail end of the "Golden Age," and his books always manage to combine eccentric, quirky and genuinely funny passages and characters, set up against truly horrifying events and situations. His books are exhilarating and exgtremely literate, and "Holy Disorders" is a fine example.