November 2009

Your Facebook Security At Risk

n2247817137_8806A group known as Control Your Info, invaded nearly 300 Facebook groups this week, demonstrating how users need to pay more attention to their accounts.  Facebook groups are becoming an increasingly large target for hackers, primarily because if a group admin leaves, an option to take over the group is open to anyone.  If someone was to take over a group, they could change everything, from the name, pictures, objectives, and just about anything you can think of, along with sending messages to the group as a whole. 

Control Your Info, made Facebook users wary as they joined and took over 289 groups.  “Once we were administrators we owned the groups and could have changed any setting,” the groups website stated.  “We chose to change the picture, the name and the description of every group. Our intention was and is to restore these groups to their original form and find a suitable admin among the members. To be able to do this, we first backed up all the data we wanted to replace.” (more…)

Internet About To Get SPeeDY

internet-speedAre you constantly complaining at how slow your Internet speed is?  You may soon be in luck, because Google announced today, that they are in the early stages of a project in efforts to make the Internet nearly two times faster than it is now.  SPDY (Speedy), is an Internet protocol, which would take over the Internets current HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol).

Google’s Chromium Blog explains, “We started working on SPDY while exploring ways to optimize the way browsers and servers communicate. Today, web clients and servers speak HTTP.  HTTP is an elegantly simple protocol that emerged as a web standard in 1996 after a series of experiments. HTTP has served the web incredibly well. We want to continue building on the web’s tradition of experimentation and optimization, to further support the evolution of websites and browsers. So over the last few months, a few of us here at Google have been experimenting with new ways for web browsers and servers to speak to each other, resulting in a prototype web server and Google Chrome client with SPDY support.” (more…)

The Twitter Plateau

Twitter_256x256Last month, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams announced that Twitter’s US growth had been slowing recently.  Today several new reports released some confirming and challenging information.

Compete.com, which monitors website traffic, had reported Twitter’s unique views, have been relatively close and haven’t changed much since June.  Of course last year at this time, the site had roughly 3.4 million unique views, and just last month saw close to 20 million more unique views.  The plateau has been a bit confusing for experts though because Twitter has been embraced by everyone from celebrities, every day people, businesses and organizations.  (more…)

Social Media Coming To A Game Console Near You

twitterxbox

It seems like only yesterday, that everyone in the neighborhood had a brand new gaming console called Nintendo.  Playing a 2-D version of Mario was the most high tech game at the time, and a few years later, the release of the Super Nintendo blew America away.  It was the Nintendo 64, where everyone first began to grasp the idea of 3D graphics in games and since then, the PlayStation, Xbox & Wii have become some of our favorite gaming systems.  From being able to only play games, to being able to actually work out daily, video game systems have come a long way.  So what will come next?

Luckily we won’t have to wait long.  Next Tuseday, November 12, 2009, Microsoft plans to release the latest version of the Xbox360.  The new software will be a step up from the current version, heading to the internet integrating the world of social media.  In June, the company announced they’d release the console which would include Facebook, Twitter, last.fm, and Zune video.  (more…)

The Biggest Loser: Twitter Edition?

scaleConsidering the brisk sales of supermarket tabloids and the ever increasing popularity of gossip sites like TMZ.com, it’s evident that Americans are obsessed with body image. To some extent, this could be viewed as a good thing. After all, raising a nation of overweight slobs does little for our self-esteem, let alone our reputation overseas.

But it seems almost too obvious to mention the harmful implications of this nationwide craze. Children and teens in particular face pressure to live up to an unrealistic physical ideal. To speculate that skinny cover models on magazine covers bear some correlation to anorexia and bulimia rates in America wouldn’t be fair, but it wouldn’t be outrageous either. (more…)

Consumers Ready for Social Media Holiday Deals

holiday-shopping-cartEveryone is gearing up for the holiday season.  While many businesses have said that they will be using social media sites this year to attract online shoppers and offering exclusive discounts to users, consumers are already scoping out discounts through social media networks. 

The advertising agency Razorfish released the results of survey on Tuesday, suggesting that online businesses should start to see profits for the holiday season very soon, if not immediately.  Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving, falls on November 30 this year and has been the No. 1 online shopping day since its start in 2004, but online shoppers are looking to start their holiday shopping early this year.  (more…)

Traveling Just Got Easier with Free Wi-Fi

tsa-laptop-use-airportJust a few weeks ago, we told you about how Google has teamed up with Virgin America to offer free wi-fi for passengers this holiday season.  While the wi-fi is officially free as of Tuesday morning, Google and Yahoo both have announced this morning that they will be offering more free wi-fi in places besides 35,000 feet above the Earth’s surface.

Google announced that it will be offering free wi-fi throughout 47 airports across the country.  The company is working with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, Airport Marketing Income and other companies to provide the free wi-fi. (more…)

Murdoch To Say Goodbye To Google

rupert_murdochRupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp, made news Monday in an interview with Sky News Austr Words To Send An Ex To Get Back Together alia, when he said he plans to make News Corp sites disappear from Google searches.

News Corp owns more than 100 media assets around the world including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and MySpace.com.  Murdoch has suggested in interviews all year that he wanted to take all of his sites off search engines. From there, users would  have to pay to view content on each site.  (more…)

Facebook Community Now More Populous than America

facebook-privacy-1If Facebook were a country, it would become the world’s third most populated — surpassing the United States by more than 18 million. While having more than 325 million users worldwide is impressive, it’s how fast Facebook is growing that is making headlines.

As we all know, Facebook is the most popular social networking site. The company, which was founded in 2004, has seen a study increase in users since its site launched. However, this year alone, the site’s user accounts have more than doubled. In January the site had a reported 150 million users. In September, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social-networking site had hit 300 million users. Since then AllFacebook.com is reporting that there are more than 325 million active users. (more…)

Study: Technology Does Not Hinder Social Interaction

computerpersonMuch has been written about technology’s role in fostering social isolation, but is it possible that those books, academic papers and popular songs were wrong all along? According to a study released Nov. 4 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the answer is a resounding yes. Researchers concluded that the use of cell phones and online social networks actual compels people to be more sociable.

The study looked at people’s tendency to visit public places of their own accord – including cafes, parks and volunteer centers – as it corresponds to their use of cell phones and social-networking sites. As it turned out, “techies” were more likely to be sociable than the average American. (more…)

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