May 24
Twitter may be getting a lot more visual, and take up more of your time, with a new experiment. It seems as though the micro-blogging platform is toying with the … Continue reading
May 22
Twitter’s new Mute feature helps you silence Tweetstormers.
Apr 22
If you head to your own Twitter profile page today, you may notice a relatively large set of changes going on. If you’ve not been there for a while, relying … Continue reading
Apr 22
Twitter’s new, Facebook-style design
Apr 22
Twitter Could Help Predict Crime
Posted in: Today's Chili
Ah, it looks as though we are staring down at the possibility of a Minority Report future – where crimes can be “predicted”, and the perpetrators brought to justice even before anything has been committed, truly bringing new meaning to the adage “prevention is better than cure.” Word has it that researchers at the University of Virginia have shown how tweets on Twitter can be an indicator of select crimes before it happens, assuming the right analysis is applied. In short, what you tweet could prove to be potentially damning evidence against you in the future.
In a research paper that was published in the scientific journal Decision Support Systems in March, analysis of geo-tagged tweets could come in handy when it is used to predict anywhere from 19 to 25 kinds of crimes. Most of the time, such crimes include the likes of stalking, thefts and selected of assault.
The results are nothing short of surprising, especially when you take into consideration that no one in the right mind would want to tweet about their upcoming crimes in a direct manner, at least according to lead researcher Matthew Gerber of the university’s Predictive Technology Lab. Gerber also mentioned that tweets that do not have a direct link to crimes might actually hold information about activities that are more often than not associated with them, sharing, “What people are tweeting about are their routine activities. Those routine activities take them into environments where crime is likely to happen. So if I tweet about getting drunk tonight, and a lot of people are talking about getting drunk, we know there are certain crimes associated with those things that produce crimes. It’s indirect.”
The study saw Gerber and his team analyzing tweets from the city of Chicago that have been tagged to select neighborhoods. These are measured by individual square kilometers as well as the city’s crime database. Will it be used as a tool in fighting crime down the road? Hopefully the algorithm gets it right the first time around though.
Twitter Could Help Predict Crime , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, Computers, Twitter,
Apr 18
When it comes to an online service like Twitter, there is certainly entertainment value there if you know just where to look For instance, there are plenty of parody accounts out there that pop up from time to time, and one of the more recent ones that we could think of is Steve Ballmer and his iPhone gig, which has proved to be a fake account. Majority of these accounts tend to be left alone because they have clearly explained themselves to be satirical in nature instead of trying to pass themselves off as the real McCoy. Of course, there are other accounts that could be held accountable for misrepresentation.
In fact, one of the best examples to not create a parody Twitter account without a proper disclaimer would be this – police officers have recently raided a home in Peoria, Illinois, as part of their efforts to flush out the creator of a parody account that actually insulted the town’s mayor.
The @PeoriaMayor account was said to have been created in February earlier this year, where it came with a photo of Mayor Jim Ardis. Accompanying that was a bio that described his job, as well as his email address. It took a fortnight thereabouts before the bio was updated to clarify that this happened to be a parody account. The damage had been done by then though, as some of the previous tweets did include plenty of references to sex and drug consumption.
Needless to say, this account was suspended since, having snagged a mere 50 followers thereabouts when it was still active. An investigation by the Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard has been launched, where the account’s creator could end up being charged with an offence that might incur a maximum fine of $2,500 in addition to spending a year in the slammer.
Twitter Parody Account Results In Police Raid At Home , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, Twitter,
Apr 17
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer popped up on Twitter tonight, and, if this really is his account
Apr 17
We recently reported that Twitter is toying with multiple new ad products, most of which it is expected to launch soon. The microblogging network today launched an ad product that has been a hit for Facebook. “App Install” ads contain a short description of an application as well as a button through which the app can be directly installed. App developers have spent a ton of money on Facebook for these ads and Twitter hopes to get a piece of the pie as well.
Twitter Introduces ‘App Install’ Ads original content from Ubergizmo.
Apr 16
Twitter Picks Up Gnip
Posted in: Today's Chili
It does seem as though acquiring another company is the “in thing” these days, and Twitter continues with that trend by purchasing Gnip. It is said that Twitter users share and discuss their interests every single day without fail, talking about the happenings around the world. Such public tweets are able to reveal a wide range of insights, allowing the likes of academic institutions, journalists, marketers, brands, politicians and developers to make use of aggregated Twitter data in order to figure out trends, analyze sentiment, find breaking news, and connect with customers, among others.
Twitter Picks Up Gnip original content from Ubergizmo.
Apr 15
Not even a year-and-a-half old, Vines are enjoying their very own category in the Tribeca Film Festival
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