To illustrate how much Twitter drove our global dialogue, we culled the most talked-about topics into a crossword puzzle. Click here for the answers.
The World’s Most Innovative Companies: Twitter
He tells me a story about how his father, an engineer and semi-serial entrepreneur, helped him build a model of a mass spectrometer out of Legos, ball bearings, and magnets when he was 11. (A few weeks later, Dorsey’s father, Tim, tells me his version of the story, taking the time to teach me the concept of mass spectrometry. In the Lego device, the magnets were there to encourage ball bearings of different sizes to arrange themselves by weight, just as a real device would do with gases of different weights. “Did it work?” I ask. “No! It was a disaster!” Tim Dorsey laughs. “But we had a great time!”)
From our story about Jack Dorsey, cofounder of Square and Twitter. Read more->
Your profile photo is an important part of your online image, so if you still have an egg as your Twitter avatar or a blue-and-white silhouette for your Facebook page, it’s time to step things up. (Hint: This photo is a “don’t.”)
We’re big fans of @Jack here at Fast Company. You’ll find out why in our next issue.
They have these super cool cabanas at the Square office
Twitter exec Adam Bain predicts at least half of Super Bowl XLVI ads will include a hashtag.
Twitter Launches Ad Scrimmage Competition For Super Bowl XLVI’s Hashtag Sunday
The social media analytics company Bluefin Labs figures out what people are saying about TV on social media—now they’ll try to figure out why they’re saying it.
With A $12M Cash Infusion, Bluefin Labs Heads Into The Eye Of Social Media Storms
Eric Fischer used geotagged tweets to create maps of the most highly trafficked thoroughfares in major cities.
Photo Issue 2011: Have you seen another computer set-up that so typifies the state of attention-crowded, over-stimulated youth?
“Unpredictable Rewards: Twitter’s “Activity” Stream And Our Dwindling Attention Reservoir”
Photo By: Louish Pixel
Photo Issue 2011: We wrote that everyone — CNN, MTV, Conan, and even Google — is tweeting about the future of interactive entertainment. These realistic Twitter birds get in on it.
“I Want My Twitter TV!”
(Dec/Jan 2011)
Photo By: Jill Greenberg
You could probably stand to be a little nicer on social media. Charity Swearbox fines you every time you use an obscenity in your Twitter feed, so that your dirty mouth can feed kids in Africa.
Charity Swearbox: Turning Twitter Profanity into Famine Relief
Today, the startup Flavors.me takes another swipe at the over-sharing problem, launching a new version of the service aimed at tackling our social media A.D.D. Founder Jonathan Marcus says he wants Flavors to become a “catch-all” for social content, a stream designed to aggregate fragmented social services. “I want a website that lets the content really shine,” he says. “I want a website that showcases me and those close to me in a visual way, and change how social content is presented.”
“That’s the telling part,” says Kacelnik, who was recently a teenaged political blogger herself. “She was asked to perform what reads like a kid’s punishment for bad behavior, and the Governor didn’t even contact her directly to ask for one, as would have been respectful.”
Unpredictable Rewards And Our Dwindling Attention Reservoir
Do Twitter’s Activity feed and Facebook’s Ticker give you anything you really need to know? Not really. But maybe that’s not so bad.
You might think of Bit.ly simply as a service that shortens links for your Twitter feed. But to Hilary Mason, the company’s chief scientist, Bit.ly is building a fresh new way to know what’s going on in the world.
Check out this video to learn more about Bit.ly’s mission and what inspires Mason to keep innovating.
Read more about how Bit.ly reveals the web and the world.
See more from our Who’s Next series for more profiles of big thinkers.
