The red equals sign was a play on the standard blue and yellow equals sign logo for the Human Rights Campaign.

Today, Facebook has some quick numbers on the top-buzzing terms over the last day, and it looks like equality has won out.

According to Facebook’s Talk Meter, which looks at buzz around specific events, the term “Equality” was the most-used term surrounding the gay marriage debate. Facebook says its use was up 5,000% on Tuesday.

Also:

The top age group talking about the landmark cases yesterday, in advance of oral arguments, was the 35-44 range followed by 25-34 and 45-54.

Geographically speaking, people in Washington, D.C. were buzzing the most in anticipation of the hearings, followed by users in Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, California, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado.

Here’s Facebook’s full list of the top ten terms buzzing on the network on Tuesday.

1. Equality
2. DOMA
3. Supreme Court
4. Perry
5. Kennedy
6. Prop 8
7. Kagan
8. SCOTUS
9. Scalia
10. Defense of Marriage

Don’t expect the Facebook buzz for same-sex-related and Supreme Court-related topics to die down today. Tuesday, the court heard arguments on California’s Prop 8. But today, the court will begin to hear arguments on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which barred many federal agencies from recognizing same-sex marriage (in terms of some benefits and such). Many high-profile tech companies and other American businesses (including Facebook) have filed a amicus brief arguing that DOMA is simply bad for business.

But of course, what does everybody want to see?

Yes, there were a few notable upsets – the two most shocking happening when a couple of #15 seeds knocked off a couple of powerhouse #2 seeds. It was the first time in history that two #15s were victorious in one tournament. And as you would expect, those two games sent social media sites like Twitter and Facebook on fire with comments – especially when Lehigh defeated the mighty Dukies.

Social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs tracked social media comments across all the games over the weekend (Thursday – Sunday). According to their research, 2.46 million comments were made, making an average of 49,000 comments per game. And the winner, the most buzzed-about game of the 48, was Lehigh and Duke:

As you can see, it wasn’t even that close. By the word cloud provided, you can kind of figure out why that game drew such a huge response: bracket busting. Plus, the game did involve Duke losing, which tends to please about 95% of the country.

The other big upset, Norfolk State topping Missouri was also popular, drawing 158,000 comments. Purdue vs. Kansas probably grabbed the #2 spot because it was just a spectacular game. The games the came in 4th and 5th according to social media buzz, UK vs. Iowa State and Creighton vs. UNC both had dominating performances from the top seeds.

Sunday’s celebratory episode delivered an impressive 30% spike in viewership for Fox on an otherwise slow weekend evening. In honor of the show, two Super Simpson fans, Jeremiah Franco and Carin Shreve set a new Guinness World Record for longest continuous television viewing by watching a marathon 86 hours and 37 minutes of The Simpsons. The hoopla around this animated achievement has created an impressive buzz online where the Simpson’s has a remarkable presence and some 40 million Facebook fans.

In a Q&A with the Los Angeles Times on reaching the 500th episode, Matt Groening explains how the Internet enables constant criticism and analysis of every single episode of the show. Even if sometimes painful, Groening believes the great thing about the web is that it allows people to participate.

A surprise for the show was the guest appearance of controversial WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. In the episode, the residents of their beloved hometown, Springfield, decide to send the Simpsons into exile by kicking them out of town for all the trouble they have caused over the years. Marge and Homer go to Assange in an attempt to clear their names. The show’s executive producer Al Jean told Entertainment Weekly, “There was discussion internally whether or not to have him on the show, but ultimately we went ahead and did it.”

The response to the 500th episode has been mixed but very nostalgic. Even the strongest critics have to admire its longevity and faithful fans joke that it could go on forever. Bill Oakley, one of the longtime veteran Simpsons writers treated his Twitter following to a list of episodes that were written but never made it on air.

Of course, I’m just being greedy. With that in mind, the extra 30 seconds of the “extended look” makes all the difference in the world. First, here’s the Super Bowl preview:

Considering what 2012 as in store in the way of summer movies — The Avengers, Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Returns — which one is going to win the summer box office? As it stands, my money is still on the third Batman movie, although, The Avengers is going to pose a stern challenge.

Because of the emo/Twilight reboot approach the new Spider-Man movie is going for — all so Sony doesn’t lose the rights to the movie property — I don’t see it contended with the other two, but then again, considering the success of the Twilight series, people seem to like “woe is me” teenagers, especially when they are super-powered.

And it doesn’t hurt that the NFL has made #superbowl a promoted hashtag. Between the actual game, all of the pre-game theatrics, and then the commercials – Twitter is set to be dominated by the Super Bowl all week.

Social media agency Banyan Branch has already been monitoring the Twitter trends surrounding the Super Bowl and have discovered a couple of interesting things. First, and most unsurprising, the Quarterbacks seems to be getting the most chatter. Out of those Quarterbacks, Tom Brady is being discussed the most on the site.

The most interesting trend that they found was that people are actually talking about the Giants more as a team, but talking about people on the Patriots as individuals more. “Giants” beat the “Patriots,” but “Belichick” and “Brady” beat “Coughlin” and “Manning.”

Check out their infographic below:

[Image courtesy Flickr]

Check it out for yourself:

You see, the Three Stooges remake was comprised of an entirely different cast, one that could’ve made this film into something incredibly interesting, even for the non-Stooge fans out there. Since this isn’t a movie blog, per se, you can read more about the evolution of the movie at Wikipedia, but let’s just say the cast we could’ve had and the cast we’ve been given present two entirely different possibilities.

Instead, we get folks from the Jersey Shore showing up.

This indicates the direction the Farrley brothers settled on was the misguided path, especially if the Twitter reaction is anything to go by. Since the trailer hit the tubes this afternoon, the reaction to it has been a strong trend on Twitter. It’s so bad, in fact, I’m left pondering whether or not if the early reaction is so negative, would the creative teams behind the project simply abandon it, even as they are ramping up for the release?

In the case of the Stooges remake, one can only hope:

Agreed.

But then there are those who didn’t think it was that bad, bringing truth to the “different strokes for different folks” saying, although, there is something to be said about enjoying quality as well:

That’s understandable, I guess.

Were your eyes closed while you were watching?

I don’t know the guy, but the fact that he’s on the fence about the remake, especially after the trailer, makes me question the level of his Three Stooges “obsession.”

Here’s an idea: instead of test audiences for future movies, this is how all quality control for consumable entertainment should be done. Release a portion of it to the public and gauge the social media reaction. If the reaction is as bad it is for The Three Stooges, perhaps an alternative route would be better. In the case of The Three Stooges, the better route was the one that included this:

That’s far more preferable of a path than the one the Farrleys are currently on.

Of course, the next-gen Apple smartphone doesn’t have to be officially announced for people to speculate about its arrival. The most up to date rumors put the iPhone 5 release somewhere in early-to-mid October, with a possible pre-sale kicking off in late September.

Rumors regarding the specs are a little harder to group together, with one report contradicting the next. Some say that the device will be thinner and possibly wider, while others say that it will not deviate much from the iPhone 4 design.

Whatever the case, people want it.

According to the survey, 13% say that they are very likely to purchase the iPhone 5, whenever it arrives. 18% say they are somewhat likely. That means that 31% said that that are very/somewhat likely to grab the device when it launches. That’s 6% more than the demand for the iPhone 4 prior to its launch in 2010.

These numbers jump up when talking to existing iPhone users. 66% of them say that they will upgrade to the iPhone 5 when it comes out.

Another interesting stats from the survey is that 54% of current Sprint subscribers and 53% of current T-Mobile subscribers say they are very/somewhat likely to but the iPhone 5 if and when it arrives on their network. The latest reports indicate that it will probably launch on Sprint and possibly launch on T-Mobile.

While I’m not necessarily a fan of origin stories, especially when Sam Raimi nailed it so well in the 2002 version, the new trailer looks better than I gave the idea credit for, but then again, that’s the nature of making a good preview:

As indicated, the new trailer has thrust the “Spiderman” keyword to Twitter trend status, although, quite a few are wondering why Eduardo Saverin is in it:

Meanwhile, some people feel the need to correct those who spell “Spider-Man” wrong:

Not everyone is a fan of the idea of a remake, either:

There was positive reaction as well, but then again, American’s aren’t known as being the pickiest people when it comes to entertainment, either:

Apparently, the implication of that last tweet was that Raimi’s versions of Spider-Man was not character focus. Apparently, that Twitter user had their eyes closed during Spider-Man 2. Nevertheless, the hype is clearly building for what may be another record-breaking Spider-Man movie. Couple that with the incredibly successful Dark Knight franchise, a record-breaker in and of itself, and it looks like next summer may see two movies battling it out to see which one can break the most box office records.

Lead image courtesy of Entertainment Weekly.

Google is supposed to contribute $8.5 million to the fund, and according to an official release, most of the money "will go to organizations focused on Internet privacy education and policy, and will make additional efforts to educate users about the privacy aspects of Buzz."

That should be the end of the dispute.  After all, Google has changed quite a lot about Buzz since its initial launch, and the company seems to have won over its critics.

Gary E. Mason, a counsel for the plaintiffs, stated, "We feel this settlement has many benefits to class members, including providing a significant amount of money to non-profit groups committed to educating users about Internet privacy and ensuring that Buzz users can join this on-line community without compromising their privacy."

Plus, although this isn’t a point Google’s liable to celebrate, it doesn’t seem like anyone even uses Buzz anymore.

Google should at least be glad to put the PR fiasco behind it, and you can bet the company will be more careful in the future.

Original Article: YouTube announced that it will be streaming the red carpet footage of the Twilight: Eclipse premiere this evening. It’s that big a deal.

"The scene from Hollywood may look nothing like Forks, but all of your favorite vampires and werewolves will be there giving live interviews and greeting fans," says YouTube’s Thomas Henry. "Many of these Twilight faithful have been waiting for up to three days in order to catch a glimpse of their favorite pale-faced friends."

The coverage starts at 5:30 p.m. PT tonight. Watch it here.

If you can’t tune in live (and you still actually want to see it), you will still be able to watch the footage on the Twilight YouTube channel.

Learn about some online marketing strategies they’ve been using for this film here.