WHERE do new words come from? On Twitter at least, they often begin life in cities with large African American populations before spreading more widely, according to a study of the language used on the social network. Jacob Eisenstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and colleagues examined 30 million tweets sent from US locations between December 2009 and May 2011. Several new terms spread during this period, including “bruh”, an alternative spelling of “bro” or “brother”, which first arose in a few south-east cities before eventually hopping to parts of California. Residents of Cleveland, Ohio, were the first to use “ctfu”, an abbreviation of “cracking the fuck up”, usage that has since spread into Pennsylvania (arxiv.org/abs/1210.5268). After collecting the data, the team built a mathematical model that captures the large-scale flow of new words between cities. The model revealed that cities with big African American populations tend to lead the way in linguistic innovation. The team is still working on a more detailed analysis and says it is too early to say which cities are the most influential. (via Twitter shows language evolves in cities – tech – 17 November 2012 – New Scientist)

The Listening Machine converts 500 people’s tweets into music Composer Peter Gregson turns the words of hundreds into music. (via The Listening Machine converts 500 people’s tweets into music | Ars Technica)

Cue the jokes about the disposable nature of social media: A new service called “S—ter” (the actual name is usually displayed in full, adult-level parlance) is offering to print your Twitter feed on a roll of toilet paper. The Twitter TP costs $35 for a bundle of four rolls, plus shipping and taxes. You can choose from your timeline, tweets, favorites, lists, or someone else’s tweets for fodder. The site accepts payment through Paypal, and shipping to the United States costs $15. (via Startup Turns Tweets into Toilet Paper for $9 a Roll | Techland | TIME.com)

“Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business.”

Author Eric Qualman visits Google’s Boston, MA campus to discuss his book, “Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business.” This event took place on September 21, 2009 as part of the Authors@Google series.

The Baroness, Consciousness, and the Twitterverse

Baroness Susan Greenfield is a British scientist, writer, broadcaster and a member of the House of Lords. She is known as a popularizer of science, with her research focusing on brain physiology, particularly in the areas of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. She was the first female director of the Royal Institution and has received numerous awards, including the Michael Faraday medal from the Royal Society for her contributions to the public understanding of science.

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Ambient Awareness and the age of Digital Intimacy

The following is the last part of a fascinating take by CLIVE THOMPSON over the at the NYT mag, the article implies an interesting take on the the new age of technological reality , “self awareness has increased”.

Take a moment and go read the full article.

“..It is easy to become unsettled by privacy-eroding aspects of awareness tools. But there is another — quite different — result of all this incessant updating: a culture of people who know much more about themselves. Many of the avid Twitterers, Flickrers and Facebook users I interviewed described an unexpected side-effect of constant self-disclosure. The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act. It’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness. (Indeed, the question that floats eternally at the top of Twitter’s Web site — “What are you doing?” — can come to seem existentially freighted. What are you doing?) Having an audience can make the self-reflection even more acute, since, as my interviewees noted, they’re trying to describe their activities in a way that is not only accurate but also interesting to others: the status update as a literary form.”

clipped from www.nytimes.com On Sept. 5, 2006, Mark Zuckerberg changed the way that Facebook worked, and in the process he inspired a revolt. Pundits predicted that News Feed would kill Facebook, but the opposite happened. It catalyzed a massive boom in the site’s growth. A few weeks after the News Feed imbroglio, Zuckerberg opened the site to the general public (previously, only students could join), and it grew quickly; today, it has 100 million users clipped from www.nytimes.com In essence, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why? Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye.