Can A Change In The Timeline Change Twitter's Fate?
Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 5 to 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly to SoundCloud, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.
This week we discussed:
Is Twitter dying? The stock continues to collapse, and confidence in the platform seems to be a question mark. Last week Twitter made a change. They know how challenging the interface and the real-time aspect of the tweets can be. People follow hundreds of people, and it’s confusing. They’ve now started to tinker with the timeline by adding in a feature that helps you catch up on the best tweets from the people you follow.
Don’t mess with data. Don’t mess with journalists who know how to use data. In the recent past we’ve talked about two major disruptions in our lives because of digital. 1. Uber and the taxi industry. 2. A world without real journalists. Montreal suddenly feels like ground zero for both of these points. We have an environment that is getting increasingly hostile to Uber, because of the local taxi drives, so the Montreal Gazette put journalist, Jason Magder, on the case. Digging into the data, here’s what he learned: Uber’s arrival has had little effect on the value of taxi licenses sold in 2015. In fact, their value climbed significantly from the previous years. Now, we’re not saying that Uber isn’t disruptive, and that the value of those licenses won’t plummet (which, may be a good thing too), but there’s a lot of noise out there, and sometimes it takes a real journalist who gets data to show us the truth.
Famed pop alt rockers OK GO are at it again. They have a knack for creating music videos (in a day and age where few people are bothering) that go highly viral online. It all started back over a decade ago with their infamous treadmill synchronization video (‘Here It Goes Again‘), and they’ve been upping the bar ever since. Their new video for the song ‘Upside Down & Inside Out,’ which premiered Thursday on Facebook (and has already racked up more than 45 million views there), captures their performance in zero gravity while flying over Russia in a special plane that’s used to train cosmonauts. No special effects!