Facebook’s trending topics are having (another) bad day. The social network allowed the hashtag #RepealThe19th to be shown in its trending news column on Thursday. Taken at face value, the hashtag suggests that the idea of repealing of women’s right to vote is a popular one.
Today, Facebook announced that human curators will no longer write short descriptions that accompany trending topics on the site. Instead, the company will rely on an algorithmic process to “pull excerpts directly from stories.” The company also said it will stop using human curators to sort through the news.
Want some Twitter in your Facebook? No? Too bad. According to a report by All Things D, Facebook is getting trending topics and they're rolling out today. Oh, and yes, they are literally going to be called "Trending Topics."
The Trending topics you're used to seeing on Twitter are organized by place—a city, a region, or worldwide. But now the company is making them a little more specific, with Tailored Trends.
This is how it goes on Twitter. Somebody tweets a hashtag that other people vehemently disagree with, and those people chime in to talk about how stupid it is, accelerating that hashtag—and its message—up Twitter's trending topics. Today's example? Obamacare.
Nerd Facebook Google+ has added another collection of decent features to its web interface, now showing "What's Hot" on the network and building "Ripples" infographics to show how posts have been shared with other users.
Mommy, where do trending topics come from? According to HP's Social Computing Research Group, maybe not where you think.
Well, this bodes poorly. Ahead of "Apple," "Steve Jobs" and "Apple's iPad" on Twitter's worldwide trending topics rankings sits iTampon. Well done, internet! You've just made some marketing executive very sad and/or fired.
