Jubilation for America’s long-awaited retaliatory strike against the symbolic leader of Al Qaeda spread from the marble columns of America’s federal government to the Tweet-filled columns of Tweetdeck and Twitteriffic as social media galvanized the feelings of patriotism that rang out across the nation overnight.
“Twitter is our Times Square on this victory day,” tweeted social media commentator Jeff Jarvis. While crowds gathered in Time Square and at the “Ground Zero,” site of the World Trade Center reconstruction in New York City, as well as in Seattle and the Puget Sound’s Fort Lewis, millions more participated online by following the event on Twitter and expressing the mutual sense of glee and gratitude in their tweets.
The President’s monumental announcement came poignantly enough on the 8th anniversary of George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” ceremony. What’s amazing is that the news was already in circulation before the President had even spoken. Twitter says more than 4,000 tweets per second were sent during Obama’s speech.
In a poll on Mashable, 39& of those asked how they learned about the historic news said they heard it on Twitter, compared to 19.26% on Facebook, and only 13.81% on television. An “Osama Bin Laden is Dead” Facebook page quickly went viral, gathering 150,000 “likes” within two hours of first reports. The page appeared to be adding thousands of likes by the minute with users also sharing hundreds of comments and links to stories about the news.
There is even speculation that the actual targeted operation against Bin Laden may have been tweeted live during the raid itself at different times. Amdist the military victory comes the global realization, Twitter is the planet’s and the people’s breaking news wire. Cliche’ as it may sound, media as usual has been forever transformed. [24×7]
Seattle Springtime Acquisitions: Getty Buys PicScout, PopCap Games Acquires ZipZapPlay
Getty Images has acquired Israeli-based PicScout, a leader in protecting the copyright of photographic images on websites. The sales price was guesstimated on several sites be in the neighborhood of $20 million.
Getty Images intends to use PicScout’s technology, including ImageTracker and ImageExchange, based on the ImageIRC platform, to protect is stock and rights managed photographic products. With the rapid growth of social media and websites, it has become increasingly difficult for photographers and companies to protect the use of their images. In one example on PicScout’s blog, a photographer said his self-portraits were taken from his Flickr account and used in more than 40 countries. PicScout recently released new versions of ImageExchange for Safari and Chrome browsers.
In the social gaming space, PopCap Games, the worldwide leader in casual games, has signed an agreement to acquire ZipZapPlay, a social games company based in San Francisco, California. With the acquisition, PopCap increases its Facebook games lineup, establishes a social studio in Silicon Valley, and positions itself for further growth and continued success in one of the hottest digital games categories. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
ZipZapPlay is a venture-backed social games startup with seventeen employees who will continue to direct game design and development at the San Francisco studio. ZipZapPlay’s previous titles include Baking Life and other social games.
“The team at ZipZapPlay is one of the best in the social games space, and combined with our existing group inSeattle gives us the opportunity to dramatically expand our development resources,” said John Vechey, PopCap co-founder and VP of Corporate Strategy and Development, who oversaw the acquisition. “While the acquisition creates immediate cross-promotional and operations benefits, this is a strategic move with huge long-term potential; we believe ZipZapPlay can help us further evolve and expand the definition of social games.” [24×7]
