The Week Unpeeled
Amid discussions this week that Google’s privacy or not-so-much privacy tactics include sharing our data across all its platforms (at least say “thank you”), a story in The Wall Street Journal last week (Tuesday, Feb 28 2012) called Google+ a “virtual ghost town.” That was definitely an “ouch,” but the story carried an interesting graphic on average number of minutes per visitor on social networking sites in January: Facebook wins (no surprise) at 405 minutes , or almost an hour a day. The upstart Pinterest tied with Tumbler at 89 minutes and beat out Linkedin, Myspace and Twitter combined by almost double. Maybe that’s beginner’s luck, and I guess you don’t need to spend much time on Twitter to cast 140 characters. Google+ tallied, however, only three minutes, compared with Myspace’s eight minutes (thank you, Justin, no doubt). Updates needed in a few months, no doubt.
Elsewhere:
- GM idled the Volt;
- Tornadoes ripped through the heartland;
- Gas prices soared;
- James Murdoch quit News International; Rupert’s other Sun launched its Sunday edition and then was hit with allegations of corruption (how much smoke is needed here?)
- Occupy London were evicted from St Paul’s site;
- Trash talk hit new levels with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, and Obama jumped in to defend Georgetown law school target on topic of birth control;
- Gordon Gekko channels Michael Douglas in PSAs to confront greed on behalf of the FBI (isn’t truth better than fiction?)
- Apple is holding March 7 presser where we will all be surprised if the iPad 3 is not unveiled;
- Fed Chief Bernanke said the US economic recovery is “uneven and modest” (hope he didn’t stay up all night figuring that out);
- The number of weddings in the UK has gone up by 3.7 percent in a year and 75 percent of Brits say they are content with their lives (related?); and
- The Dow ended the week lower for the first time in three, closing at 12,977 after flirting with 13,000 all week and even teased with one close above this number that the media think is so important (why?).
