In case you missed it (say it ain’t so!), the third annual Shorty Awards went down Monday night in NYC. That’s “Shorty” as in the keepin’ it short, as in 140-characters-or-less kind of short or the “Oscars of Twitter.” Everyone from members of the social media elite like Dennis Crowley, Foursquare CEO, and Sabrina Caluori from HBO to Hollywood A-Listers like Kiefer Sutherland (pictured above) were in the house this year. Some winners (like “Music” champs The Jonas Brothers) were predictable… others (say, for example, “Celebrity” winner Kim Jae Joong, who whooped Justin Bieber‘s butt in this particular popularity contest) were not.
In what must be the most genius awards ceremony policy ever, Shorty acceptance speeches are limited to 140 characters (go figure!), so host (and Daily Show funnyman) Aasif Mandvi didn’t have to make lame jokes about how long the broadcast was running. Now if we can just get the Academy Awards to take a page from Shorty’s playbook … (Though, of course, we know how to keep Oscars short and sweet here at MethodShop.)
With 5 special awards, 31 official categories and a whopping 16,810 community-created categories, it’s safe to say that all corners of the Twittersphere were covered. We’ll save you from scanning the full list of 16,846 winners; here are some of the most popular vote-getting stars:
Are humans smarter than machines? Maybe in the movies, but not on TV game shows.
Last week, an IBM supercomputer named WATSON kicked the s%$* out of his human competition on Jeopardy!. Represented solely by its name on the contestant podium, Watson didn’t have much of a physical presence to the TV audience. However it was WATSON’s knowledge that captured everyone attention and stole the show. The massive IBM supercomputer was designed to recognize language and synthesize answers from a preposterous amount of preprogrammed information. After analizing a question, WATSON would process the information and could buzz in as fast as 10 milliseconds. Essentially making it impossible for humanoid competition to beat. As a result, knowledge buffs and trivia nerds everywhere felt both threatened and proud of WATSON as it dominated night after night on Jeopardy!.
By the end of the week, WATSON ended up taking home $1M in prize money. Half the money will go to the World Vision, a nonprofit that helps children in poverty, the other half to World Community Grid, IBM’s humanitarian supercomputer.
So if WATSON can win Jeopardy!, why can’t he host it? Alex Trebek better watch his back, because the “machine brain” could be coming for him next. Imagine the headline: “Trebek replaced by WATSON, TV ratings Skyrocket.” Plus Watson gives all his money to charity. Trebek probably spends his millions on horse races and a celebrity mustache collection. Right? Actually we have no idea.
Ready for a little diva cat fight controversy? OK, ok, we get it. “Born This Way,” the new single from Lady Gaga, sounds just a weeeeee bit (read: exactly) like an ’80s pop music mega-hit you may have heard of called “Express Yourself” by Madonna. Yes, the chord progressions are the same. Yes, the dance beat is pretty in sync. Yes, the lyrics content is identical (“Be yourself! / Love yourself!”).
That doesn’t make it any less brilliant, in my humble opinion.
After thanking Whitney Houston, not Madonna, at Sunday night’s GRAMMY awards, critics are throwing the “shameless” card Gaga’s way – and probably with just cause. Still, Lady Gaga, Queen of Twitter, who has made a young and already epic career sampling pop culture, stealing identities and fiddling with fame, may just have outdone herself. My theory: She’s overwriting pop history for a new generation who will now hear Madonna classics and say, “Oh! That sounds like Lady Gaga!” rather than the other way around. If she can get away with it enough (“Alejandro” = the ever popular Ace of Bass, anyone? “Poker Face” = Glenn Frey’s saxtacular “You Belong to the City“?) there may come a day when everything that came before sounds like part of her Monster Ball album. Lady Gaga, you crazy little minx. (And ps: Madonna, could it be she learned it from you?)
Check out this amazing mash-up below with the beats matched to “Born This Way” and “Express Yourself.” BTW – Can you still technically call it a mash-up when it’s two versions of the same song? Which song do you like better? Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” or Madonna’s “Express Yourself”?
As the week comes to a close, it’s time to reminisce all the way back to last Saturday night, when three ‘Bergs got together for a little love-fest and SNL watchers got a meta treat.
‘Berg #1, Mark Zuckerberg, has managed to resist the All-American urge to self-exploit despite his success. No reality shows for him, no gut-spilling tell-alls to glossy magazines. Despite the fact that he was the subject of a Golden Globe winning film, a Person of the Year cover story and a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch, he’s stayed focused on his work and relatively quiet.
Kudos for that Mark, but thank heavens you finally stepped out of the Faceshadows and acknowledged the cultural tornado that is you! Sharing the stage with the guys who played him this year (Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Networkand Andy Samberg on SNL), Zuckerberg chimed in on the opening monologue. The ZuckerEisenSamberg Trio — too cute.
Happy one week anniversary, moment in television history. We heart you.
Following the news that Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking yet another medical leave, this one indefinite, some finance types got their feathers all ruffled, wondering if it would negatively impact the iKingdom‘s worth.
Well calm yourselves, kiddos. Everything’s a-ok — and by “a-ok” I do mean “ridiculously above average.” With news that Apple‘s Q1 earnings were crazy strong — stock at $6.43 a share, up a whopping 75% from a year ago — investors are still hungry for a bite of the big Apple. For the time being, there’s no need to panic. If this past quarter’s iPad sales are any indication, there’s no slowing down in sight for Jobs’s job, so if he’s gonna go take care of his health, now’s as good a time as any to bow out for a while. He will still serve as CEO and be active in major decisions. Get well soon, buddy!
Yes, that’s right: laundry lint and The Last Supper just made sweet, sweet love in Michigan.
Laura Bell, a Midwestern, Bizarroworld version of Martha Stewart, took her fondness for domestic choredom to whole new levels when she entered a competition for the Grand Rapids Art Prize last year. After meticulously cleaning her drier’s lint trap after each load for many months, she accumulated a bouquet of jewel toned debris perfect for arting and crafting. Then, naturally, she recreated da Vinci’s masterpiece painting of Jesus and his hungry disciples.
Though she didn’t win that competition (those judges must be blind, I tell you!), Bell got the last laugh when the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum bought that bad boy for $12,000. Not bad, lady. Not bad. (Behold! The Ripley’s site has a pic of the masterpiece.) I can’t say it’s as cool as Chewbacca’s Last Supper, but hey, to each his own.
Watch Northern Michigan’s 9 & 10 News segment, where the reporter calls laundry a “motherly chore” and Bell marvels at what happens when blue and white lint come together.
Apple continues to take over the world, now dominating — nay, destroying — the tablet market, with the iPad accounting for 87.4% of all sales of “media tablets” in Q3 for 2010.
If shipping 4.2 million iPads in Q3 had that huge of an effect, consider this: In the company’s 2011 Q1 earnings released today, Apple reported sales of 7.33 million tablets. This is getting out of hand …
Let’s face it, the iPads were hot right out of the gates. (Sure, there were some security snafus last summer, but those hackers just got busted. Couple of tricksters from Arkansas. Go Hogs!) Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Dell’s Streak seem to be the biggest competitors in the media tablet category, which is to say, there’s not much competition — though I’m excited to watch those (and other) brands grow. Before you go protesting that I’ve overlooked the Kindle, stats compiled on the tablet category don’t include devices designed exclusively as e-readers. That excludes you, too, Nook.
Apple, now worth an estimated eleventyzillion dollars, shows no signs of slowing down. Analysts suspect that IDC’s official size requirement (5 to 14 inches) for “media tablet” is intended to shut out the iPod Touch, since including it in the category would effectively blow every other brand out of the water.
In case you missed it (say it ain’t so!), the third annual Shorty Awards went down Monday night in NYC. That’s “Shorty” as in the keepin’ it short, as in 140-characters-or-less kind of short or the “Oscars of Twitter.” Everyone from members of the social media elite like Dennis Crowley, Foursquare CEO, and Sabrina Caluori from HBO to Hollywood A-Listers like Kiefer Sutherland (pictured above) were in the house this year. Some winners (like “Music” champs The Jonas Brothers) were predictable… others (say, for example, “Celebrity” winner Kim Jae Joong, who whooped Justin Bieber‘s butt in this particular popularity contest) were not.
Congratulations, guys! And better luck next year, Biebs. Guess a bullsh*t 100% Klout score can’t automatically win you a Shorty.![81315153 32e3733894 m Nerds Cry Simultaneous Tears of Fear and Joy as WATSON Wins Jeopardy! [video]](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/36/81315153_32e3733894_m.jpg "Nerds Cry Simultaneous Tears of Fear and Joy as WATSON Wins Jeopardy! [video]")
![watson jeopardy Nerds Cry Simultaneous Tears of Fear and Joy as WATSON Wins Jeopardy! [video]](http://www.methodshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/watson-jeopardy.jpg "watson jeopardy")
![4921111479 e0f522dd7f m Lady Gagas Born This Way Rips Off Madonnas Express Yourself. So What? [video]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/4921111479_e0f522dd7f_m.jpg "Lady Gagas Born This Way Rips Off Madonnas Express Yourself. So What? [video]")
![Zuckerberg Attack of the Bergs: Zuckerberg, Eisenberg and Samberg on SNL [video]](http://www.methodshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Zuckerberg.jpg "Zuckerberg")
