insane tweeting

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2135408/Twitter-record-broken-Chelsea-v-Barcelona.html

This article is about the record breaking amount of tweets posted during the Chelsea vs Barcelona soccer game that took place last tuesday night. It broke the previous tweets per second record for a sporting a event during last year's Super Bowl between the New York Giants and New England Patriots. The Super Bowl had 12,233 per second, and the Chelsea game brought in 13,684 tweets per second. According to twitter, there were 13.7 million tweets during the Super Bowl, but the total number during the soccer game wasn't calculated. To me, these number are insane. It is shocking that this many people take to twitter during sporting events when everyone who cares knows exactly what's going on. They feel their opion is more imprortant than any other option, and want to show team spirit.

Mobile apps

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-20/nexon-rises-after-saying-it-may-buy-game-developers-tokyo-mover.html

This article is about Nexon Co which is video-game maker that went public last year. Some of the games made end up on social networking sites such as facebook. One company similar to Nexon is Zynga which makes "FarmVille" on facebook. This article opened me up the billion dollar business that create facebook apps. Nexon plans to have $1.2 billion in sales this year alone. I didn't realise just how large these companies can make off apps for social networking sites. Now, these companies are shifting to apps for mobile devices which are bringing in even higher profits from record sales. I think video-game companies are going to continue growing because of all the new smartphones and tablets being bought be consumers.

college athletes and social networking

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/sports/universities-track-athletes-online-raising-legal-concerns.html?_r=1&ref=facebookinc#

This article is about college athletes and their social networking profiles. The N.C.A.A is keeping an eye on college athletes and their profiles. They are looking for violations of N.C.A.A rules by making them surrender their user name and password, using software to stalk their posts, and forcing them to friend people to keep an eye on them. They also believe college athletes are irresponsible when it comes to social networking, and won’t think twice if given the opportunity to bash a school sports program. I think this is terrible. I believe everyone has the right to express themselves on social networking sites. It is wrong that college athletes have to give up their rights to play sports. The University of North Carolina's football program was given a one-year bowl ban and lost 15 scholarships after an N.C.A.A. investigation that was started because of a Tweet sent by a player. The N.C.A.A is getting away with this which is wrong. Maryland senator Ronald Young said, “I think it’s violating the Constitution to have someone give up their password or user name. It’s like reading their mail or listening to their phone calls.” Senator Young has sponsored a bill that would make it harder for universities to monitor their athletes online. This is a good start, and I hope many more sign the bill to protect the rights of student athletes.