Interesting Facts

According to a report from Bloomberg, Twitter is going to stop counting photographs and links in its 140-character limit. (There is no official reply from Twitter, but the founder Jack Dorsey has been reported as saying they wanted to allow users to write longer posts.  Don't go too far Twitter, it's your brevity that makes you unique.)

The Twitter hashtag #EdexcelMaths popped up all over the internet following  the GCSE maths exam paper from Edexcel (part of the Pearson group).  It contained a question about someone called Hannah and her bag of orange and yellow sweets, and caused a hilarious Twitter storm. (Tweets like this:- flooded the net over the following question:- Hannah has 6 orange sweets and some yellow sweets. Overall, she has n sweets. The probability of her taking 2 orange sweets is 1/3. Prove that: n^2-n-90=0 According to the Independent, this is the answer:- There are 6 orange sweets and n sweets overall. So, if Hannah takes one, there is 6/n chance of getting an orange sweet. When she takes one,, there is one less orange sweet and one less overall meaning that the probability is now (6-1)/(n-1)=5/n-1. To find the probability of getting the orange sweet both times, multiply the two fractions: 6/n* 5/n-1 =30/n^2-n. It shows the probability of taking two orange sweets (1/3) i...

Allegedly, image recognition software that detects brand logos on pictures uploaded to blogs and sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr is being used to glean marketing information for targeted advertising. (For example, Twitter is using image-based ad targeting through image analytics firm, Ditto Labs.  They are able to pick out photos posted to Twitter -- either directly or through Instagram -- that contain a brand's logo, collect the Twitter handles of the people posting those photos to create a list that an advertiser can then submit to Twitter as the audience it would like to show particular ads to. Maybe it's time to stop wearing branded items when we have our photo taken.)

The Queen sent her first Tweet at the Science Museum on 24th October 2014. (At 11:35 am she removed a glove as she pressed "Post" to tweet ""It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R," using the @BritishMonarchy account. By 11:39 am she had her first troll who wrote: "Welcome to Twitter. Abdicate!" I wonder if she blocked him / her.)

28th April 2014 is Ed Balls Day. A day to celebrate Ed Balls accidentally tweeting his own name at 4:20pm, on 28th April, 2011.

Allegedly, some Winter Olympic contestants are turning over their social media accounts to sponsors. (They are agreeing to quotas of postings on their Twitter and Facebook accounts, letting other people send commercial messages in their name. If you are shocked by this, you probably think that your favourite pop star / film star sits tweeting away all day. That said, it's not really the spirit of the Olympics, is it? I can promise you, this though.  This is me. Sitting at my keyboard with my fingers tapping the keys. Of course you only have my word for that, and I'll admit I feel a little jealous. I can't imagine having assistants.)

According to a study carried out by lastminute.com around 2.5 million Brits waste their weekends then lie about what they did. (People will regularly lie about their weekends to make them sound more interesting, and the main culprit for all these porky pies is social networking. So, the next time you read someone's update on Facebook or Twitter, take it with a pinch of salt.)

According to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, you can only have 150 friends.  This is called the Dunbar number. (Now we're not talking Facebook friends here, but meaningful friendships, and these can be broken down into groups:- As humans we can cope with anything from 5 to 13 very close friends, the norm is 5.  (The ones you can't afford to fall out with because they know too many secrets about you.) An extra ten friends on top of that make up people you care about and mix with most. Another 35 people create an extended circle of friends, friends from school, groups, work or clubs. And then a final 100 – acquaintances, kind of friends of friends.  A paper published in 2011 found that on Twitter the average number of other people a user regularly interacts with falls between 100 and 200. The limit on how many Facebook friends you can have is a generous 5,000, but the average user has 190.)

Twitter has  announced that it will shift to a two-tiered service. (The basic, free service, will be a consonant-only plan called "Twttr.", and for $5 a month, you can keep your vowels by using the premium "Twitter" service. They tweeted about it: "Trd th nw Twttr yt? Mr tm fr mr twts!" (Translation: Tried the new Twttr yet? More time for more tweets) However, Joan Rivers has a solution: "Twyttyr? Why byy vywyls whyn yyy gyt "Y" fyr fryy? Syckyrs! #nvwls" (Translation: Twitter? Why buy vowels when you get "Y" for free? Suckers!) Read more here:- https://discover.twitter.com/twttr/)

Mice can sing. (Well, the male mouse can, and naturally they do it to impress the women. The results of several experiments on mice were published in the Journal, Plos One, and it seems that mice share some of the brain mechanisms that humans and songbirds use when learning songs. This ability, which is known as local learning, had been limited to humans, sea lions, seals, birds, dolphins, whales, bats and elephants. This story has caused a great deal of silliness on the Interwebby thingy, with lots of suggestions for songs they might sing, such as, We're Caught In A Trap. Here are some of my favourite even sillier suggestions:- Cheese Release Me Cat's Entertainment Mouse of The Rising Sun Mouse of Love 8 days a squeak My own contribution was:- Our Mouse In The Middle Of Our Squeak If you want to find more, search for #mousesongs on Twitter.)

The most "followed" accounts on Twitter are:- 1. Lady Gaga @ladygaga – 26m 2. Justin Bieber @justinbieber – 24m 3. Katy Perry @katyperry – 22m 4. Rihanna @rihanna – 21m 5. Britney Spears @britneyspears – 18m 6. Barack Obama @BarackObama – 17m 7. Shakira @shakira – 16m 8. Taylor Swift @taylorswift13 – 15m 9. Kim Kardashian @KimKardashian – 15m 10. Youtube @YouTube – 14m  I wonder how many of them write their own tweets? PS -  I follow YouTube.  Source

Some people buy followers on Twitter! (Seemingly some enterprising folks are willing to make you look more popular by selling you thousands of extra followers on Twitter.     One company, Get Fast Twitter Followers, is based in London and offers a variety of packages – 1,000 followers costs £10 while 20,000 followers costs £150. Last summer, Republican US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich was embroiled in controversy after a former staff member for his campaign claimed a firm had been tasked with increasing the politician’s Twitter follower numbers by creating fake accounts. His campaign denied the allegations, but people search engine PeekYou claimed 92 per cent of Mr Gingrich’s followers were fake. He currently has more than 1.4m. I'm not sure how many followers I have, or whether the accounts are real or fake, but I can tell you one thing, I've never paid for any!)

According to research by Sweet & Maxwell, t he number of defamation cases related to social media in the UK almost doubled in the year to June 2011. (When you see the actual numbers of libel cases involving social media it's actually not that scary; rising from seven cases to 16,  One court case involved New Zealand cricket team member Chris Cairns who sued over a comment on Twitter.  So, be careful what you say about each other.) Source:  The Guardian  

According to a study by DLA Piper , one third of employers have disciplined employees for something posted on a social media site. (In addition, 21% of employers had to give their employees a warning for posting something derogatory about a colleague or about the business itself on their Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus account. Of course if I posted something derogatory about myself, I would have to discipline myself. No gummy bears for a week maybe?) Source: Britopian

@Google’s first tweet on Twitter was: “I’m feeling lucky”. (But they didn't write it like that, instead they wrote, "I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010” which means the same in binary.)

According to online measurement body UKOM, Facebook attracted more visitors in the UK than Microsoft. (Yes Facebook had 26.8 million visitors in Britain in May 2011, beating the 26.2 million who visited Microsoft's MSN, Windows and Bing sites combined.  Google is still top of the pile with 33.9 million visitors, whilst Twitter's UK audience was just 6.1 million.  I dread to think how much heat their servers produce coping with all those visitors.)

A survey by ScanSafe says that Facebook, Twitter and other Web 2.0 and social networking sites have been banned in about 76% of workplaces over fears about the impact of social networking on business. (The problem will be as the next generation, who've grown up with Facebook et al, join the workforce and then start exhibiting signs of withdrawal when they can't get their Twitfix. So, if you face this dilemma, it might be time to become your own boss.) Read more

According to a study by OKTrends, the more frequently you use Twitter the shorter your relationships tend to be. (Too much time spent Tweeting about love and not enough time actually doing something about it, maybe?) Source  - News Feed Time

The Queen has a Facebook page and a Twitter feed. (Yes, the British Monarchy have launched themselves onto the internet-based social networking site, and you will be able to find out what royal events are happening, but you won't be able to add The Queen as a "friend" or "poke" her.)

The most beautiful tweet ever tweeted on Twitter has been announced at the Hay Festival by broadcaster Stephen Fry. (The winning tweet read: "I believe we can build a better world! Of course, it'll take a whole lot of rock, water & dirt. Also, not sure where to put it." The winner, Marc MacKenzie, 41, from Canada, said he was "pleasantly surprised" to win. I still say the most beautiful tweeting I hear is the birds in the garden at 6.00am.)