Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Britain's got talent: Susan Boyle and Flawless

update: I think Shaheen Jafargholi, a 12 year old singer, has a decent chance of winning as well. Amanda said she got the "goosebumps effect" from the kid. She felt this from Paul Potts and George Sampson as well, she said.

So far, the 3rd series of Britain's Got Talent has produced 2 internet sensations. (If there are more, let me know.) These 2 auditionees evoke differing feelings.

1. Susan Boyle - who can forget this reaction of Simon Cowell?
If you still haven't heard Susan Boyle, then you must be living in the stone age. According to itv.com, Susan’s rendition of I Dreamed a Dream already has 100 million video views, "making it the most viewed video clip on the planet… and all this in NINE days!" Here is of course Susan's hit audition video, and her less-mentioned Cry me a River.

Susan is a classic example of the very old saying, "don't judge a book by its cover" and I agree when Amanda Holden said, "I am so thrilled because I know that everybody was against you. I honestly think that we were all being very cynical, and I think that's the biggest wakeup call ever. And I just want to say that it was a complete privilege listening to that.

2. Flawless - An amazing dance group that reminds me of the Jabbawockeez. The only thing I'd say about them is their quote "chase the dream, not the competition!", because it's better if you just watch them here!

Flawless is an example of young, raw talent buckling down together to produce something amazing. This is something many young people can learn from, like me. I'm not a dancer but I'm trying that in my own venture.


I think Susan is a huge favorite to win the third installment of Britain's got talent, following the footsteps of Paul Potts, and George Sampson. BGT judge Piers Morgan does not think Susan is an auto-win though in his blog.

Before the internet, no one can gain fame this fast, no matter how much of an underdog success he/she may be. The internet can make or break a person in a couple of days.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Twitter > Google

Being a fan of Starcraft, I just watched the OSL finals on Youtube. After watching the series, I wanted to know if there was anyone else interested so I went over to Twitter search, and looked for OSL and saw quite a number of recent tweets (if I searched before watching, the results would've been spoiled.). As a comparison point, I also googled the term OSL but nothing useful came up - it seems like the latest Starcraft video on it was 2008. I had to make my search more specific by entering OSL Jaedong Fantasy (the players) before anything useful came up.

So, at least, when real-time is very important, Twitter will almost always be better than Google.