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Toronto's Hashcaster Helps Organizers Curate Twitter Hashtags in Real-Time During Events

If you've ever tried to follow a #hashtag on Twitter, it can be quite challenging with tweets coming in every few seconds. Now imagine you're the event organizer: stuck between the real-world happenings of the conference and what's being said online every minute. 

Luckily there's one solution in Hashcaster, a service for event organizers trying to deal with the chaos of the hashtag at socially engaged conferences. 

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Rogers Social Media Campaign Backfires, Consumers Take to Twitter to Diss Telco [Updated]

UPDATE: Rogers has changed its promoted tweet in response to the negative backlash from consumers:

We’re on Twitter to listen & help. We’re hearing you loud & clear today. You can reach us @RogersHelps #Rogers1Number

ORIGINAL: Rogers Communications is experiencing what McDonalds did in January - a major social media backlash.

The Toronto telecommunications company attempted to promote its new Rogers One Number service through a promoted tweet: "With #Rogers1Number, 1 is the only number you’ll need! Register for this new free service." But consumers took the hashtag in another direction.

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Kony 2012 Generates Over 55 Million YouTube Views Since Monday

The biggest newsmaker from the power of social media in recent memory has been the campaign to make Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony famous for his atrocities. That hasn't come without criticism toward the charity behind the unprecedented 55-million plus views the half an hour long video has garnered on YouTube since Monday.

Called Invisible Children, they were forced to explain their actions because of a controversial past that includes questionable financial records as only 32% of their funds went to direct services last year, ABC News reported. But the online virality is incredible: this tweet has received an earth-shatterng 265,000 retweets in less than three days.

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SocialBungy to Launch a Socially-Enabled Contest and Sweepstakes Platform This Spring

socialbungy screenshotToronto and Montreal-based startup SocialBungy believes that every digital marketing campaign should be unique on its own - without seeking the help of custom development or breaking your wallet.

When the company launched two years ago as a social media marketing shop, their customers, like Steam Whistle and Lindt Chocolate, were always asking for custom campaigns. But not all companies can afford the cost that comes with customization. To meet those market demands, SocialBungy plans to launch a socially-enabled contest and sweepstakes platform this spring. 

“Ultimately our goal is to eliminate the high cost of launching a professional and brand-tailored campaign. In fact, most of our campaigns will run along the same price range as our cookie-cutter competitors, with campaigns starting at $249,” says Mike Barwick, Founder of SocialBungy.

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How Fast Can Larry the Bird Fly These Days? About 3,000 Tweets Per Second (Up 25% in One Month!)

So, it's more or less been confirmed that the long nameless Twitter bird has actually been named "Larry" all along (likely in reference to Larry Bird, the former professional basketball player). But how fast can that bird fly? These days, Larry is up to 3,000 tweets per second. And that's up by about 25% from just one month ago! Whew, those wings sure are pumping.

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Netflix Refuses to Support RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet

As a streaming service without any of its own hardware products, one of the keys to Netflix's success is being compatible with as many devices as possible—from computers to smartphones to gaming consoles. Netflix has long been able to stream on Apple's iOS devices and Google's Android devices. And now that Netflix has been in Canada for a while, we'll see it on the BlackBerry platform soon… or not.

Netflix sucker-punched Research In Motion yesterday evening via Twitter, where the company stated, "We don’t have any current plans to support Blackberry devices, incluing [sic] Playbook." They didn't even bother to spell check, or capitalize the "B" in BlackBerry and PlayBook! That's how little Netflix cares about RIM.

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87 Year-Old Grandma Tweets Her First Message to the World [VIDEO]

Last December Techvibes reported on a Canadian entrepreneur that attended LeWeb in Paris pulled a genius stunt to get the attention of tech entrepreneur Sean Parker.

Toronto's Christopher Carmichael took a big risk in front of an international tech audience when he told Parker that he was his son from the future. It turns they're not related but Carmichael does of a Grandmother who is now on Twitter.

Check out this video where Carmichael convinces his 87 year-old Grandma to tweet her first message to the world.

Twitter: 'Don't Spend Too Much Time on Me'

Do you spend a lot of time on Twitter? Many of us do. But co-founder Christopher Isaac Stone, better known as "Biz," doesn't want you to waste away on his micro-blogging platform.

In a presentation to a business audience in Montreal, Biz said that it's not healthy to spend your days watching the tweets go by. While he encourages frequent visits, don't give up your life to the real-time information network.

Biz also said that he is "amazed" by the popularity and influence of Twitter, noting that it has linked millions of people together and spurred social change. He also stated that creativity is an infinitely renewable resource.

You are Not Allowed to Tweet Until You Pass This Test

When you tweet, your words are open for the entire world to see. What you tweet reflects you, both personally and professionally. With that in mind, typos are always a stain on your reputation. And while most will forgive accidents—we're all human—poor overall spelling, grammar, and punctuation will not serve you well.

The internet has allowed for more leniency than in the past, but please, know the basics. The Oatmeal has been kind enough to create a 20-question Twitter Spelling Test to prevent embarrassing "mistweeting."

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