Popularity Contest: Can Facebook and Twitter Predict Election Results? - ABC News

Popularity helps in politics, especially having "friends," "followers" and people who "like" you.

In November's elections, the candidate who more people "liked" on Facebook won in 71 percent of Senate elections. Twitter was even more accurate, with the candidates with more followers winning in 74 percent of elections.

Facebook says it watched 118 races in the Senate and the House, and found 77 winners had more "likes" than their opponents did. Furthermore, candidates with twice as many fans as their opponent won by at least 3.9 percent.

Social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, were often better predictors of election results than how much money a candidate raised and spent, according to Facebook. In 42 of the races Facebook analyzed, the winner had more "likes" but less money.

The two Senate candidates who spent the most of their own money, Republican Linda McMahon of Connecticut and Democrat Jeff Greene of Florida, did not win. Greene did not win the Democratic primary. McMahon spent almost $42 million and Green spent close to $24 million on the primary, according to the FEC.

But as of November 1, McMahon had only 15 more "likes" on Facebook than the winner, Richard Blumenthal, even though she spent more than seven times as much.

In Florida, Jeff Greene had only 644 "likes" on Facebook compared to the Democratic primary winner, Kendrick Meek, with 24,135 "likes." (Meek lost the general election to Republican Marco Rubio.)

Furthermore, according to the FEC, six out of the ten top-spending Senate candidates did not win election. "The consensus is that money makes a difference but it's hard to quantify," said Andrew Gellman, a professor of statistics and political science at Columbia University. "[Campaign finances] are important, but non-linear. The extra $10 million does not help as much as the first million."

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Intel Results Come In Above Expectations - Forbes

Intel posted earnings after the bell on Tuesday, posting revenue and operating income of $11.1 billion and $4.1 billion respectively. The chipmaker beat analysts' profit expectations by two cents, reporting earnings per share of $0.52.

Paul Otelli, president and CEO of Intel ( INTC - news - people ), explained that Q3 results were "driven by solid demand from corporate customers, sales of our leadership products and continued growth in emerging markets." The $11.1 billion in revenue represent an 18% jump from 2009's Q3 results topping analysts' forecasts, while the $0.52 EPS represents an increase of 58% over 2009's Q3 EPS of $0.33.

Net profit stood at $3 billion, up 59.2% from $1.9 billion. Interestingly, the Asia-Pacific region generated 58% of Intel's revenue, or $6.4 billion, compared to the 20% or 2.2 billion generated by the Americas region.

"Looking forward, we continue to see healthy worldwide demand for computing products of all types and are particularly excited about our next generation processor, codenamed Sandy Bridge," explained Otelli, who also praised the new Atom processor, Intel's move into netbooks, tablets, and even the new Google ( GOOG - news - people ) TV.

The chipmaker released its Q4 forecast, forecasting revenues of about $11.4 billion and spending on research and development and M&A for approximately $3.2 billion.

As the largest chipmaker, Intel is sometimes taken to be representative of the computer and technology industries. With the increasing relevance of mobile and tablet devices, Intel is seen as lagging behind competitors such as Qualcomm ( QCOM - news - people ) and ARM Holdings ( ARMH - news - people ) how have come to be protagonists in this new market for chips.

Intel's closing price on Tuesday was $19.77, and it gained %0.20 or 1.01% to 19.97 in after hours trading.

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Report: Google Testing Search Results Preview Window - PC Magazine

Weeks after Google introduced Instant search and a real-time search feature, there are reports that the search engine giant is also working on an update that would show full page previews on the search results page.

According to a blog post from Patrick Altoft, director of search at U.K. SEO agency Branded3, Google on Wednesday started testing a feature that would display pop-up previews of the Web sites listed in search results.

When the searcher hovers the cursor over a magnifying glass icon to the right of a result link, a preview of the linked page will pop up. This keeps users from having to navigate away from the initial search results page. The search terms are highlighted in orange and expanded to give a preview of the details on the page, should the user visit it. Click anywhere on the preview and the browser navigates directly to that page.

So far, it appears to just be a test and is not showing up for all users. Google did not respond to a request for comment.

It comes several weeks after Google introduced Google Instant, the predictive feature that displays results as a user types. Recently Google got some flack from critics because of certain words that were blacklisted from Google Instant. Google, however, said certain terms are omitted from results based on an algorithm that determines if they could potentially yield offensive results.

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