Billboard launches new singles chartBillboard, aka the world’s biggest music publication, has team up with Twitter, aka one of the world’s biggest social networks, to launch new singles charts. This week saw the launch of the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts. Catchy, huh?These new charts work in real-time, and provide an up to the minute ranking of songs shared in the US, measured by acceleration over the past hour. A weekly summary can be viewed on the Billboard site and in print in Billboard magazine.Song shares are tracked and incorporated by links, hashtags, song and artist names, and the use of various terms associated with the song, including ‘music’ and ‘song’.The charts are US-based at the moment, but hopefully they will eventually extend to the rest of the world. Viewing information in real-time is almost the norm now, so it’s hardly surprising that the music industry is keeping up. Facebook ups the creep factorFacebook has turned its creepiness up a notch, as it has this week introduced a new way to share and discover TV, music and films. All it involves is listening to what you’re doing through your phone’s microphone.Exactly.Obviously, because everyone is so nervy about privacy and the government reading their status updates, the feature is only something that is turned on if you want to use it, but I’m convinced it’s only a matter of time before they listen in to your phone conversations when you’re talking about what you want for your tea, and the next time you log on to Facebook there’s a Papa John’s… I mean, healthy salad offer waiting for you.Anyway, this new feature is essentially only useful to those who are really, really lazy, as it saves you the laborious task of writing. When writing a status update, if you choose to have the feature on, you’ll have the option to use your phone’s microphone to identify what you’re watching or what you’re listening to. Twitter clues lead to cashAn anonymous do-gooder in San Francisco has been posting messages on Twitter from the account @HiddenCash that lead followers to envelopes of cash hidden around the city. Fairly self-explanatory.What’s not so obvious is who it is, but he claims that his giveaways are a “social experiment for good”. The account started posting clues last Friday, and at time of writing now has over 143,000 followers.
First ever San Jose drop: across from where these sea creatures play, a dog pees in the fall. pic.twitter.com/O3IrpfmPbp
The cash is left all over the city, and the man behind it all claims that there is no political, religious or business agenda. Google’s driverless carYou can’t have logged on to any social media site this week without seeing a mention of Google’s driverless car. The nippy wee things will have a top speed of 25mph (safety first), no steering wheel (obvs) and two driverless seats. There will be 100 built for testing, but it certainly seems like something that will take a while to get used to when (if) they are eventually released.Mind you, it used to be a widely accepted fact that the world was flat, so who knows where driverless cars will be in the future.
