NASCAR’s Kahne sorry for breastfeeding comments
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Twitter News
Rainier Ehrhardt, Getty Images for NASCAR According to multiple media reports, Kahne posted messages on his account that he saw a mother breastfeeding a child in a supermarket, calling it “nasty” and saying he didn’t “feel like shopping any more or eating.”
Article source: http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/story/2011-12-30/NASCARs-Kahne-sorry-for-breastfeeding-comments/52288742/1
Boston D.A. Subpoenas Twitter Over Occupy Boston, Anonymous
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Twitter News
@p0isan0n’s Twitter icon, the Antisec oenophile
On December 14, Twitter received a bizarre subpoena from the District Attorney of Suffolk County, which includes Boston.
It requested “All available subscriber information, for the account or accounts associated with the following information, including IP address logs for account creation and for the period December 8, 2011 to December 13, 2011.” The named targets included two hashtags, two accounts, and one proper name:
That subpoena, as written, ostensibly asks for whatever identifying information Twitter has on anyone who used the hashtags #bostonpd and #d0xcak3 from 12/8/2011 to 12/14/2011, which could number in the thousands.
It’s unclear if that’s what the Boston police meant to do, or if they are unfamiliar with Twitter. It seems likely the latter, given that the @occupyboston account is a year-and-a-half old fallow account with four tweets. The quasi-official Twitter account for the Occupy Boston movement that was evicted in this time frame is @occupy_boston.
@p0isan0n purports to be a participant in Antisec, the blackhat wing of Anonymous, which has targeted the Boston Police several times in document releases that have included online logins, physical addresses, and most recently, payroll information for 40 senior officers. The subpoena may also be be related to the d0xing, or document publication, of Boston Mayor Tom Menino on December 9th, as tweeted by @youranonnews:
“Boston Mayor Tom Menino d0x’d, courtesy of @DoxCak3 — http://pastebin.com/JtFqDr7G #OccupyBoston someone order the man a pizza, stat!”
If so, the district attorney’s office mixed up their # and @ symbols.
The subpoena also includes a request for confidentiality from the Special Prosecutions Unit, but had no actual legal gag order. Without legal orders, the request for confidentially had no more enforceability than if Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Goldberger had also asked Twitter to send him a cupcake.
It’s Twitter’s policy to forward a subpoena to its target in order to give the user a chance to fight it, unless the company is specifically gagged. It appears that @p0isan0n received a copy from Twitter and posted it to Scribd.
ACLU attorney Peter Krupp, who is representing user @p0isan0n, filed a motion to quash the subpoena on First Amendment grounds. But Thursday, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol Ball not only ruled against the ACLU motion, but also issued an impoundment order after hearing the case mainly in chambers.
This barred anyone in the case from talking about the arguments on either side, or about why the motion was rejected. This is an extraordinary measure that can be requested by one side of a case, and is generally granted only in cases involving sensitive security issues, investigative issues, witness intimidation, or the possibility of the suspect running.
“I think none (of these reasons) are valid in this instance,” said Krupp.
For its part, the Boston Police told Boston local publication BostInno that the “Boston Police Department is investigating serious threats directed at department personnel. The department will not disclose the specific nature of the intelligence gathered relative to this matter.”
But what does it mean to subpoena a hashtag?
Krupp has a scary interpretation: “Presumably that means the IP address of anyone that uses that hashtag. It’s all IP address logs associated with that Twitter address.”
That would mean Twitter would be required to turn over the IP addresses and e-mail addresses of anyone who used the hashtag #BostonPD from December 12 to 14, a time period covering the widely followed eviction of Occupy Boston from Dewey park.
Krupp also sees a fishing expedition in the phrasing of “for the account or accounts associated with the following information”. That, he believes, could mean anyone that’s a follower of that account.
“In my view the statute… doesn’t go nearly so far in permitting an administrative subpoena to get that information,” Krupp said. “You have to go to a court and prove you’re entitled to that stuff.”
If the D.A. has this liberal interpretation of the subpoena, your humble Wired reporter is included for the incriminating act of following someone on Twitter.
Article source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/boston-subpoena-twitter/
Kelly Clarkson Loses Twitter Followers After Endorsing Ron Paul
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Twitter News
“Miss Independent” singer Kelly Clarkson endorsed GOP hopeful Ron Paul on her Twitter page earlier this week and it’s costing her the support of some of her long-time fans.
But sales for Clarkson’s album “Stronger” have skyrocketed since news of the incident spread across the Internet. In fact, sales for the album jumped up over 190% in just 24 hours on Amazon. Although some of her fans on Twitter have stopped following the singer, she’s picked up new followers along the way too.
“I love Ron Paul. I liked him a lot during the last Republican nomination and no one gave him a chance. If he wins the nomination for the Republican party in 2012 he’s got my vote. Too bad he probably won’t,” she tweeted on Wednesday.
Her message received backlash across Twitter, as some accused the American Idol winner of supporting racism (newsletters published in Paul’s name in the 1980s and 1990s included some racist sentiments — he has recently deemed the comments “terrible” and said someone else wrote them), as well as the death penalty and opposing same-sex marriage.
As one tweet put it: “Now THAT is how you get someone to unfollow you on Twitter … and in your career. Good luck — you’ll need it,” wrote @cibuloid.
Clarkson later clarified on Twitter that she does not support racism and the death penalty, and took to her WhoSay page to address the controversy.
“Man, my eyes have been opened to so much hate tonight,” Clarkson wrote. “If y’all ever disagree with something I say, please don’t feel the need to attack me. I will listen to what you say and any articles or viewpoints you have when you say it with respect. Being hateful is not a healthy way to get people to see or hear you.”
“If you don’t agree with me simply unfollow me,” she added. “It’s really that easy.”
However, Clarkson is getting some support from the Twitter community, including country singer Blake Shelton.
“@kelly_clarkson I love you!!!! I’ll listen to your viewpoints anytime. And I really wouldn’t mind throat punching someone for you either!!” Shelton tweeted.
Other Clarkson supporters have left comments about the endorsement on the Amazon page for her album: “I’ve always thought you were a great talent, but never bought any of your music before,” one commenter said. “I am doing it to say thank you for your support of Ron Paul and the liberty movement.”
Should celebrities tweet about politics or should they be more cautious about divulging their personal views on Twitter? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Article source: http://mashable.com/2011/12/30/kelly-clarkson-ron-paul-twitter/
Facebook voyage helps writer overcome her fears
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Facebook News
After three decades of near-constant isolation inside her Winnetka, Illinois, home, ArLynn Presser made an unusual New Year’s resolution: to meet all 325 of her Facebook friends in 365 days.
A challenging goal in itself, Presser had another obstacle to overcome: agoraphobia.
An intense fear of being in places where escaping is difficult meant 51-year-old Presser rarely ventured outside the confines of her home, let alone her hometown, for most of her adult life.
“I had real problems leaving the house, and leaving my community,” she said. “At the beginning of the year, I was terrified of flying and could not get on a plane.”
That all changed on Dec. 31, 2010, when Presser wrote a blog post about her idea to confront and overcome her greatest fear.
“The whole year has been an absolute exercise in insanity,” said Presser in a Dec. 1 interview, fresh off the plane from a three-week whirlwind trip around the world. “This was just one of the hugest undertakings I ever thought of.”
Thirty-nine flights and 13 countries later, Presser has so far met 288 of her Facebook friends. By New Year’s Eve, she expects to have met 292.
Her adventure has taken her all over the globe, and a video blog has captured every handshake and hug.
Presser’s passport has been stamped in Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Dubai, Italy, Germany, England, and Ireland, among others.
Her trek also included a Canadian leg, with a stopover in Montreal to visit Facebook friends number 207 and 208, recent McGill University graduates Joe Winer and Karl Thelen.
Along the way, Presser said she has not only overcome some of her greatest fears and met most of her Facebook friends, but she has also acquired some new skills.
“One of the first people that I saw in January, she taught me how to open up a champagne bottle with a sabre,” she said. “That was kind of fun.”
She climbed a mountain in California, rode in a motorcycle sidecar, took a senior’s Zumba dance class, learned opera singing, and trained to be a bodyguard.
In Montreal, Presser was introduced to the traditional dish of poutine.
But in late November, Presser found herself back in her hometown, a suburb north of Chicago, a rare occurrence as she began winding down her globe-trotting yearlong adventure.
Calling from her cellphone, Presser said she was strolling through the forest near her home, an activity she would have never dreamed of attempting before embarking on her resolution.
Considered a “functional agoraphobic,” Presser said she is able to mask her phobia most of the time. But at other times the anxiety was overwhelming. At its worst, she said she experiences a panic attack that is so debilitating she has to go to the emergency room.
“It’s an absolute conviction that you’re having a heart attack,” she described the sensation. “That you’re going to die, and you’re going to die right now.”
As a writer, Presser’s career allowed her to spend much of the past three decades cooped up inside her suburban home, penning romance novels and regional history books.
Article source: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Facebook+voyage+helps+writer+overcome+fears/5925501/story.html
Facebook Next For Reddit After GoDaddy Win?
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Facebook News
Image via CrunchBase
Who after GoDaddy will the “Reddit Army” take on next? My suggestion: Facebook, but with a change of tactics.
Thursday’s Reddit-organized boycott of GoDaddy over the domain registrar’s support for the Stop Online Piracy Act fizzled, as Tech Dirt reports, citing statistics showing GoDaddy actually gained registrations on “boycott day.”
Next target? How about Facebook, Google and Amazon, but with a different kind of pressure?
Not a boycott, but anything else that might get across the message that it is time to turn up the pressure on Hollywood’s political hacks. Facebook may be the easiest and most receptive to such a campaign, conducted on Facebook itself.
Was GoDaddy a Big Win?
With 32-million registered domain names, the 100,000 or so GoDaddy may have lost during the protests show how easy it is to make a large corporation change its tune. Or does it?
Some have suggested that the boycott was so successful that other companies that support SOPA should be targeted next. Here’s a list of them (PDF format, doesn’t include GoDaddy but lacks a date).
Push Big Internet Companies to Act — Forcefully
Over at CNET, Declan McCullagh suggests opponents “may go nuclear” in the sense the Google, Amazon, Facebook and others might use their home pages to urge customers to call their legislators to complain on the eve of a vote on SOPA.
That would be a previously unheard-of test of the power of Internet companies to leverage their relationships with customers to project political power. While it might be satisfying to see this happen to Hollywood, Inc. and its misguided supporters, it could also set of terrible precedent if used to, for example, elect the President that Mark Zuckerberg and Eric Schmidt like best.
Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidcoursey/2011/12/30/facebook-next-for-reddit-after-godaddy-win/
Facebook Vs. Google: The Battle For Internet Dominance
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Facebook News
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, a big threat for Google – Wikipedia
Google and Facebook will continue to duke it out over the top spot in the display ad market. Mark Zuckerberg’s social network remains one of the main competitive risks to Google’s absolute dominance of the Internet.
“Facebook has posed serious problems for Google, most notably by walling off the social network’s content from Google’s search engine,” explained Baird’s equity research analysts in a note on Friday.
The problem, for Google, is that its business model relies on its ability to “index the web.” Thus, when Facebook walls-off its site, it’s essentially blocking a significant, and growing, portion of the web. “Google’s index has been faced with an ever-increasing blind spot for search,” wrote the analysts.
Google remains the undisputed king of the Internet. It clearly dominates search advertising, with over 65% of the U.S. market and more than 50% of the global market (Yahoo has 16% share in the U.S. while Microsoft’s Bing has been growing fast and now accounts for 14%). It has one of the fastest growing mobile operating systems, Android, where its share is even larger than in PCs and growing faster than Apple’s iOS. In 2012, Google will rake in more than $36 billion in revenue.
But Facebook is creeping up. Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has risen to become the second most important online property, behind Google. Facebook reaches about 43% of the web over the last three months, according to Alexa, and counts with more than 5% of global page views. It makes the difference in engagement, though: users spend an average of 24 minutes and 45 seconds on Facebook, compared with 11 minutes and 52 seconds on Google.
Facebook’s social networking model creates a host of problems for Google. The social network counts with more than 750 million users, 50% of which log on daily. This translates to about 700 billion minutes of usage per month, or about 16 hours per user, with about 70% of those coming from outside the U.S., according to Baird’s analysts.
This directly undermines Google’s communication tools, particularly Gmail, both in its chat and e-mail forms. While the company founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page has launched its own social network, Google+, a report by Enders Analysis from December 19 suggests it will “remain niche.”
Furthermore, Facebook could jeopardize Google’s online dominance by developing its own search capabilities. Currently, Facebook’s search capacities are very limited, but “theoretically [Facebook could] enter the market by first creating a vertical search engine focused on social, and then broadening the scope to encompass more generic search capabilities,” explained Baird’s research analysts. Thus, Facebook would count with a differentiated search product aided by the “valuable social signals [that] could be used to improve search relevance.”
Google seems set to continue to grow its businesses in 2012 and beyond, particularly given its dominant position. There is little doubt that Google will loosen its hold on its highly profitable search business in the medium-term, but it definitely faces a powerful challenger with Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. The social network is one of the largest display players, and, sitting on the number two spot of the web, has the opportunity to eat into Google’s formidable share. The battle for Internet dominance promises to be an interesting one.
Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2011/12/30/facebook-vs-google-the-battle-for-internet-dominance/
If Twitter, Facebook And Google Were The News, What Stuff REALLY Mattered In …
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Twitter News
In the past couple of days, and leading up until the end of the year, we’ve looked at a couple of different infographics that have taken a look at how Twitter and social media have reshaped the way we receive and share news.
However, while Twitter in particular has become a key part of the information curve, that doesn’t mean that every bit of news that trends on the network is of the highest possible value. We might like to think that the biggest events of the year, such as the raid on Osama Bin Laden, the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and the US debt crisis, would have a standing on Twitter that ranked them ahead of triviality and pop culture.
Yeah, we might like to think that. But if the things that trended highest on Twitter, received the most Likes on Facebook and triggered the largest volume searches on Google were the news, the world might look a little different.
This infographic from Frugal Dad reminds us that, when it comes to Twitter, you are what you tweet. And hashtags aside, it makes for rather depressing reading.
(Source: Frugal Dad. Top image credit: 3d brained via Shutterstock.)
Article source: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-news-trends-2011_b17225
If Twitter, Facebook And Google Were The News, What Stuff REALLY Mattered In …
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Twitter News
In the past couple of days, and leading up until the end of the year, we’ve looked at a couple of different infographics that have taken a look at how Twitter and social media have reshaped the way we receive and share news.
However, while Twitter in particular has become a key part of the information curve, that doesn’t mean that every bit of news that trends on the network is of the highest possible value. We might like to think that the biggest events of the year, such as the raid on Osama Bin Laden, the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and the US debt crisis, would have a standing on Twitter that ranked them ahead of triviality and pop culture.
Yeah, we might like to think that. But if the things that trended highest on Twitter, received the most Likes on Facebook and triggered the largest volume searches on Google were the news, the world might look a little different.
This infographic from Frugal Dad reminds us that, when it comes to Twitter, you are what you tweet. And hashtags aside, it makes for rather depressing reading.
(Source: Frugal Dad. Top image credit: 3d brained via Shutterstock.)
Article source: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-news-trends-2011_b17225
If Twitter, Facebook And Google Were The News, What Stuff REALLY Mattered In …
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Twitter News
In the past couple of days, and leading up until the end of the year, we’ve looked at a couple of different infographics that have taken a look at how Twitter and social media have reshaped the way we receive and share news.
However, while Twitter in particular has become a key part of the information curve, that doesn’t mean that every bit of news that trends on the network is of the highest possible value. We might like to think that the biggest events of the year, such as the raid on Osama Bin Laden, the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and the US debt crisis, would have a standing on Twitter that ranked them ahead of triviality and pop culture.
Yeah, we might like to think that. But if the things that trended highest on Twitter, received the most Likes on Facebook and triggered the largest volume searches on Google were the news, the world might look a little different.
This infographic from Frugal Dad reminds us that, when it comes to Twitter, you are what you tweet. And hashtags aside, it makes for rather depressing reading.
(Source: Frugal Dad. Top image credit: 3d brained via Shutterstock.)
Article source: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-news-trends-2011_b17225
If Twitter, Facebook And Google Were The News, What Stuff REALLY Mattered In …
December 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under Twitter News
In the past couple of days, and leading up until the end of the year, we’ve looked at a couple of different infographics that have taken a look at how Twitter and social media have reshaped the way we receive and share news.
However, while Twitter in particular has become a key part of the information curve, that doesn’t mean that every bit of news that trends on the network is of the highest possible value. We might like to think that the biggest events of the year, such as the raid on Osama Bin Laden, the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and the US debt crisis, would have a standing on Twitter that ranked them ahead of triviality and pop culture.
Yeah, we might like to think that. But if the things that trended highest on Twitter, received the most Likes on Facebook and triggered the largest volume searches on Google were the news, the world might look a little different.
This infographic from Frugal Dad reminds us that, when it comes to Twitter, you are what you tweet. And hashtags aside, it makes for rather depressing reading.
(Source: Frugal Dad. Top image credit: 3d brained via Shutterstock.)
Article source: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-news-trends-2011_b17225
