Monthly Archives: April 2009

Deconstructing Swine Flu Mania

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

I’ve taken a stab at deconstructing some of the media hyperbole regarding swine flu. You can read my shy-of-1000 words essay at TheModerateVoice or Newsvine. Two highlights follow.

Today’s “facts” from the World Health Organization provide perspective:

Today WHO reported that 11 countries have “officially reported 257 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection.” In the U.S., we have 109 laboratory-confirmed human cases and one death. In Mexico, there are 97 confirmed human cases and seven deaths.

Moreover, the specter of the 1918-1919 pandemic doesn’t seem likely today, based on WHO’s most “conservative” (ie, worst-case) scenario:

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Will Media Backlash Doom Twitter?

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

Doubtful. Mainstream Media Do Not Have A Good Track Record On Calling Fads.

My 81-year-old father, who uses his MacMini to play solitaire and who lives in rural/agricultural southwest Georgia, asked me about Twitter over the weekend. That’s penetrating the mainstream.

And yet the incumbent backlash has begun, on the heels of Twitter’s launch into popular culture courtesy of Oprah. It’s “a fad” according to Business Week. Nielsen claims it is unlikely to ever have more than 10 percent of all Internet users and, therefore, cannot be successful. Then there was last week’s screed from Maureen Dowd.

So I decided to do a little research. Check out what the popular press had said about earlier communication technologies.

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Twitter: Don’t Like It? Then Play Somewhere Else

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

SAN FRANCISCO — I was here on a simple quest: curious to know if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention. – Maureen Dowd, “To Tweet or Not to Tweet,” New York Times, 22 April 2009.

If Alexander Graham Bell were alive today, Maureen Dowd might ask him this question, based upon her recent interview with Twitter founders: Continue reading →

Missing From Twitter Search: Student Case-Study

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

Updated 12.10 pm Pacific:
After following the link in the Twitter “support” email – the one that says “add yourself to this thread if you’re having problems” — what did I find? This:

We no longer need you to add comments to the thread.  Thanks!

To be clear, Twitter sent me an email that said “go add yourself to this post” … but the post is closed for comment. Nevertheless, @anniekatrina does NOT show up in “find people” NOR does it show up in “plain search“. Grrr.

Original Post:
One of my students told me this week that her tweets were not showing up in our class hashtag. Sure enough, she was right. Moreover, her account was not showing up in Twitter search. She sent an SOS to Twitter but has gotten no response; she opened a new account, and it works just fine.

After poking around the Twitter help site, I found this probable explanation:

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