Tag: buzz

Let's say you'd constituted a drinking game for the aftermath of Tuesday's unveiling of Google Buzz, the odd new mishmash of status messages, geolocation, and social-media aggregation: Take a drink every time some pundit says Google is trying to "kill" Facebook, Twitter, or any number of the "geo" start-ups out there.

You'd have been totally blitzed.

Service tracks social network chitchat about a product.

Big-name companies increasingly recognize the importance of discussions about their products on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But keeping track of so many conversations in real-time is a daunting challenge.

A startup called Viralheat, based in San Jose, CA, has launched an analytics package designed to allow in-depth analysis of the tenor of this back and forth. The company hopes its software will help its clients sort through the often overwhelming amount of available data from the social Web.

There could be plenty of fresh faces mixed in with the Hollywood veterans at next year's Academy Awards as the buzz builds for the 2010 Oscars.

Newcomers Carrie Mulligan ("An Education"), Jeremy Renner ("The Hurt Locker"), Gabourey Sidibe ("Precious") and Christoph Waltz ("Inglourious Basterds") have all been cited for possible acting nods.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In a year full of surprise hits without stars, "District 9" stands out as an even more unlikely box office champion than the crowd-pleasing comedy "The Hangover" or the supernatural thriller "Paranormal Activity."

The low budget production (it cost an estimated $30 million) with a cast of unknowns directed by another unknown (Neill Blomkamp) bucked conventional Hollywood wisdom by proudly wearing its message on its alien sleeve and slyly combining an apartheid allegory with a good dose of action.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - An Australian scientist is doping up honey bees with cocaine to study how their brain reacts to the drug, and possibly find a way to stop addiction in humans.

The research found similarities between honey bees and humans, in that they are both are driven by rewards and both have their judgment altered by cocaine.