New York Startup: Get Shitter Puts Your Tweets On Toilet Paper

Before we dive into the bowl on this one let me first say that this is a 100% true story, now on with the runny details…

A recently announced startup that was founded by a four man team of developers in New York and Australia, has revolutionized the Twitter API in a way no one has ever thought of. These four men have found the ability to turn your tweets into four, useable rolls of toilet paper. This is actually brilliant.

All you do is log into their website at getshitter.com pay the $35 via paypal and voila your toilet paper will arrive shortly. It’s perfect for openhouses and press events, lets see how many rolls of getshitter paper we find at SXSW next year.

“Obviously this is fairly tongue in cheek, but we’re reasonably pleased we monetized Twitter in a way that avoided advertising,” said founder David Gillespie Told Venturebeat’s Ben Poper ”… The direction is still settling, but I think there’s some kind of course to chart around just trying to entertain people. I don’t know where the revenue is, it may very well wind up needing to be funded by brands when the right project comes along. I can’t imagine Kleenex having put their name to Shitter though!”

They may not be too far off fro funding as StockTwits founder Howard Lindzon tweeted that he wanted to invest in the shitter.

source: VB

President Obama Joins Pinterest

Although many feel, and statistics are showing, that Pinterest is predominantly for women, one important man has joined the Pinterest Community. That man is our President Barack Obama.

Sure we know that the account is being handled by his social media team, but people who follow Obama on Pinterest will get to see pictures of first dog BO, recipes; like an Obama family recipe for chili and artwork by the first kids.  The great people on Obama’s social media team have already set up pinboards on the President’s account. ObamArt, Obama inspired recipes and “The first family” are all part of Obama’s pinterest feed.

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MySpace Cracks Back In To The Top 50 Websites

If you felt the need to do a double take at the headline, go right ahead. It’s true. Social networking site MySpace had cracked back into the top 50 websites for the first time in a very long time.

MySpace hasn’t been the same since Tom and his crew left it after the Fox merger. Embattled Fox Interactive then sold Myspace to a consortium led by singer/actor Justin Timberlake who has served as the face for Myspace since that deal. Timberlake was even at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January talking to anyone who would listen about how Myspace was changing.

MySpace has become focused primarily on music. The teeny boppers have moved over to Facebook and now Myspace focuses on Music. Their home page touts the fact that they have 8 million albums that you can listen to while you’re hanging out.

MySpace was able to rack up 25.4 million unique visitors last month which was good enough for 42nd place. They’ll take that! MySpace ranked 50th in January with 25.1 million uniques.  MySpace was able to beat out IRS.gov during the mad rush of tax season, and everyone’s favorite store, Target.

source: Comscore via geekswire

Facebook Linked To Narcissism, You Don’t Say?

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

New research released last week links people with large numbers of friends and tons of status updates to narcissism, you don’t say? The research suggests that there is a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and the degree to which you are a “socially disruptive narcissist.

According to this report at the Guardian:

People who score highly on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire had more friends on Facebook, tagged themselves more often and updated their news feeds more regularly.

The link between narcissism and Facebook isn’t new however the study published in the Journal Of Personality and Individual Differences is the first study to show the direct relationship between Facebook friends and the most ‘toxic” elements of narcissistic personality disorder. To further back this research, researchers at Western Illinois University studied a group of 294 students between ages 18 and 65, measuring  two of the most socially disruptive elements of narcissistic personality disorder.

The first element, grandiose exhibitionism (GE) and entitlement/exploitativeness (EE). People who score high in the GE aspect of narcissism need to be the center of attention. They are also the kind of people who say shocking and inappropriate things because they can’t stand to be ignored or miss a chance for self promotion.

EE includes “a sense of deserving respect and a willingness to manipulate and take advantage of others”.  The research showed that those who scored highly with GE and EE were likely to accept friend requests from strangers. They were also likely to accept social support from strangers but then not provide it.

Much of this research can be attributed to the way that self-esteem is taught in American schools and with American children. Parents, mentors and educators are pushing the “self-esteem” agenda so far that some end up with an inflated sense of self-worth. When a child becomes of age to start using and interacting with social networks they look to replicate the “me, me, me” attention that was taught by the adult influencers in their lives.

While the intention of those influencers was of course to make sure kids didn’t have low self-esteem in some it was over inflated during childhood so now these young adults are always right, have the best ideas, and want to be the center of attention. It goes back to  “Mom and Dad said I’m great so you need to say I’m great too”.

Researcher Chris Carpenter who ran the study said:

“If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking.”

Speaking of Facebook, please help us fuel our egos and “like” us as much as we like ourselves.  We can be found here

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Fast Follow The Game Zynga Likes To Play?

The buzz of Zynga and their business model of social gaming online has undoubtedly had a major impact on bringing a fun new way to socially interact with our friends online. There are several other social game companies out there that have help build social gaming into what it is today. Mark Pincus, chief executive of social gaming company Zynga has recently been interviewed by Venture Beats and has turned up some interesting insight on how the follow fast game works in the social gaming industry. I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are several games made by different companies that look almost the same and some could argue that they are the same and that one of the companies copied another company’s games. While this would seem true to many, there is more to the story as Mark Pincus explains in an interview Venture Beats today. Some companies Playdom, NimbleBit and Buffalo Studios have all come forward claiming that Zynga has played the follow fast game with their games and the it doesn’t seem that the follow fast game is going to lose steam anytime soon. To understand the point of view of Zynga, you’ll want to read the memo from Mark Pincus to his fellow team mates.

 

Via Venture Beats & Business Insider

 

 

Twitter Acquires Summify To Boost Content

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Twitter has acquired news aggregator Summify. Summify is a Canadian based start-up that aggregates stories across social media based on the amount of shares. The more a story is shared across Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader the higher it ranks on Summify.

Summify has an iPhone app and began service as an email delivered summary of news.

Twitter’s acquisition will eventually result in the Summify website getting shut down and Summify employees relocating to Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. Twitter hasn’t made a statement on how it will merge Summify into their current technology, but reports around the internet suggest it has something to do with Twitter’s new Discover tab.

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