Open up your mind and say, ahh...

The FBI wants to step up their monitoring of social media. Earlier this month the bureau posted a Request for Information (RFI) from potential vendors for a powerful, custom-designed social media monitoring app. However, the most worrying thing isn’t that the FBI wants to scrape social media data from terrorists’ Twitter feeds, it’s that they don’t already have a dashboard with these capabilities.

In the RFI, the FBI described their dream software suite in terms that would chill most privacy activists. Various departments at the bureau (cybercrime, anti-terrorism, etc.) would be able to create specific social media and search engine alerts that would be keyed to a Google Maps-style geospatial map. The map (and other stand-alone features within the suite) would also contain information on weather, traffic, domestic terrorist intelligence, and foreign terrorist intelligence. Using the software suite, agents could instantly create spot reports. Agents would also be able to conduct real-time monitoring of public messages/posts on social networks including Twitter, Facebook, and, adorably, MySpace.

The end result is something out of the television show 24. In the proposal, the FBI talks repeatedly about the need to monitor open source intelligence–a fancy buzzterm for publicly available information such as Twitter posts, newspaper articles, television broadcasts, and television programs. Analysis of content from foreign publications and broadcast networks has been a mainstay of U.S. intelligence agencies; apparently, it is something of interest to the FBI too.

Meanwhile, the fact that the FBI has requested information from vendors about building this software does not mean that it’s a done deal. RFIs are preliminary steps that alert government contractors to potential projects; it will be some time before this software (if approved) makes its way onto FBI computers.

Data scraping has been a favorite tool of the FBI for quite some time. According to civil rights groups such as the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the bureau has routinely made large bulk purchases of consumer spending data and demographic information datamined from the Internet. These purchases are intended to get around provisions largely prohibiting the FBI from spying or intelligence-gathering on domestic targets without warrants or due suspicion. In 2007, it was revealed that the FBI even data mined Middle Eastern grocery store sales records; the FBI would not disclose if any arrests occurred due to their monitoring of ethnic food stores. The FBI also solicited bulk information from telephone companies. Apart from tracking down suspected terrorists, it’s believed the FBI mined bulk data in search of, among other crimes, credit card fraud and car theft.

The fact that the FBI is even searching for a social media monitoring dashboard, however, is puzzling. Most Americans are blissfully unaware of how nearly every activity on the Internet is monitored, analyzed, and repackaged for a host of companies whose market-driven spy apparatuses are scarier than anything the government has to offer. In the past 10 years, the market research and Internet marketing industries have commissioned plenty of sophisticated analysis software with Big Brother-ish capabilities. The puzzling coda is that market researchers and analysts, working for private corporations, snoop on Americans’ online activities far more effectively than the FBI themselves.

Image: Flickr users Aislinn Ritchie, Thumbnail: Flickr user Luca Argalia

Even with Ricky Gervais hosting, the 69th Golden Globe Awards have remained a relatively mild affair. Fortunately for all of us, Tina Fey is a lover of memes.

During the presentation for “Best Actress in a Television Series – Comedy or Musical,” the 30 Rock star photobombed the nominee shot of her pal and former “Weekend Update” co-anchor, Amy Poehler. Fey and Poehler were both up for the award but lost to Laura Dern.

Still, the Internet (and Twitter) was a flutter, with requests for animated gifs of photobomb excellence.

Tumblr to the rescue! User kellyoxford put together this shot, celebrating the photo ruiner in us all. Using the time-honored tradition of gif animation, here is what may be the first photobombing at a Hollywood Foreign Press Association award show.

 

 

After our initial Kindle Fire review, we wanted to take a closer look at how Amazon’s new tablet compares with the iPad 2 as a media consumption device.

Like Apple, Amazon has paired the Kindle Fire with a complete end-to-end media solution. Users can buy apps, books, music and video files all from one account and one interface.

As someone that has invested heavily in both the Apple and Amazon ecosystems, I wanted to compare the experiences in terms of media consumption. This means the ease of use in listening to music, watching movies and TV shows and purchasing apps.

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Screen Size Realities

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Like its eInk predecessors, the Kindle Fire is a 7″ device. The iPad (and the iPad 2) has a 9.7″ screen. Both run at about the same resolution — 1024×600 for the Kindle Fire and 1024×768 for the iPad — but the difference in aspect ratio and screen size offers up some differences.

The Kindle Fire is an ideal size for reading text (though not necessarily magazines), but it pales when compared to the iPad for viewing video. Playing back a video on the iPad in portrait orientation yields the same video size as the Kindle Fire in landscape.

Moreover, the Kindle Fire’s resolution is still in the realm of standard definition. From my tests, high definition content on the Kindle Fire didn’t look any better than the same content on the iPad.

The Kindle Fire’s screen size and aspect ratio work well for 16×9 formatted content, but for many television shows, the 4:3 aspect ratio of the iPad is actually preferable.

Ultimately, screen size is an important consideration, especially if video consumption is going to be a common activity.

Since screen resolution is nearly identical, I give the edge to the iPad 2.

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Streaming vs. Downloading

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Each weekend, Mashable hand-picks a few startups we think are building interesting, unique or niche products.

How we as consumers of physical and digital content view and experience the world around us is changing, and the startups highlighted here are all dedicated to helping us better find, discover and consume content.

SocialGuide, which focuses on social media ratings of broadcast television shows, gives us a real-time glimpse at how viewing audiences are reacting to content. New video search engine Smivi aims to give us better tools to shift through the troves of the web’s video library. And, Sparkatour, a mobile guide maker optimized for museums, could come in handy when we’re exploring and consuming real-world content.

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SocialGuide: Social Media Meets TV Guide

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Quick Pitch: SocialGuide is a social TV guide and ratings system that mines, filters and displays conversations about TV on social networks.

Genius Idea: Television show ratings that pivot around social conversations.

Mashable’s Take: Social media and armchair quarterback TV commentary seem to go hand-in-hand. Brooklyn-based SocialGuide, which launched in April, reveals much of this online chatter and makes sense of it in a TV guide-like fashion.

The service’s “Most Social Now” algorithm is a real-time ranking of TV shows generating the most online buzz. You can use SocialGuide to see which shows are super social, filter results by show genre, limit shows to just those your friends are watching or simply check out what’s on now.

SocialGuide also spits out “The Social 100″ report of the top programs across 170 different cable networks. You can view the report in daily, weekly or monthly increments and check out the social performance stats for the top 100 shows.

SocialGuide has raised $1.5 million in funding from angel investors. In addition to its web app, the startup has TV companion apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.

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Smivi: Smart Video Search

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Quick Pitch: Smivi is a video search engine that lets you follow searches and find live events.

Genius Idea: Discover live videos as you search.

Mashable’s Take: New video search engine Smivi launched its beta application Friday to help users better search for and discover online videos across the web — not just on YouTube.

“At its present data stage, Smivi has crawled videos from many of the top websites,” explains creator Danny Witters. “Smivi searches across numerous video sources and puts all relevant results, whether they are from YouTube, TED.com or ESPN.com, in one convenient place.”

Smivi also supports categorial search to help you filter video searches (use “search query .category”), and has a follow feature so you can keep track of your queries. Smivi also has a live search marker that informs you when videos on the results page are being live streamed.

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Sparkatour: Mobile Phone Museum Tours

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Quick Pitch: Sparkatour enables small to medium-sized museums to easily create a mobile multimedia-guided tour of their art collections for their visitors.

Genius Idea: Giving museums and their visitors a more practical alternative to audio guide hardware.

Mashable’s Take: Carrying around bulky audio hardware while touring a museum feels unnecessary, especially considering that most of us already tote around more-capable machines in our pockets. Such is the belief of Sparkatour, a San Antonio-based startup that helps museums create mobile guides to replace antiquated audio tours.

“Museumgoers are becoming increasingly more technologically savvy and want to interact with the pieces of art in different ways,” Sparkatour co-founder Kyle Rames explains. “Museums can leverage their visitors’ devices instead of purchasing equipment.”

Museums, for a cost, can use Sparkatour to quickly create a mobile app that includes all their video, audio and image content. They can even assign guests numbers to use as visitor keys to gain access to specific tour content.

Sparkatour’s first client is the San Antonio Museum of Art. The museum created a mobile guide for the last destination on its “The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama” exhibit. San Antonio River Foundation and The National Ranching Heritage Center are also said to be soon releasing mobile guides of their own.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Ary6

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Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Ron Jacoby is the chief architect and vice president of Yahoo! Connected TV, a leading platform for Internet-connected TV, available across top TV brands worldwide including VIZIO, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and LG.

While mobile has dominated the headlines over the past few years (thanks to rise of the smartphone and the success of apps), another movement is under way in the living room — Internet-connected TV. Just as DVRs and on-demand programming have become the standard, soon we won’t be able to remember our TVs before they were web-enabled.

Right now, more than 30 million U.S. households are using digital TVs, Blu-ray players and gaming consoles for viewing some form of online content in the living room, and that number is on the rise. According to Parks Associates, less than a quarter of HDTVs were connected to the Internet in 2010, but by 2015, that number will spike to 76%. The reason for this massive jump? With increasing consumer demand for connectivity in the living room and faster broadband speeds, device makers will make it convenient for HDTVs to connect directly to the Internet without an extra device in-between.

So how will Internet-connected TV change how we use the television? And why would someone need a connected TV? Just look at your phone to see how the Internet transformed this familiar device. From music to videos to games to search, social media and instant messaging — it’s all happening again, this time optimized for a screen 10 feet away from the couch.

Today, early adopters are accessing full-length TV shows and movies, news and information, social networks, music, casual games and more from their connected setups. But how can the industry cross the chasm from early adopters to broad adoption?

My company’s research and platform usage data reveal a few key trends that we think will spur the mainstream into flipping the switch on connected TVs.

First, It’s Got to be Social.

Consumers love TV shows and talking about them with friends.

• Content around TV shows and social media will spur the growth of this new landscape, especially among women.
• 60% of those surveyed said they would be interested in looking at online content on their TV related to the program they were watching.
• Among those who showed interest, 28% want to include their friends via social media when watching TV.

Second, Tablets and Phones Will Have an Impact on the Connected TV

• 25% of people who purchase a tablet say they use their connected TV more since the purchase.
• Internet-connected TVs need to be multi-screen to take advantage of the interactive features like touchscreens, gestures and media playback.

Last, and more surprisingly, advertising will be a key driver of usage for connected TV.

• Two in five consumers said they are interested in content relevant to the commercials they see. In fact, more than half of survey respondents reported that they are likely to interact with an ad.

Here’s a look into what the future looks like for Internet-connected TV.

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Attention Developers: There’s a TV App for That?

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Broad consumer adoption will happen when developers can create apps that sync web content with live TV. This will enable the consumer to interact with TV shows and advertisements. Here are a few ways we see this playing out. Consumers will be able to:

• Participate in TV show trivia
• Vote for a favorite actor
• Purchase an item seen on TV
• Play along with a favorite game show
• View related videos and photos

In terms of discoverability, TV apps currently use a pull model, meaning you have to actively browse through the app gallery and select one to use it. In the future, TV apps will be integrated right into the broadcast experience, through what the industry calls “broadcast interactivity.” Personalized, relevant content will soon be pushed to you. In short, it will appear seamlessly on your screen, a lot like the promotional text you already see today along the bottom of certain TV shows.

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Social TV

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Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are not detracting from our TV consumption. Rather, they are creating a hybrid experience around TV content. The socialization of television is extremely important and very exciting.

As an example, let’s take a look at the news of Osama bin Laden’s death. President Barack Obama’s speech about the military operation in Pakistan drew more TV viewers than any other speech of his presidency — 56.6 million according to Nielsen. At the same time, the news set records on Twitter, with more than 5,000 Tweets sent per second at times before and during the speech. What this shows is that millions of people were not just watching TV at that moment — they wanted to participate in the news.

With connected TV, broadcast and social experiences will blend. Imagine watching the speech, reading the tweets, and pulling up the White House pictures on Flickr about what it was like to be in the room when the raid happened.  Most people are already doing this — with a tablet, smartphone or laptop in hand. Now, you could do it on the big beautiful screen in your living room.

As the television becomes a two-way device, TV networks are already exploring the potential by developing TV apps that, for example, enable viewers to vote on their favorite characters or contestants. This social enrichment of programming will let networks gain valuable insight into audience engagement and reaction to their programming.

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Connected TV Advertising

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In 2010, television advertising expendetures were the largest for all media, coming in at $69 billion. What this signifies to many is that television is still a tremendous medium to drive product, services and brand awareness.

Connected TV is a Holy Grail scenario for an industry that has been trying to bridge the emotion and effectiveness of television advertising with the metrics, interactivity and audience targeting of Internet advertising. For example, rather than distributing a standard car commercial, the company could run the same ad with the option for connected consumers to pull up additional information on the car, read consumer reviews and find a local dealer — all with the click of the remote control.

Additionally, with connected TV, ad content can be locally relevant and based on consumers’ interests and behaviors. This means ads will be more personalized and tailored to you.

For example, your favorite sandwich shop can distribute a message to you about a “Sunday Special,” just in time for the big game. This creates a whole new layer of experience around TV viewing that is hugely compelling and powerful, both for consumers and advertisers.

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T-Commerce

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As with the web and mobile industries, there is significant opportunity for businesses to capitalize on the ability to make purchases directly from the television — “t-commerce,” if you will. According to the Parks Associates report, by 2015 there will be more than $8 billion worth of transactions conducted via web-enabled consumer electronics.

There are so many interesting scenarios for t-commerce. There’s the obvious — browsing and shopping for products on Amazon and eBay. But what if you could buy the exact shoes your favorite character was wearing on tonight’s episode of Gossip Girl with a click of the remote? Or what if you could pull up the menu of a local restaurant to order dinner for delivery? These scenarios are all possible through t-commerce, and the best part is, you can do all of it while you’re watching live TV.

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The Future is Bright

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The best part about the connected TV movement is that it is happening now. Right now there are millions of web-enabled TVs on the market with libraries of on-demand movies and TV shows available directly from your television — without the need for a console or set-top box. There are TV apps to play games, socialize, shop and get the latest in sports and news.

But what’s most exciting is yet to come — the experience of seamlessly interacting with programming and ads, and communicating in real time with friends and family right from your TV. As the web has transformed the print and music industries, it is surely on track to revolutionize television.

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Terraxplorer

Show me a modern political candidate who doesn’t understand television, and I’ll show you a loser.

When TV became the dominant medium for Americans to consume news and entertainment, political candidates could no longer be successful without looking polished in televised debates, appearing on talk shows and spending big on commercials.

Like the television boom of the 1960s, we are standing on the precipice of a big shift in how public figures are perceived and how campaigns are conducted. Our frontier is social media, and its impact on mainstream political culture is coming on fast.

While my colleagues have been making their predictions about what’s on the tech and social media horizon in 2011, there will be no major U.S. elections next year. Here, we’ll be postulating about social media’s impact on the more long-term future of American civics.

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1. There Will Be a Tipping Point

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While campaigning and marketing share many similarities, the differences mean everything when you’re talking about democracy’s big picture. Brands can sell by hitting a tech savvy demographic of influencers. Elections involve everyone, whether they’re online or not.

If a large bloc of your constituency is made up of 65+ year-old retirees, chances are a Facebook strategy won’t be time well spent. Despite the enthusiasm of the tech crowd and blogosphere, Twitter is exceedingly far from the mainstream, with only 6% of Americans using the service. And while the world consumes YouTube videos at a mind-bending rate, viral success is still transient and elusive.

While these tools have certainly proven to be effective in rallying support and contributions, we don’t yet live in a world where social media can make or break a political candidate by itself.

That will change, perhaps even by the next major election cycle.

The future of the social media politician is not about wild speculation and technological uncertainties. It has everything to do with when and how deeply social media can be absorbed into mainstream culture. We are on track for a tipping point — a JFK/Nixon TV debate moment — when everyone on the political scene will acknowledge that we can never go back to campaigns without social.

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2. New Media Strategists Will Just Be Strategists

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I’ve had the opportunity to talk with the new media strategists for a number of senators, congresspeople and political causes. Despite their differences, they all agree that their own jobs will soon be folded into the larger campaign strategy. As many have already foreseen, social media will not require experts for much longer. As we head toward true mainstream adoption, social will be a default and well-understood tool in the belt of any public-facing professional.

We’ve already seen this happening in the private sector with marketing and PR professionals. As many corporate entities lumber to catch up with those on the cutting edge, so too will government officials and the campaigners who seek their offices.

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3. We’ll See the Devaluation of Old Media in Politics

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Print and radio ads are not as valuable as TV. TV will no longer be as valuable as interactive media. For politics, this is especially so, as the arena (at its best, anyway) warrants engagement and discussion.

As media appetites shift, this is an inevitability. In the U.S., we’re already seeing web use catch up with television in terms of weekly hours spent. Political money will simply go where the eyeballs are, and we’re likely to see a big payoff on social creativity when it comes to future campaigns.

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4. Whistle Blowing Gets More Efficient, But That’s It

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The WikiLeaks saga has ignited plenty of discussion about journalism and whistle blowing in the Internet age. But at the end of the day, the mechanics of an information leak are about the same as they’ve always been: Someone from within an organization leaks damaging information, and the media (in whatever form) disseminates it to the public. Generally speaking, WikiLeaks has only acted as a “middle man” for raw information. It’s journalists who are making sense of it and transmitting it to the public with context.

The web only speeds up this process through digitization and universal access. Governments and politicians will feel the impact of leaks sooner, but it’s unlikely the methods of protecting sensitive information will be much changed.

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Your Thoughts?

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What do you think will be social media’s biggest impact on the political process? How long until we see a winning campaign strategy that is purely social? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Leyl Master Black is a managing director at Sparkpr, one of the world’s top independent PR agencies. Leyl has more than 15 years experience driving high-impact communications programs for emerging technology companies.

The past decade has been rough on the media industry. As media consumption has shifted online, many print publications have struggled to adjust their editorial approach, advertising infrastructure and revenue models to accommodate a rapidly changing readership. During this time, quite a few online-only news sites also entered the market. With no legacy advertising infrastructure to deal with, lower overhead costs and startup agility, these new competitors began to attract viewers — and ad dollars — from traditional publications. Many publications have had to downsize, and reporters must now cover more beats and file more stories than ever before.

The recent social revolution changed the game again. Our social networks have taken on the role of crowdsourced news editors. Instead of going directly to websites to scan for news, we frequently only see bite-sized news headlines that have been posted or retweeted by our trusted sources. When we do go directly to a site, we’re now relying more on news aggregators such as TechMeme, or getting the scoop on what’s trending from sites such as Tweetbeat.

Today, mobile devices are sparking another big shift in media infrastructure, with the iPad in particular set to become the centerpiece of media strategies for top print publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

As the media changes, so too must the practice of public relations. In light of these evolving dynamics, what should savvy PR practitioners be thinking about as they’re building plans for 2011? Here are a few trends to watch in the coming year.

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1. Social Sharing of News

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In a recent article on Forbes.com, entrepreneur Dan Greenberg asserted that the web has evolved from a network of sites to a network of people. And because you can’t put ads on people, you must now focus on creating content that people will want to consume and share. The same holds true for PR, and next year, we will see more PR strategies that put social sharing at the forefront.

News releases will have more attention-grabbing or controversial headlines to drive more retweets. We’ll see more pitches that seek to seed a contrarian view or spark controversy, both of which will have a better chance of being shared than straight news. There will be more aggressive outreach to influencers on Twitter to ask them to tweet about news, and more strategies to provide incentives to tweet or post to Facebook. And PR professionals will be under more pressure to measure program success using social sharing metrics.

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2. Increase in “Direct Editorial”

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As media companies overhaul their revenue models, many have moved beyond straightforward banner-style advertising to offer new types of content-driven ad experiences, sponsored content and creative syndication partnerships. This means that the need for content has never been greater. But with staffing levels still low, there will be even more opportunities in the coming year for company execs to contribute their own thought leadership pieces and educational articles to prominent publications.

We can also expect to see more corporate blogging in 2011. While just a few years ago, many companies shied away from blogging because it was so difficult to promote the content and actually get people to read it, it’s now easier than ever to promote blog content to a targeted audience through social media. And, the shake-up in the media industry has produced a large number of talented freelance writers to support these efforts.

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3. Greater Demand for Exclusives

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With breaking news now posting almost instantaneously online, straight news coverage has become a commodity. When Facebook announces a redesign, you can expect to read similar stories about it on dozens of news sites the minute it hits. Many publications, as well as journalists, are now grappling with how to differentiate their coverage in this environment. Watch closely for publications shifting their editorial approach to find the right niche next year, and adjust your engagement accordingly.

Also look for increasing value being placed on exclusives as a way for journalists to offer a differentiated and unique news product. As more publications request (and even require) exclusive content, reporters will be able to invest more time in doing a “deep dive” for stories, and we’ll likely see an increase in longer, more insightful pieces.

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4. Growth in Multimedia

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Another point of differentiation for publications will be the use of use podcasts and video interviews to complement their print and online stories. Where appropriate, PR professionals should begin to build ideas for podcasts into their pitches to paint a more complete picture of how a story could be rolled out.

Video is also becoming a critical part of many news sites and an important asset for PR to provide to busy reporters, particularly as publications focus on creating visually rich content for devices such as the iPad. In 2011, expect to see more stories that include individual videos or even curated video in a slideshow or mosaic layout, such as this New York Times story about Tufts University applicants submitting YouTube videos as part of the application process.

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5. Data, Graphics and Apps

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Relevant stats have always been critical for validating trend stories, and with online survey tools making data gathering easier than ever, many PR pitches are now already accompanied by original research. In 2011, with news outlets hungry for visuals but short on resources, look for the presentation of this data to become more sophisticated, with PR teams working to develop infographics and other visuals to make their data pop. And in our app-happy world, also expect to see a slew of interactive applications to supplement stories, such as this texting and driving game that accompanied a New York Times article on the topic.

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Yuri_Arcurs

Twitter is not a social network. While Facebook is the digital equivalent to your online residence,  Twitter is your window to relevance, a network where individuals connect through fleeting interactions yet rooted in context and interaction.  How we embrace and invest our persona in this paradigm says more about the future of digital culture and ourselves than we might imagine. And, it’s only increasing in its societal prevalence.

- More than 100 million Tweets fly across Twitter every day.

- The lifespan of a ReTweet is roughly one hour.

- Over 175 million people have created a micro presence on Twitter, with that number expected to grow to 200 million by the end of the year.

At just four years young, Twitter’s growth is nothing short of awe-inspiring.

Twitter is at the center of the social media egosystem, firmly placing the “me” in social media among the digerati. While it’s not the largest online network in the world, Twitter is indeed both a real-time and real world lens into a thriving global society. At any moment, we can peer into conversations, experiences, and observations to take the pulse of a very human network and learn about what has its attention at macro and incredibly micro levels.

Suddenly the obscure become recognized, the muffled are amplified and what was once private now becomes public. The back channel is now the front channel and what was once an ambiguous social network connected by streams of @names and @replies is now a reflection of who we are individually and together.

If we are the collective essence of Twitter, perhaps understanding the individual social catalyst will give us insight into the vital spark of Tweets, follows, and followers.

Who are These Tweeple?

For brands, scholars, media leaders, and everyday people, studying the nature and composition of Twitter helps us harness its liveliness and channel activity into insight. I recently met with the team at Ad-ology Research while speaking at the SummitUp Conference in Dayton Ohio. We discussed Twitter and its denizens (you and me) and they shared a recent study that I was permitted to also share with you.

The report, “Twitter Users in the United States” surfaces the demographics and psychographics of Twitter users for brands and businesses to better understand the hearts and minds of this unique group of potential customers and influencers.

If we were to humanize the results, we see that the average Twitter user is likely to be:

- Women than men
- Single, with no kids at home
- Have average incomes
- With some college experience
- Own their primary place of residence
- Live in a suburban location

Age

Of the 2,100 people surveyed, the age of Twitter users divided mainly among two groups, but significantly among four…

25-34 = 28.4%

35-44 = 26%

18-24 = 17.8%

45-54 = 13%

Race

The balance of users in this particular study skewed toward white people with 73.6% followed by English speaking individuals of Hispanic origin with 9.6% and 8.7 of reporting participants representing black communities.

Education

As you can see, those who participated in the study indicate that Twitter is home to a well educated society. 30.3% have completed some years of college, 24.5% have earned a Bachelor’s Degree and 18.3% have finished Grad School.

Gender

As in most of the most popular social networks in the United States, more women than men have created accounts on Twitter. And in my work with Klout and PeopleBrowsr, we also learned that when analyzing the greater population of the Twitterverse, women also held greater influence over men.

Psychographics

The study also dove into the interests, aspirations, and behavior patterns of those most active on Twitter.

Goals

The top personal goals for Twitter users are: Save more money (74.5%), Exercise more often (63.0%) and Lose weight (58.2%).

Internet

57.7% of Twitter users use the Internet more than three hours per day for personal use (outside of school or work) and are considered “heavy Internet users.”

Media

This is one area I’m not sure I agree and need to learn more about this before I comment…

Some Twitter users are more likely to be “heavy users” of the following traditional media: Television (22.6% watch more than 5 hours per day); Newspaper (22.1% read at least one newspaper 6-7 days of the week); Radio (17.8% listen more than 3 hours per day).

Twitter Users are Causemopolitan

60.6% of Twitter users follow a cause/charity on Facebook or Twitter.

53.8% of Twitter users state if price and quality were equal, support of a cause or charity that is important to them would influence their purchase decision.

Advertising

72.1% of Twitter take action after being exposed to advertising and 69.2% through some form of content marketing. “Action” is defined as clicking on a banner ad, doing an Internet search, going to the advertiser’s website, buying the product advertised, or calling/visiting the advertiser.

Synopsis

The 78 page report is teeming with intriguing details about the people who continue to make Twitter more relevant with every day that passes. While Twitter provides the technology framework for interaction and connection, it is us who make it special.  We create the linkages that make the world not only a much smaller place, but also more connected and efficient. We improve collaboration and communication with every Tweet, Retweet, and Follow.

I’ve always believed that social media was more about social sciences than purely the technology powering it. In many ways, those of us who study the culture and behavior populating Twitter and other social networks, regardless of intention, are documenting a new chapter of social science, steeped in digital anthropology, sociology, ethnography, and psychology.

Twitter and the Tweets that fly across the Twitterverse are quickly becoming the Alexandria of digital history as well as the crystal ball that may one day better help us predict what’s ahead.