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Social Media News Brief: December 23, 2009

Get an update on the latest social media news. From an update on last week’s Twitter Cyber attack, to a YouTuber turning Hollywood director, this is iePlexus’ Social Media News Brief for December 23, 2009.

We start with that Twitter cyber attack that we told you about Friday.  Earlier that morning, the Iranian Cyber Army hacked and took over Twitter’s homepage.  Early reports and speculation from Twitter thought that there was a security brink with Twitter’s service provider Dynect, but Dynect has confirmed that nothing on their end was hacked into.  It’s now believed the hackers were able to get into some of twitter staff’s e-mail accounts, one of which has a password to change the settings from the service provider.  It was Dynect who notified staff members at Twitter of the breech, which lasted about 90 minutes. Twitter released a statement that they believe no user information was taken or is in danger, and the hackers just wanted to send a message and deface the homepage. 

 A man who posted a video to YouTube is $30 million richer this week.  In November, Fede Alverez posted the video, “Ataque de Pánico! (Panic Attack!) 2009”, a science fiction 4 minute movie he shot on a $300 budget.  Studios in Hollywood were so impressed with Alverez’s work that he received not just one, but several offers to direct a similar style, science fiction full length movie.  On Monday it was announced that Alverez signed his $30 million contract with Ghost House pictures.  Not much is being announced about the actual film other than it will take place in Alverez’s home country of Uruguay.

 And finally a new survey shows that the average adult spends 13 hours a week online, which is down from 14 hours from last year.  The report from Harris Poll, says that they believe the economy downturn and unemployment rates helps those numbers online.  While of course that number varies, about 20% of adult Internet users are online for less than two hours a week while about 14% are spending 24 or more hours a week online.  Surprisingly 30-39 year olds spend the most time online with an average of 18 hours a week.