10/29/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Sports
It’s fall in Philadelphia, and this year, it’s special. The Phillies get a chance to beat New York at their own game (baseball, invented in Cooperstown, NY in 1839). Last year’s World Series victory saw an uproarious city with a reason to celebrate violently, and that they did. As a city not used to such occasions, there were some disastrous outcomes, mainly for Robinson’s Luggage at Broad and Walnut, the only store in downtown Philly to be looted that night (people just wanted quality suitcases…for free). A day before this year’s NL championship game, the city had workers grease up all the poles along South Broad St. This cartoonish precaution was taken as an honest attempt to protect Philadelphians from themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Baseball, Phillies, Sports, Yankees
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10/29/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Industry
This morning the social web was abuzz with the phrase “This Will Be Huge.” Those four words are applicable to so many situations that what it may have been referring to was a mystery to us. Perhaps, everyone on the Interweb was partaking in a worldwide pizza making contest and had used entirely too much dough prompting them to announce “This will be huge,” or maybe they were celebrating National Viagra Day. Either way, further investigation was warranted. What we came upon was neither food nor Erectile Dysfunction related.
It seems that Internet industry monster Google has released a new beta application called “Google Maps Navigation.” The free GPS turn-by-turn navigation system has made such an immediate impression, the stock of GPS makers such as Garmin and TomTom more or less have hit the deck, and Mashable’s article on the release was passed around like hotcakes at a Sunday brunch buffet. While we have no doubt that Google’s new beta map app will change the face of humanity forever, this announcement prompted us take a look at other web innovations that have revolutionized the way we interact with the world around us. While we think that Google Maps Navigation will certainly be huge, it might never eclipse the following five internet advances.
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Tags: Google, GPS
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10/29/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Industry
Since the emergence of social media, people have been positively vibrating about its potential. The possibility for growth is endless. But, until there’s a tangible benefit to its application, it’s understandably hard to justify investment in this sort of promotion. With a distinct formula developing for social media success, the question is not ‘Will it work?’ but rather ‘What’s it worth?’ Oliver Blanchard of The BrandBuilder Blog breaks it down into simple terms, giving citizens of the realtime web something to chew on.
From Blanchard’s presentation and Mashable’s elaboration on the idea of measuring ROI of social media, it’s clear that the end goal is to justify the profitability of social media. Metrics for popularity laid over a corresponding increase in, say, online sales is pretty good proof that it’s working. Read the rest of this entry »
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10/28/09 - Posted by Christopher Reinhard under Gossip, Music
In a triumphant posthumous return to the trending topics, Michael Jackson reared his beautifully-singing head on the social web when chatter about the release of his film biography reminded everyone just how influential his passing was. The new picture documents the life of the icon, along with (very) recent footage of Jackson prepping for his massive one-city stand in London (which this writer had tickets to, dammit).
In addition to several relevant celebrities, the premier of This Is It drew over 1.8 million online viewers which, at the price of $11 a move ticket (yeah, that’s what they cost now), translates to almost $20 million in revenues alone. It seems that the film will likely put a miniature dent in the debt left to Jackson’s family, and based on reviews, will give the public a chance to remember the pop icon in a positive light–Which is obviously the goal of Joe Jackson, the world’s first and only altruist.
Tags: Michael Jackson, Movies, Music
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10/27/09 - Posted by Jennifer Hodges under Because We Feel Like it
Citizens of the realtime web are patrons of the present. They’re always up on the newest gadgets, latest headlines, juiciest rumors—getting fresh content as it emerges, and looking towards the future. However today those realtimers must have been feeling a little nostalgic, as the social web started swapping memories of when #WhenWeWereYoung. From fond recollections of sneakers with lights in them, or the words to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme-song, mini blasts from the pasts were sent out in a consistent stream throughout the day. While some people obviously didn’t “get it” and expressed their confusion as to why a “Killers” song was trending, most were quick to join in on the reminiscent bandwagon. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 80's, raisins, Trends
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10/27/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Sports
The end of October is almost without a doubt the most exciting time in sports. Football season is in full swing, hockey freshly underway, and today we find ourselves on the verge of both the World Series and the NBA season. We’d like to think the fall classic between the Yanks and Phillies has captured the hearts and minds, (not to mention keyboards,) of the social web, but instead it’s the premiere tip-off that has realtime net denizens searching up a storm. Roundball’s regular season kicks off with a slate of four games including Kobe and Co starting their title defense against the crosstown Clippers. While there’s been renewed optimism on the side of the perennially cursed Clips, the squad led by usually puzzled Coach and GM Mike Dunleavy has enjoyed an overflow of support from unlikely sources. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Basketball, Clippers, Lakers
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10/26/09 - Posted by Abdullah Saeed under Music
We here at OneRiot love the idea of a good ‘collaboration’, and there’s no better incarnation of the c-word than a supergroup. Today, it came to our attention that there was such a group a-brewin’ when we noticed the massive realtime response to the term ‘New Fang‘. So we did what we do, and aimed our massive, cannon-like OneRiot trend-detector at this little bit of text and found that Them Crooked Vultures were in our midst, with Queens of the Stone Age and Led Zeppelin fans alike chattering over their new single.
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10/26/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under Industry
Today marks a sad day in Internet lore as Yahoo! has shuttered the digital doors of the long-time personal web hosting service Geocities. Geocities began in late 1994 and was one of the early ways for aspiring mavens of the world wide web to post their elaborately hokey tributes to the occult teachings of Aleister Crowley complete with rotating and blinking Unicursal Hexigram icons with horrendous purple backgrounds. It was this potential for the rampant display of obsessive nerdery that led Yahoo! to purchase the service for $3.57 billion in 1999, effectively encouraging people to start About Me pages and Ronnie James Dio fan sites also awash in flashing and spinning icons. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Geocities, Internet, Yahoo!
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10/26/09 - Posted by Christopher Reinhard under Music
Halloween is just a few days away, but before we can get to the ghastly news leading up to everyone’s favorite heathen holiday, it’s time to spill the beans on this week’s music.
While it’s no surprise that Beyonce’s doing everything she can to stay relevant in her old age (read: 28), we here at OneRiot totally approve of her latest decision to cozy up with creepy crooner Lady Gaga. The pair shot a video for Knowles’ new track “Videophone” earlier this month, and now the ex-Destiny’s Child frontwoman is lending her pipes to Gaga’s upcoming single “Telephone.” What’s yet to be seen is how the comparably traditional Knowles will mix up with the decidedly nontraditional Madonna-phile Lady Gaga.
In sad news, British music legend Morrissey was rushed to a Swindon hospital on Saturday night after collapsing during the performance of Smiths’ staple “This Charming Man.” Though sources say that the asexual icon is currently resting at home, surrounded by thousands of mirrors, we wish him a speedy recovery (and perhaps a late-afternoon slot at next year’s Coachella Festival). In sadder news, Bob Dylan released a Christmas album. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Beyonce, Lady Gaga, New Moon
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10/22/09 - Posted by Evan Kessler under International Affairs, Politics
It’s not often that matters solely encompassing political affairs of the British Isles make lasting impressions throughout the course of the day. The fickle nature of trending topics tends to guarantee that almost precisely at the moment we choose to tackle one in blog form, it disappears. Today, however, “BBC” and “Nick Griffin” have managed to stay afloat atop our fair list of topics. On first glance, these two seemed separate. We thought perhaps the BBC was trending because Monty Python is celebrating their 40th year of hilarity, and maybe everyone in Britain was checking feverishly to see what time a special is going to air on BBC…and not really knowing who Nick Griffin is, we figured that maybe he was a new dynamite contestant on Britain’s Got Talent. Upon further investigation this could not be further from the truth. Read the rest of this entry »
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