If you’re a Twitter user (or any other social network at all), you’ll inevitably have seen first time tweeters say things like “trying to understand this Twitter lark”, or “how does this work?”. A good explanation is the quote doing the rounds that goes something like “Facebook is for people you used to know. Twitter is for people you’d like to know”.
There’s a succinct truth in that. Social media should be about learning new things, extending your social circle and having some fun in the process. Richard Newman is an embodiment of that ethos. The unemployed Englishman decided he wanted to record a cover of the Rod Stewart song Maggie May to celebrate two years on Twitter. The only problem? He didn’t play a musical instrument.
He didn’t let that stop him however. Newman turned to Twitter and recruited 11 interested musicians and a producer to make it happen. Calling themselves @Tw1tterBand (blog), the band put together a cover of the song having never met. Within a few days, the song was recorded and a video was released. The song was used to raise money for a charity called Macmillan Cancer Support. They followed up that song with an infinitely better cover of The Smiths’ Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. The project has now raised over £2,000 (€2,328) and has prompted Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr to tweet at them “Nice job. I’m touched.”
Established musicians too have had the crowd-sourcing idea for songs. Prominent Twitter user and singer Imogen Heap is planning to make the most of her 1.5 milllion Twitter followers with an experiment called #heapsong1. On March 14th, people will be able to upload music or sounds for Imogen to fashion into a song. On the 15th, Heap will collect words for the lyrics the same way. The following days will see the collection of visual material for a video and submissions for a solo for the middle of the track. The song will be finished in a week by the 21st of March and released a week later with the accompanying video on March 28th. Electronic producer Tim Exile will also be remixing the song live while hearing the song for the first time.
Another forward-thinking musician, Glasser has also been playing with technology and shared experiences. During her recent TV performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the singer “embedded” QR codes on the stage. Intrigued viewers could then scan these codes with their smartphones where they would be pointed to a 3D visual zone which contained exclusive content including videos, free downloads and links to buy Glasser’s album Ring for a reduced price.
Glasser wanted to go as far as to design special QR codes to represent her album artwork. So she hired a graduate programmer to re-interpret the album cover’s colour and design into the codes. Who knows how many actually used the QR codes while watching, but if you want to see what you missed, check out the 3D-based content.
Youtube, a site that probably everybody who reads this column uses every day has launched a number of new features lately. First up, in recognition that music videos account for 57 percent of most-watch virals on Youtube, Google has introduced a music section to the site at youtube.com/music. It shows the most popular videos of the day as well as a breakdown by genre and curated-playlists. They are also promising a local music listing section in the near future. The addition follows the introduction of full-length movies (youtube.com/movies) where you can watch Animal Farm along with films featuring Jackie Chan, Demi Moore and a slew of Bollywood titles.
If the thought of clicking your mouse is too much to bear then Youtube have thought of that too. Leanback (youtube.com/leanback) is the site’s equivalent of a 24 hour TV channel. It takes videos from subscriptions and serves up non-stop programming based on your preferences.
Also in Youtubeland, the long overdue restriction on uploading videos longer than 10 minutes has been changed to 15. As a celebration and befitting of that ubiquitous Andy Warhol quote and the site’s regular carousel of viral celebrities, they asked users to make a video of their “15 minutes of fame” , which will be showcased on the homepage.
Meanwhile, in Kanyewatch, last week was a veritable feast of Jeezy info as Kanye did two things of interest. First, he made an appearance at the HQs of both Facebook and Twitter, looking dapper in a designer suit and gave acappella performances of new songs Lost in the World, Chain Gang and Mama’s Boyfriend from his forthcoming album. You can watch those videos here.
Secondly, he joined Twitter (@kanyewest)! Oh what delights! It sounds like a small thing but in truth, it’s fascinating reading and confirms the many facets of his personality. He confirmed he’s changed the title of his new album from Good Ass Job to.. something else (clever Kanye), he posted pics of his jet plane and his new massive living room projector screen (rich-ass Kanye), offered business advice (The Apprentice Kanye), ribbed himself for his passion for ancient art (humble Kanye), called himself “The King” a lot (modest Kanye), expressed frustration with being able to get what he wants “What do I have to do to get a simple persian rug with cherub imagery?” (tantrum Kanye) and misspelled Silicon Valley as “Silicone Valley” in his first tweet (nervous Kanye).
Let’s face it. Kanye West is a passionate guy and it’s only a matter of time before something happens to rival his caps lock-fueled “I’m typing so f**king hard I might break my f**king Mac book Air!!!!!!!!” blog rant of times gone by. When it does, with the ease of Twitter, it’ll also be fascinating reading.
What Twitter users are saying about World Cup games in real-time – http://twitter.com/worldcup/
The story of the colourful character behind file-sharing service MegaUpload – http://bit.ly/megaload
The Room: The awful movie everyone wants to see – http://bit.ly/theroom
Keanu Reeves makes a comeback through Photoshopped image memes – http://bit.ly/keanu_sad
How to solve the problem with music royalty collection societies – http://bit.ly/royaltysolve
Please Rob Me
A site which aims to highlight the dangers of geo-location tagging on services like Twitter and Foursquare by listing in near real-time, the people whose homes are empty.
http://pleaserobme.com
Putting Weird Things in Coffee
An enthusiastic coffee drinker who has tired of sugar and milk has taken to putting things like eggs, curry, creamed cheese and cake in his daily mug. Bleurgh.
http://puttingweirdthingsincoffee.com
Flattr
An innovative idea from one of the creators of The Pirate Bay which offers a solution for online media, bloggers, viral video creators and anyone who creates content for the web to get paid from it.
http://flattr.com/beta/
This tweet which appeared on the above Alabama billboard has been spread all over the net for the past week. It’s certainly an unfortunate juxtaposition. More on the billboard.
Steakhouse or Gay Bar?
Following on from the admittedly difficult Cheese or Font, comes this similarly ambiguous game where you guess if establishments like Bull and Bear are the former or the latter.
http://steakhouseorgaybar.com
Untweeps
If you’re finding your Twitter follows getting out of hand, Untweeps helps you remove the people who haven’t tweeted in 30 days or so.
http://untweeps.com/
Women with Moustaches
In honour of Movember, these true-life Mo Sistas really have it going on in the upper lip area. Movember raises awareness and funds for prostate cancer research and men’s health, you can chart my progress and donate here – http://short.ie/9mo.
http://www.womenwithmustaches.com/
