Share: AdWeek Infographic: Who’s Really Using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram in 2015

Here’s a breakdown of how eMarketer predicts market share will change for different U.S. demographics for the top social nets over 2015 and 2016. [Update: The number of total social network users in 2015 below should be 179.7 million including users under the age of 18. All other total figures include this demographic.] Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/new-social-stratosphere-who-using-facebook-twitter-pinterest-tumblr-and-instagram-2015-and-beyond-1622

Share: Schich & Martino’s Charting Culture (Video)

From the video description: This animation distils hundreds of years of culture into just five minutes. A team of historians and scientists wanted to map cultural mobility, so they tracked the births and deaths of notable individuals like David, King of Israel, and Leonardo da Vinci, from 600 BC to the present day. Using them… Read More »

Excerpt: Memes Vs. Cultural Evolution

Excerpt from blog post by Peter Turchin, a professor of Biology and Anthropology in the University of Connecticut. Here he refutes playing too much on the analogy between memes and genes. The process of transmitting cultural traits is also quite different from that of gene replication. It can occur simply by observing and imitation, or… Read More »

Tools to Find Social Media Influencers

Just a crib of notes here about possible software tools used to screen, find and surface influencers by topic/niche across social media… * Followerwonk – https://followerwonk.com/ * GroupHigh – http://www.grouphigh.com/ * SocialBro – http://www.socialbro.com/ * BuzzStream – http://www.buzzstream.com/ * Citation Labs – http://citationlabs.com/ * SproutSocial – http://sproutsocial.com/ Anyone have experience and success stories / case… Read More »

Share: Adrian Holovaty, Soundslice – XOXO Festival 2013 (Video)

From the video description: Adrian Holovaty, Soundslice – XOXO Festival (2013) What do gypsy jazz and Python have in common? Adrian Holovaty, the Chicago-based developer and accomplished jazz guitarist responsible for EveryBlock, Chicago Crime, and the Django framework, named after gypsy jazz legend Django Reinhardt. Adrian’s jazz guitar renditions on YouTube have garnered over 17… Read More »

Excerpt: Shifman’s Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker

An article by Limor Shifman in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication Volume 18, Issue 3, pages 362–377, April 2013. Shifman works in the Department of Communication and Journalism, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel. Shiftman’s paper is a bit dense around defining the scope of “what is a meme” (in particular, the difference between… Read More »