NZ’s most watched YouTube clips of 2013

What were New Zealand’s most-watched YouTube videos this year?

10 – Te Ao Te Huia’s X Factor NZ audition:

9 – UGA men’s swim teams’ Harlem Shake

8 – Ashley Tonga’s X Factor NZ audition

7- JGeeks’ The Best Day I Ever Had

6 – The Lonely Island’s YOLO

5 – Harlem Shake the Army Edition

4 – Drug Driving’s Blazed ad

3 – Guy finds his house plumbed with beer

2 – How animals eat their food

1 – Ylvis – What does the Fox Say?

Bonus: YouTube’s 2013 mash-up!

Which have been your favourite YouTube clips of 2013?

The Best Kiwi Tweets of November 2013

November was the month we decided to be all stereotypical and tweet about our kids and our food. Oh, and naturally, there’s a chocka ‘Stay Classy’ section.

We got hyped for #NZSecretSanta
@idarima Tip: Your #nzsecretsanta person isn’t tweeting, has a locked account, etc? Nickleback has released their greatest hits CD. Send them that
@stasiturnbull My poor #nzsecretsanta – you may think all I like is snarking. But it is not true! I also like kitsch, vintage and old china. And snarking.
@robtreacher I think the coinciding of #secretsantanz with the inorganic collection is genius. You can find and courier half a rusty trampoline for $10.
@ginblossom Jesus help me. My #nzsecretsanta person has tweeted less than 20 times. What does one buy someone with an actual life outside Twitter?
@TrueLangstone I forgot about secret Santa. I FORGOT ABOUT STRANGER PRESENTS. *sob

You’ve made it, baby!
@HayleyHeartbrk If someone said “kill urself” to me in relation to my art does that mean I’ve “made it” in 2013 speak?

Logic
@NZ_JB Amazon offers “free delivery” with all Kindle eBooks. What the hell?!
@wordgirlwriting You know you’re tired when you text a friend asking them what their mobile number is. *Face palm*
@sonyacole Wednesday should be a day off, two days of work in a row is enough

Stay classy
@Tenani Swooped my hair to the other side today and it feels all different and now I don’t know what to believe. What is life?
@Tenani On the bus, went to put my hand on my knee but accidentally put it on the stranger next to me’s knee. He moved. Mortified.
@THE_VONK I’m at a Bieber concert
@samanthamcqueen Where can one get a pair (or three) of festive Christmas earrings? Asking for a friend. Ok, asking for me.
@irfrazer A man just walked past me in a full suit wearing socks and sandals. I need a mental health day to get over this.
@pinkdeedle Shiiiit I hope spray paint comes out of diamonds
@LowScoreAttack Just saw a older gentleman wearing a full pastel outfit. Play on playa
@SaigonSyl why doesn’t Te Papa have a hall of mirrors, plz start a pledgeme
@robtreacher Is there a connection between craft beer and smelly farts? Asking for a friend.

It’s not Twitter if you don’t talk about food
@RachelRayner Beau just dipped a piece of Brie in guacamole. <3 <3 <3
@WayneLikesFood The studio director does not approve of my decision to eat half a litre of ice cream at 5:55am.
@DrJared I had BBQ for lunch AND dinner today. I’m pretty sure my body mass is 10% meat, 10% cancer, and 80% Jared.
@seemsforever instant mashed potato & a chocolate moosie for dinner bc i’m getting better at self-care all the time
@TroyRF Plan: Make a salad. Actual: Munched a capsicum, apple-style.
@_surlymermaid Eating pork chops and watching the original season of Survivor with Richard Hatch et al. I know you wish you were me. It’s ok.

Spawn
@annettle I know this happened years ago, but every now and then I am still gobsmacked by the thought that my body GREW A WHOLE OTHER BODY INSIDE IT.
@catatonichic When asked, today, how he came to be so articulate, Mr3 replied “Disney Junior.” I facepalm
@hollyrwalker Esther’s birth certificate arrived. We made a real person!
@NZ_judester Miss 2 brings me a box. ‘Mummy, can I have a treat?’ It’s a box of tampons. ‘Er, no sweetheart’.
@MoataTamaira The foetus formally known as “Squishy” is now a baby boy. Very small and in an incubator but definitely a real live human. #happy

 

Old Mout Cider And the winner is…

With two entries it the “Stay Classy” section, and a bunch more nominations I could have used, the winner of the @OldMoutCider prize pack is @Tenani! Follow Old Mout on Twitter to get your hands on the delicious treats!

Hilarious video explains why you should never read YouTube comments

We’d all heard the quote “don’t read the comments” and this super-funny video shows us exactly why that’s true.

The video’s creators say “The YouTube comment section can sometimes make you question humanity, so to cheer you up we’re bringing you dramatic reconstructions of some of the best comment wars. This time it’s between ‘Sophie Danze’ and ‘Jilianlovesthebeibs’ on One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful.”

This is the start of what will be a very funny series of clips. You can subscribe to Dead Parrot’s YouTube channel here.

How you can help the @AKcitymission this Christmas with #TwitterMissionNZ

This year, the lovely @katjnz and I had been thinking of charities we could get behind, and help other People Of Twitter do the same.

City Missions. They do amazing work with some of the outcast, overlooked, and needy in our communities. They’re always in need of stock and volunteers, but never moreso than at Christmas.

We thought it would be a cool idea to give back to our community – both the Twitter community, and Auckland – by offering our services: We want to help you connect with the Auckland City Mission.

What they need:

  • Non-perishable foods such as pasta, tinned fruit, canned tuna, tea and coffee, powdered milk, juice, rice etc
  • Unwrapped gifts for kids – try to choose things that don’t require batteries, aren’t toy guns, would be good for outdoor play and aren’t expensive (can’t give one child an expensive gift and not others!)

What we’ll do:

  • Kat and I will come to your house on Saturday the 30th of November and collect your donations, and take them to the Mission’s collection point in time for the Christmas rush.
  • When we see you, we’d like to get a wee photo with you so everyone can follow the collection day on Twitter, but that’s entirely up to you.

What you need to do:

Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement – and if you aren’t in Auckland, you no doubt have some amazing local charities doing this work in your community. Maybe you could run a #TwitterMissionNZ in your neighbourhood? We’d love to hear about it if you do!

Cate and Kat.

The Best Kiwi Tweets of October 2013

Hello!

Yes, we skipped a month. But now we have October’s tweets to enjoy! Here you go…

We played Auckland Monopoly (again)
‏@_GlennCollier community chest card: ‘ you have won second prize in a beauty contest collect $10, but your parking spot cost $30’
@takapunani Farro Fresh has run out of kale, quinoa and acai. Lose $150.
@pcuser42 You’re on a bus on the Harbour Bridge. Go back three spaces.
@watershitdown It is your birthday Collect $10 & your underwear from each player
@cjlambert Mt Eden prison riot. Get out of jail free.
@nickeee_tweets The rent is $400 but because you are competing with 50+ people to live there you have to offer to pay $550

Getting from A to B
@Vegrandis Omg I can’t see out of my bus windows!! I guess I’ll get out at the stop that “feels” like my area.
@WayneLikesFood I’m going to walk home from work. It’ll be good exercise. If I get mugged I’ll have something to talk about when people ask about my weekend
@HayleyHeartbrk Woops, too busy seething with resentment forgot to get off the bus

Technology though
@guywilliamsguy The happiest people I’ve seen are Fijian towl administrators and I’m like why are YOU so happy!? You don’t even have an iPhone!? God.
@wimon_song Just received the photos I emailed myself more than a month ago. Thanks internet.
@Megapope You’ve all given me so many great new insults for using at people I don’t like on Reddit. Which is pretty much most of them.
@takapunani “twitter is better with friends”. go home twitter you’re drunk
@rednz Just watched a girl’s makeup application tutorial on YouTube and it feels like that time you found out magic/santa wasn’t real.

Auckland
@rosiecd The Len Brown story was way more interesting when I thought Bevan Chuang was an Asian man.
@yohohos I wonder if Lorde can afford to buy a house in Auckland yet.

DOGS!
@thelittlepakeha Just let dogs in. OMG SO EXCITING OMG OMG HAS THE HOUSE CHANGED WHILE THEY WERE OUTSIDE LET’S FIND OUT OMG OMG IT HASN’T WOAH!
@VickyRF When @TroyRF has angry outbursts at video games, dogs quickly look to me as if to ask ‘is he mad or fake-mad?’ I nod, they return to sleep.

Stay Classy
@smownin Has anyone checked if there’s a correlation between mass murderers and where they shopped before they murdered? Is it pak n save?
@jtclassic Just had a very drunk 67-year old man on his birthday call me to play a request for his mistress! #Tuesday
@NZ_JB Ante-natal class #4: what to do with the pooping machine when it comes out.
@Kiwi_Chatter Had a shower, sent my bum to some people on snapchat, defrosted chicken for dinner. Busy, busy, busy.
@sophiealiceryan Two handfuls of mini marshmallows is not a breakfast of champions, adult life is hard.

Old Mout Cider And the winner is…

@takapunani because, heck, she’s made it twice in one month. Boom. Please follow @OldMoutCider to collect your delicious prize!

Meet The Dumpling Sisters

dumpling-sisters

Amy and Julie Zhang are Chinese Kiwis who live in London. Online, they’re known as The Dumpling Sisters and star in their own YouTube videos about delicious fusion food, their mum, and adventures in the big city.

I was introduced to them when they were rallying for votes because they’d made the finals of Jamie Oliver’s Search for a Food Tube Star. They are the only finalists to represent NZ out of more than 250 entries worldwide!

It’s awesome to see Kiwis fly, so have a watch of their video and click the ‘like’ button on YouTube to show your support in the competition.

It closes this Monday, 23 September, at 11 am NZ time. Please let your friends and family know about this and lets see these lovely ladies take out the competition!

Check out their YouTube channel for more adorableness and good food!

Best Tweets: August 2013

Compiled by Ani O’Brien

August was a busy month on the Social Media front. We certainly weren’t short of topics to discuss, nor things to whinge and joke about. This was a month of botulism scares and creepy government spying agencies. There was ‘BatFleck’, Shearer got the flick, earthquakes and marriage equality, just to name a few. We also managed to dedicate some tweets to observing and pondering the intricacies of our own existence. We affectionately laughed at family members and were (sometimes quite alarmingly) honest about our day to day lives. Here are a few of my favourite tweets from the month of August;

We’re nothing if not honest…
@SWTGallagher I think the closest to joining the mile high club I’ll ever get is having sex in the airplane at Taupo’s McDonalds…
@alexkc Going to walk into this party like I am walking onto a yacht (will wear my stepdad’s lifejacket and scream until somebody holds my hand)
@AceMcWicked That fart was so nasty that on a slower news day it would have made the front page.
@EstherMacIntyre Tried the intermittent fasting diet. At 3.30pm, ate flatmate’s toast out of the bin.
@mcquillanatorz I don’t date anyone who has less than 100% positive feedback on TradeMe #noscrubs

Nothing stranger than family…
@CyrisXD My nephew is scared of thunder. I told him that was silly considering the sun could explode any day, killing us all. I think that helped
@AceMcWicked I incorrectly claimed my cat as a human dependent in my tax return #incorrectly
@CaitlinSomers “If I could be an animal I’d be a duck – ducks can bite fingers off” sooo my brother is a sadist

Sweet and Sour Milk…
@RFStew New Zealand. The land of (tainted) milk and (fake) honey.
@ColeyTangerina my bf just came home to drink a milkshake I made which means Kelis is science.

Honourable employment…
@toryhipster Just read a Danish sonnet from 1690 about a dude jacking off. Seriously. Counting this as work. #bestjob
@NateNauer Sometimes people mistaking you for the bouncer is a good thing. “$20 cover charge please”
@BetterWorkStory An unemployed (and previously convicted) sex offender smoking a joint just told me to “get a real job.” #nzpolice
@Atomic_Moog This breach of the office chocolate biscuit policy is threatening to boil over.
@rents1 Been a lot of talk about ninjas at wk this week. If I hadn’t picked my current career that was my 2nd choice.

Critical appointments…
@edmuzik will throw my weight behind David Cunliffe if only so we can use “Son of A Preacher Man” as the 2014 campaign jingle
@RockYourBoyce Wait…Bruce Wayne was Batman?!
@AliIkram Politics is such a tough profession. One day you’re waving around dead fish in the house of representatives. The next u r gone.

The government  made it legal for Uncle Sam to become Big Brother…
@AntDCat Nixon bugged a hotel and subsequently resigned from office. Obama bugged the entire world and shrugs it off.
@TaikaWaititi Oh Mr Prime Minister, Al Qaeda is living in NZ now is it? Well in that case, yes, I permit you to spy on me while I surf the titty sites.

Marriage became a right for all! And God responded in fury with earthquakes and shit…
@ColeyTangerina Apparently a plane was struck by lightning landing in Auckland? God is really enjoying punking all the fundies on #MarriageEquality day.
@jtclassic Good luck to the same sex couples getting married in NZ today! May yours last FAR longer than my shitty straight marriage did #loveislove
@ferrouswheel What’s the most earthquake strengthened pub in Wellington? #eqnz

The Runners Up…
@joesomething_ I’m having trouble distinguishing between someone who does crossfit, and a crazy Christian preacher standing on Queen St.
@MsBeeton I don’t call it lying down, I call it landscape mode.

 

 

Old Mout Cider And the winner is…

@gtiso Billions of years from now the universe will reach heat death, and all that will be left will be a couple of grudges I’ve been holding.

@gtiso please follow our friends at @OldMoutCider to collect your delicious prize! And thanks to Ani for compiling the tweets this month! – Cate

Facebook adjust their EdgeRank algorithm

Today Facebook announced changes to their news feed, in the name of transparency and ease. Arguably the most important part of Facebook, the news feed as it appears on your homepage is determined by a number of key indicators including popularity of the update, the amount you’ve interacted with that person or page historically, how many people have created a negative action against the update, and the spend attached to promoting the update.

Facebook say that on average there are 1500 potential stories that can be displayed to you every time you visit your news feed, and that means you’re going to miss a large number of them. You’ll miss more because of those filtered results, you’ll only scroll through 57% of them. The update to the algorithm means you’ll see more of those missed updates.

facebookalg

 

The early data indicates a 5% increases in engagement to posts from friends and family, and an 8% increase to engagement on organic posts from pages. The changes do not impact reach of paid spend.

As always, content is king. Creating great, timely Facebook status updates that users want to share with each other will have more impact than trying to game a feed.

“For page owners, this means their most popular organic Page posts have a higher chance of being shown to more people, even if they’re more than a few hours old,” Facebook’s Lars Backstrom said in a blog post today.

So, good news for page mangers who rely on organic reach, and hopefully a better UX for Facebook users.