Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

Monster mum on layoff report

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

We’re trying to confirm reports of a large round of layoffs at Monster Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: MWW). The company, with headquarters in New York and offices in Maynard, may have laid off as many as 200, according to the recruiting blog Cheezhead, which quoted an anonymous source reportedly among those laid off.

So far, mention of layoffs at the Internet job search company has surfaced on Twitter, as well. But the company is skirting questions on the topic, saying only that it is restructuring its product and technology division.

“We continue to re-structure, re-organize and, importantly, re-invest in our  organization in ways that we  believe are necessary to meet our ever-growing and changing customer needs,” reads a written statement emailed by a spokeswoman. “This means that  roles and skill areas that are no longer needed to  support the  business are re-structured.”

The same statement also mentioned a “Technology Center of Excellence and Innovation,” which the company is opening in Cambridge. The move was announced internally “over the past several days,” along with the product and technology restructuring, according to the statement.

However, a spokeswoman declined to say more about that project – or facility, or whatever it is – until after the company reports earnings, later this month.

Last week, Monster’s stock tumbled after the release of worse-than-expected June job loss numbers.

When barneys run NBA teams: Daryl Morey uses tech to lure free agent center Marcin Gortat

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
Daryl Morey

Daryl Morey

First Shaquille O’Neal finds out he was traded via Twitter. Now, or about 14 hours ago, Houston Rockets GM/MIT alum/Sloan Sports Analytics Conference organizer Daryl Morey adds a new twist — crowdsourced free agent recruitment via Gmail:

Meeting in a few w/ Gortat.Send a note to him NOW at rocketsfanslovegortat@gmail.com .He will receive.Show him how much we want him in Red! 

It’s just like that time Red Auerbach traded for Dennis Johnson. The player in question is Orlando Magic center Marcin Gortat, who played well against the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals in May, and who would make a nice replacement for the injured Yao Ming.

The Rockets have $5.6 million to offer, but if he signs, I bet it’ll be the Rocket-fan spam that seals the deal.

Way longer than 140 characters: The Web Ecology Project’s report on Iran’s “Twitter Revolution”

Monday, June 29th, 2009

That was quick — the Berkman Center’s  John Palfrey links to the Web Ecology Project’s report on Twitter’s effect on the unrest in Iran after the June 12 election. After initial reports about the site’s central role, pundits have backed off a bit on Twitter’s importance. The study, which looked at more than 2 million tweets from June 5 to June 26, notes:

As Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic comments, after reposting two messages from Twitter, “Those are recent tweets which probably tells you more about the mood than hard facts. But mood matters.” The proliferation of qualitative opinion regarding the Twitter-Iran issue has been helpful thus far in conveying the “mood” of the conversation, but this paper reveals some of those “hard facts” that give a fuller picture of the situation. With our report, we encourage researchers to further pursue qualitative analysis supported by quantitative data.

The Cambridge-based Web Ecology Project is affiliated with Harvard’s Berkman Center.

uTest finds problems in Twitter apps

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

The Globe is reporting that Southborough-based uTest found 300 bugs, 60 of them serious, in applications for Twitter, the microblogging sensation used mostly to find out to which NBA team to which you have been traded.

The bugs were found in Twitter peripherals including Twhirl, TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop. The worst problems were serious enough to crash the application.

UTest uses crowd-sourcing to test software, paying testers by the bug. The company brought in $5 million in venture funding in December, and $500,000 from the Massachusetts Technology Development Corp. in January 2008.

Daryl Morey Twitters NBA Draft; MIT hoops player goes pro in Italy

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Daryl Morey

Daryl Morey

Perhaps not surprisingly, Houston Rockets GM/“Dorkapalooza” organizer Daryl Morey twittered last week about tomorrow’s NBA Draft, saying it’s deep at the point guard position. If he’s not using social media to blow smoke, that might help explain why Rajon Rondo’s name keeps popping up in unsettling trade rumors.   

The Rockets traded their first round pick for Ron Artest, so the Rockets’ computer models are likely working double time. According to the Houston Chronicle, the Rockets are open to a trade:

 … Then they must evaluate not only if a player would be worth the choice it likely will take to draft him, but whether he is worth what it would take to acquire that pick.

Meanwhile, MIT basketball’s all-time leading scorer and D3Hoops Player of the Year Jimmy Bartolotta is playing professional ball in Italy under a 10-day contract. Bartolotta may not be selected in tomorrow night’s NBA Draft, but he told Bob Ryan in April he planned to play pro ball in Europe or Australia.

After the jump, watch video of the basketball analytics panel from the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in March. (more…)

WSJ Q&A with Philip Kaplan of F—–Company.com

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Philip Kaplan, the founder of ad network AdBrite Inc. and dot-com obit site F—–Company.com, joined Waltham- and Menlo Park-based Charles River Ventures recently.  

The Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch has a Q&A with the entrepreneur-turned-VC. Kaplan, who recently developed a Twitter dating application, explains why F—–Company itself remains dead. 

With (for example) General Motors, that’s not funny. I don’t think anyone thinks that’s funny. Back in 2000, people thought it was funny when these companies like a furniture site would spend more on shipping furniture than buying the original furniture. People thought that was funny. People have asked me to bring (F—edCompany) back, but I’ve moved on. Somebody put it best to me and said, ‘You know, at F—edCompany your job was evaluating companies and if you thought they were f—ed you wrote about it on the Internet.’ But now I’m doing that as a venture capitalist, I’m doing it more professionally.

After the jump, Kaplan stars in the YouTube video, “Death Metal Office Drumming.”

(more…)

Harvard study: Few say most on Twitter

Friday, June 5th, 2009

A Harvard Business School study finds

Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production.

I’d love to know what percentage of that 10 percent are marketing people. 

The study also finds that men are twice as likely to follow a man as they are a woman on Twitter. Enjoy seeing this story reported by every news source in existence for the rest of the day.

In other Harvard news, some b-school grads took a Hippocratic-style oath to not destroy the economy on purpose at their graduation yesterday, according to the Herald. Excellent, problem solved.

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