SpeedPlexer Blog

So Conan O’Brien was not the chosen one in the NBC boardroom, but on the internet, he has overtaken Jay Leno’s popularity with internet speed.

The “I’m with COCO” fan page on Facebook (run by Mike Mitchell and friends) is listed as a religious organization and has 960,283 followers as of the writing of this post. There are a few imitators with followers that come to about 90,000. Another 67,000 are fans of either Conan’s page or the Late Night with Conan page. In comparison to Conan’s million plus, Jay Leno’s one and only fan page has 45,871 fans.

On Weds, the L.A. Time Technology blog reported that Conan O’Brien began tweeting on Wednesday and in just over an hour “surpassed “The Jay Leno Show’s” official Twitter profile, which has been around since April 2009. In just a couple of hours, he doubled Leno’s 30,000 or so followers.”

Conan’s first tweet:
Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.

All of this popularity seems to support the idea that he should take his show online. Sure there are challenges, but  The New York Times BITS blog used Seth MacFarlane as an example of what’s already being done and said “There would also be lots of opportunities to try new financing models and break some of the traditional rules of television, something Mr. O’Brien has always done well in the past.” 

Revision3, an internet television site, issued an open letter to the late-night talk show host, promising him the opportunity to create a brand new show that could generate significant revenue, if not the same level of revenue, under their broadcast model.

So just wait and watch for Conan online!

Or so says Dr Tracy Alloway from the University of Stirling in Scotland.  She’s an expert in working memory– the ability both to remember information and to use it—and believes it to be far more important to success and happiness than IQ.

For example, at a job interview, a candidate will employ working memory to match answers to questions in the most impressive way.

In an article in The Telegraph UK she explains that using Facebook employs and strengthens these skills…with internet speed, as does playing video war games and solving Sudoku. But text messaging, micro-blogging on Twitter and watching YouTube are all considered likely to weaken one’s working memory.

The reasoning is that video games that involve planning and strategy, and may also train working memory, Dr Alloway believes. ”I’m not saying they’re good for your socialization skills, but they do make you use your working memory,” she said. ”You’re keeping track of past actions and mapping the actions you’re going to take.” But the “instant” nature of texting, Twitter and YouTube was not healthy for working memory.

”On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it’s also very succinct,” said Dr Alloway. ”You don’t have to process that information.

”Your attention span is being reduced and you’re not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections.”

She said there was evidence linking TV viewing with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) while extensive texting was associated with lower IQ scores.

Ben Patterson, a Yahoo Tech Blogger said, “Of course, that’s just Alloway’s theory; there’s no evidence in the Telegraph article of any studies proving that Facebook users are brainiacs compared to Twitter fanatics.”  Plus, he says, if you’re actively engaging other users, or just passively reading, this may make more of a difference than what service you use.