Horse meat on social: The guys over at Digimind have pulled together a great little infographic of how the horse meat story has developed on social since it broke in mid January. As a Sainsbury’s colleague, I am of course proud to see that our name has rarely been connected to the issue.

Gorkana really doesn’t like AVEs: they’ve published 16 reasons why AVEs don’t measure PR. Solid stuff.

How does stuff go viral? A marvellous feature by Al Jazeera’s The Stream about how videos like Gangnam Style and Harlem Shake go viral. It’s a half hour clip, so sort out a cuppa and get comfy before you get started (as an aside: just check out how the 30 minutes brings together broadcast, Google+ and Google Hangout, Twitter, Skype… very cool).

Misogynistic algorithm screws Amazon: Last weekend, Amazon got itself in a spot of bother when it was found to be selling thoseoh-so-hip ‘Keep Calm and…’ t-shirts. Not only are they entirely naff, these particular ones were emblazoned with charming sentiments such as ‘Keep Calm and Knife Her’ or ‘Keep Calm and Rape a lot’. The shirts were being sold through Amazon by a third party company called Solid Gold Bomb and were quickly removed after the online retailer received a barrage of tweets and complaints. Solid Gold Bomb quickly apologised. How could this happen? Well, turns computer algorithms rather than people that generate different versions of the ‘Keep calm…” slogan automatically and prints them onto shirts when somebody clicks on buy on Amazon. I suspect they will be coding a misogyny filter very soon…

Belieber fury: so, like, OMG, Justin totally showed up late to his gig because he thought he’d, like, be all rock and roll and stuff. While I’m working on how I can get a refund on my TV license fee after the BBC spent two days reporting on the total non-story of Bieber pissing off little girls (and their parents), have a look at this brilliant piece of opportunistic advertising by GetTaxi who sent a cab to Bieber’s hotel to make sure he’d at least be on time for his remaining three O2 gigs (HT ‏@GoodandBadPR).

Also, the best ever photo of a dad at a Justin Bieber concert (HT @Pandamoanimum)

Murdoch blogging: well, technically, his chief of staff Natalie Ravitz, who posts updates of the media mogul’s activities. From shooting clay pigeons, to checking out CES, to shearing a sheep – running an empire is hard work.

How Search Works: Google has launched a new interactive website giving you a look at what goes on behind the scenes everytime you Google something: how it crawls the web and indexes over 30 TRILLION pages, its alogrithms and ranking strategy, and how it fights and removes spam.

New Facebook Newsfeed: Facebook have announced a new design for their newsfeed. It will be met with millions of people complaining about how crap the new design is and how much they want the old layout back. Petitions will be created. #iwantmyfacebookback will start trending. Fast forward 12 months and it will all happen all over again. But what’s new?

  • the new design will look exactly the same no matter which device they use to access their feed
  • videos and images will now be offered more space and prominence
  • the new newsfeed will allow many more options to filter content; including, just stuff from friends, close friends, or according to different media types (photos, music), and also – finally – ALL posts, regardless of their Edgerank (for those that like to believe they are in control of their feed).

Why do this? Friendly Facebook people tell you why in this video.

Videos of the week: the best celebrity interview the world has ever seen features the wonderful Mila Kunis and a star struck and underprepared yet entirely charming interviewer from BBC1;

The Onion questions if you’re dynamic enough to work in a marketing firm; and then there’s Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube interactive video where not only can you smack Jimbo, you can even make him shove a chilli down his pants (HT @susieod).

And finally: Go to www.gizoogle.com. Enter your Twitter handle, the URL of your favourite website, or just do a web search. I searched for Sainsbury’s. I’ve not stopped giggling (HT @TomParker81).

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