Over the past week there has been some concern over whether or not Twitter censors trending topics according to what is deemed controversial or what has bad publicity. The idea is troublesome, but I feel the sentiment is driven more by misunderstanding of how Twitter works and over-projecting the demographics in certain spheres of influence. A statistic that gets thrown around a lot is that 25% of the Twitter population is Black. That by itself is a little troubling. How does one identify the race of a user if they are never asked to self-identify? That metric is a guess at best. It’s also said that “Black Twitter” influences the trending topics on many occasions based on vernacular or slang that we regularly use. Again, that may be true, but are we sure that the “biggest actual consumers of Hip Hop music is the white teenage demographic” clause doesn’t come into play here? Still though that’s not the real issue here. Let’s look at some recent “statistics“. As of July 2011 : There are about 200,000,000 registered twitter users. About half a million new accounts are created daily. About 50% of users update their status every day. 24% of users check their twitter feed several times a day. 61% of tweets are in English. 70% of twitter users are OUTSIDE of the US. 180,000,000 tweets are posted every day. Let’s think about this more… Since only 30% of twitter users are American, it’s reasonable to say that of the Black population, many of them may be non-American as well…especially since they did not specifically say “African American”, but the phenotype “Black” Of that 25% of Black people on Twitter, how many are : High school kids College kids The 24-34 group The 34+ group...

  RRKidz is the next generation of Reading Rainbow. Coming soon to Android, RRKidz will allow children to explore topics through voice-over books, videos, and games. LeVar Burton is the company’s “Curator-in-Chief” and will be overseeing every detail of the project. The free app is not available yet, but will be soon on select Android devices. The next generation of Reading Rainbow coming soon to Android with RRKidz | Android...

  Netflix Inc.’s move to separate its movie-streaming business and its DVD-by-mail service failed to soothe many customers’ anger over the company’s recent price increase. A Netflix spokesman said the DVD-by-mail service, to be renamed Qwikster, will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Netflix. … He wrote that customers will receive separate credit-card statements for the two services, with the new one billed under its new name. Netflix Separates DVD and Streaming Services – WSJ.com. Oh boy…I was okay with Netflix until now. Communication, communication, communication! It’s not so much what the company is doing, but HOW they’re doing it. Also to have two different websites for the same company..with two different bills? A big User Experience fail. I’ve always been annoyed with Verizon for having me sign in two different sites to pay my FIOS Internet and wireless bills (can’t do OneBill since I don’t have a landline). It made no sense that not having a landline precluded me from using that single sign on service. Come on now Netflix…do you have anything else to announce? Just put it all out...

Gotta say, I am a bit excited about this. Windows 8 looks super sleek! Here’s a link to download the Developer preview if you want to check it...

 Nestled in Sony Ericsson’s feature phone past is a rich history of Walkman devices, some good, some bad, all purporting to offer enhanced music features, something that many phones will now offer you. The Mix Walkman is a Walkman feature phone and by feature phone we mean that it isn’t an Android device like the Xperia line, it’s a return to the proprietary OS of before. If it’s Android you’re after, you’ll want the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman. Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman hands-on – Pocket-lint. It’s interesting that they would bring back this popular brand only to attach it to a non-competitive smart phone. Walkman had a big opportunity back when the iPod came out…not sure about it now. As someone mentioned in the comment section though, an audio feature rich phone would be huge. Perhaps Sony should look into...