Twitter

Today we got the very sad news that the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch, also known as MCA, died after a years-long battle with cancer. The news has taken over Twitter and is prompting all sorts of media coverage and tributes.

One of those tributes came from @TacoBell, which tweeted:

Our eagle-eared colleague Alex Weprin recalled a Taco Bell reference in a Beastie Boys song. Upon further investigation, he discovered that the line comes from “Long Burn the Fire” and goes a little something like this:

Now that we’re here, back and raising hell
I’m running wild like rats in the Taco Bell

Sounds like someone saw what was trending and went a little tweet happy without first double-checking. Or Taco Bell is totally got over that jab. Either way, #RIPMCA. You will be missed.

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As part of the ongoing promotions for the film Prometheus, the new trailer aired last night on the U.K.’s Channel 4 network with the hashtag #areyouseeingthis. Shortly after another ad aired featuring highlighted tweets with that hashtag. The hashtag was second on the U.K.’s top trending list for a spell.

We previously covered the great lengths that the filmmakers (it’s a Ridley Scott film made in association with 20th Century Fox) have gone to to promote this movie, which comes out June 8. Since that story, there’s been another clip (posted after the jump) dedicated to Michael Fassbender’s android character David.

Now The Guardian is wondering if the promotion has gone so far that it’s taking away the from the mystery of the movie.

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Burson-Marsteller has compiled a list of the 10 most influential political people in the U.S. on Twitter, based on data analysis from Klout.

Members of B-M’s global public affairs practice and its digital team first compiled a list of 1,000 Twitter influencers, then used Klout to narrow the list to the top ten.

The analysis is part of a study called “G20 Influencers,” which you can check out here. That study looks at the loudest voices on Twitter from the Group of 20 nations, including countries across the E.U., Mexico, Russia, and others)

The list after the jump.

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Late Friday afternoon news just broke that Keith Olbermann got fired again, this time from Current TV. Olbermann will be replaced by Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York and CNN host. However, Eliot Spitzer is probably not the person tweeting from the @ESpitzer handle referenced in Current’s press release announcement about this switch. There have been no new tweets on that account since 2010 and it includes posts such as, “Just kidding. Please help me gain followers.”

Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer will debut tonight at 8p.m. ET. And Keith Olbermann is firing back with this statement (also available in parts on Twitter) promising legal action. Stay tuned to TVNewser for updates on this story.

Update: TVNewser’s Alex Weprin has confirmation on the mix up.

The Shorty Awards were handed out last night at the Times Center in New York, with award winners including New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg for Foursquare Mayor of the Year; Justin Bieber for music; and Occupy Wall Street for activism.

Hosted by The Daily Show‘s Samantha Bee and hubby IRL Jason Jones (left). According to the couple, they were happy to host and “honored to be away from their kids.”

A list of all the winners is available here and photos from the event have been posted on Flickr. (Separate from the awards themselves, this awful thing happened after “The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl” won. Shameful and disgusting.)

Still not sure what all the fuss is about? Click through.

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A big financial backer for Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign, Foster Friess, went on MSNBC today, started talking about sex, and then said “gals” in his time would put Bayer aspirin between their knees as a means of birth control. Seriously, I can’t.

And neither could Andrea Mitchell, who didn’t manage the next question she was reeling so from that blast of cuckoo.

Business Insider notes that, after some Googling, they couldn’t find any past connection between Bayer aspirin and birth control, though the company does make birth control pills.

The comment was followed by jokes on Twitter and the addition of Foster Friess to the list of trending topics on the social network this afternoon.

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While we were away, the Golden Globe awards happened. Glamour, glitz, Madonna made a funny!

While we were casually flipping back and forth between the awards and the Australian Open, others were tweeting with purpose about all of the goings on in Hollywood. According to some new numbers, there were more than 822,000 tweets from nearly 300,000 unique users. The most retweets were for the one at left from Zooey Deschanel. Others who had the Twitterverse all fired up were the host, Ricky Gervais, Perez Hilton, and Game of Thrones. TweetReach tells the tale in the infographic here.

While the tweeting reached an all-time high, the ratings did not. It beat other programming on at that time, but fell short of last year.

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Michelle Obama is tweeting. Actually it’s the President’s campaign staff that will be doing most of the tweeting. But any posts with the “-mo” attached will come directly from the First Lady. This is the similar policy for the President’s account.

The President introduced Michelle to the Twitterverse this morning (so cute, these two!), and the account will serve as a way to connect to voters and Obama supporters. Her Twitter handle has launched in the wake of discussion surrounding the new book The Obamas, which, based on media accounts, seems to focus quite a bit on the First Lady. Michelle Obama made an appearance yesterday on GMA to talk about her image.

“I just try to be me, and my hope is that over time people get to know me, and they get to judge me for me,” she said.

[via TheWrap, Washington Post, New York Times]

A lawsuit filed in July 2010 raises a new question about how companies should handle their social media presence.

An Oakland, CA writer, Noah Kravitz, left his job with PhoneDog.com in 2010 after four years of service. While working there, he tweeted under the name @Phonedog_Noah, gathering 17,000 followers. And once he was gone, he says the company asked him to tweet on behalf of Phonedog every now and again. Once he was gone Kravitz changed the Twitter handle to @NoahKravitz. Eight months after leaving the position, Kravitz was sued by Phonedog, the company claiming that the handle’s followers are a customer list. The company wants $340,000, or $2.50 per follower per month.

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Looks like some people are still in a holiday-induced daze. An account that had been given the Twitter verified seal of approval as Wendy Deng, wife to News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch, has been declared a fake. But not before news outlets around the world reported on “her” wacky tweets over the past few days.

@Wendy_Deng began tweeting on New Year’s Day and since then commented on how hot Ricky Gervais is, cautioned her hubby to delete a tweet, and blamed her nails for all the misspellings in her postings. News of the new Twitter account has appeared in AllThingsDigital, The Guardian, and other outlets.

But despite the verification and after some confusion even on the part of the folks at News Corp., the handle was declared a fake and the spoofer came clean.

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