How Michael Jackson's death shut down Twitter, brought chaos to Google... and 'killed off' Jeff Goldblum
By Claire Bates Last updated at 11:55 PM on 26th June 2009
The internet came alive like never before as people around the world logged on to follow the stunning news of Michael Jackson's death.
The story created such a surge in online traffic that Google returned an 'error message' for searches of the singer's name as it assumed it was under attack.
And just seconds after the story broke on the American entertainment website TMZ.com, messages or 'Tweets' about the singer on the micro-blogging site Twitter doubled, leading to a temporary shutdown of the site.
… By 10.30pm, Jackson-based Twitter traffic had risen to 12.26 per cent and peaked at 11.30pm with 22.61 per cent of all messages dedicated to the star. Nine of the ten most popular topics on Twitter were dedicated to the tragic king of pop by this time.
… On YouTube, traffic flowed to music videos of Jackson, while thousands posted videos of themselves sharing their thoughts on the legendary pop star.
Others were using Facebook to organise vigils and celebrations of Jackson. One in San Francisco with nearly 50 confirmed guests hoped to recreate the Thriller dance.
Within a few hours of the news of Jackson's death, his 1982 album Thriller was the No. 1 album on iTunes. Several of his discs were also in the top 10 of the digital store.
How to win friends and influence people.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/06/26/172248/Amazon-Cuts-Off-North-Carolina-Affiliates?from=rss
Amazon Cuts Off North Carolina Affiliates
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday June 26, @02:53PM from the court-of-public-opinion dept.
Amazon.com has reportedly cut off all affiliates in North Carolina as a preemptive response to the sales tax change being pushed through the state legislature. The Seattle-based online retailer warned affiliates last week that such a move might be necessary, but the early shutoff seems to be a move in hopes of swaying opinion on the proposed legislation.
"Local affiliates say they were "blind-sided" by the company's action. 'I got this e-mail at 4:30 this morning,' said James Barrett, a technology consultant from Winston-Salem. 'It wasn't saying your account will be shut down. It said it is shut down. That just blew me up right there.' Barrett said that he is frustrated at lawmakers for considering the tax, but equally aggravated with Amazon. 'They're trying to tick off all their associates and get them to call down to Raleigh,' Barrett said. 'I think that is pretty tacky. That's not the way to use people who are referring business to your business.'"
What part of “Big Brother” didn't they get?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/27/0344230/The-Internet-Helps-Iran-Silence-Activists?from=rss
The Internet Helps Iran Silence Activists
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday June 27, @08:16AM from the alternative-views dept. censorship communications politics
Hugh Pickens writes
"Over the last couple of weeks, those who believe in the transformative power of technology to battle an oppressive state have pointed to Iran as a test case. However, as Farhad Manjoo writes on Slate, the real conclusion about news now coming out of Iran is that for regimes bent on survival, electronic dissent is easier to suppress than organizing methods of the past. Using a system installed last year, built in part by Nokia and Siemens, the government routes all digital traffic in the country through a single choke point, using the capabilities of deep packet inspection to monitor every e-mail, tweet, blog post, and possibly even every phone call placed in Iran. 'Compare that with East Germany, in which the Stasi managed to tap, at most, about 100,000 phone lines — a gargantuan task that required 2,000 full-time technicians to monitor the calls,' writes Manjoo. The effects of this control have been seen over the past couple days, with only a few harrowing pictures and videos getting through Iran's closed net. For most citizens, posting videos and even tweeting eyewitness accounts remains fraught with peril, and the same tools that activists use can be used by the government to spread disinformation. The government is also using crowdsourcing by posting pictures of protesters and asking citizens for help in identifying the activists. 'If you think about it, that's no surprise,' writes Manjoo. 'Who said that only the good guys get to use the power of the Web to their advantage?'"
I'll ask my statistics class if they can find a connection between “Governors who abandon their post” and Breach Laws.
http://www.databreaches.net/?p=5729
New Data Security Breach Laws in Alaska and South Carolina
June 26, 2009 @ 4:45 pm by admin Filed under: Breach Laws, Legislation, State/Local
On July 1, 2009, new laws will take effect in Alaska and South Carolina that will require entities that have experienced data security breaches involving personal information to notify affected individuals of the breaches. With these additions, a total of 44 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, will have active breach notification laws in place. There are no breach notification laws in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico and South Dakota.
Both Alaska Stat. § 45.48.010 et seq. and South Carolina. Code Ann. § 39-1-90 will apply to breaches of unencrypted personal information in both paper and electronic records.
Read more on Privacy and Information Security Law Blog.
My assertion that “Animal House” has more influence on US lawmakers than the Constitution is reenforced yet again. “Double Secret Probation” is the new black! (Anyone want to co-author a law review article?)
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=877
FBI justifies gag order — in secret
June 26, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Breaches, Businesses, Court, Govt, Surveillance, U.S.
When the FBI uses a national security letter (NSL) to force the cooperation of an ISP or phone company in the surveillance of a suspect, the agency typically slaps a gag order on the service provider to prevent it from revealing the existence of the NSL. Civil liberties groups have successfully challenged the DOJ on these gag orders in the ongoing Doe v. Holder, and last month the Obama administration decided not to appeal a federal court ruling that the FBI must justify these gag orders by meeting a relatively high First Amendment standard.
The implication of the court’s ruling was that the FBI would finally have to justify the gag order that it had placed on the John Doe in the Doe v. Holder case, so that the plaintiff could talk about the NSL. The FBI has now cooperated, and has given the court a justification of the gag order, in secret.
The classified declaration that justifies the gag order can’t even be seen by Doe’s attorneys at the ACLU.
Facts for those (who should be) studying new media
The Simpsons Worth More Per Viewer On Hulu Than On Fox
Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 26, @07:21PM from the ay-caramba dept. tv media money internet
N!NJA writes with this excerpt from PCWorld:
"A tectonic shift has taken place for the digital age: ad rates for popular shows like The Simpsons and CSI are higher online than they are on prime-time TV. If a company wants to run ads alongside an episode of The Simpsons on Hulu or TV.com, it will cost the advertiser about $60 per thousand viewers, according to Bloomberg. On prime-time TV that same ad will cost somewhere between $20 and $40 per thousand viewers. Online viewers have to actively seek out the program they want to watch, so advertisers end up with a guaranteed audience for their commercial every time someone clicks play on Hulu or TV.com. Online programs also have an average of 37 seconds of commercials during an episode, while prime-time TV averages nine minutes of ads." [So it's not worth fast-forwarding past the commercial. Bob]
They likely have a point...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/google_youtube_analysis/
Google's real YouTube strategy
Meet the new boss
By Telco 2.0 Posted in Music and Media, 26th June 2009 14:44 GMT
There is an ongoing debate about the size of the losses at YouTube and for how much longer the parent, Google, can afford to fund its errant child’s excessive lifestyle. Credit Suisse put a high price on it; Brough Turner criticised their analysis; RampRate decisively debunked it.
The debate has focused upon YouTube as a standalone service and little attention has been given to the spin-off benefits accruing to the parent. Google controls a significant and growing share of the means of production of the entire internet industry. [Workers of the Internet, ARISE! Bob] We argue that ownership of YouTube is a crucial ingredient for Google’s control of the economic rent that Google extracts from the whole of the Internet value chain.
[I particularly like reason five:
YouTube positions Google very powerfully for a key role as a gatekeeper in the copyright world.
My job as a Math teacher is secure! (I also learned that if you organize a revolt on Twitter, you gather the twoops!)
AT&T's Bad Math Strikes MythBusters' Savage
Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 26, @10:05PM from the do-they-know-he-has-explosives dept. cellphones communications humor
etherlad writes
"MythBusters' Adam Savage got a bill charging him $11,000 for 'a few hours' of Web surfing while in Canada, using his AT&T USB Mercury modem. AT&T gave him a quote on the data rate: '.015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb.' Looks like AT&T didn't learn from Verizon's inability to do math. AT&T is also claiming Savage downloaded over 9 GB, which he calls 'frakking impossible.' Savage's huge following on twitter got him a speedy response by AT&T."
Tools & Techniques Some people find email too impersonal. Are they worth $1.29? Would a business model that did not limit you to an iPhone be viable? (How about valentine postcards from Loveland, CO?)
Using Body Language is an encyclopedic collection for those wishing to go into the very details.
PrintYourLife.com - Print Your Life And Go Postal
There are many ways to show your friends how much care for them and you can do it by giving them a call, sending an email, as well as sending postcards.
This site gives you information about and application that is very simple and easy to use. Printyourlife.com will give you the chance to create and mail a physical, personalized postcard to the people you love.
In addition to your relatives or friends you can use this service for business purposes and you can send a business postcard to your associates directly from your iPhone.
… After you take the picture you need to add a personalized message, and select a recipient from your address book. Simple and clear, you can give your give your friends a nice surprise with a postcard you have tailored for them. This service can be used through the U.S. Mail no matter what state you want to send your cards.
This solution works with both the iPhone and the iPod Touch but you will have to email or import the photos to the Touch before you can create a postcard due to its lack of camera.
Tools & Techniques “Dear Student, Bob did get your email. He will answer it when and if he feels like answering it. Meanwhile, study hard! (signed) Bob's AI”
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/kukoo-email-autoresponder/
Kukoo: Email Autoresponder With Customizable Reply Rules
If you are always looking to reply an email as soon as possible so that the sender doesn’t think you are ignoring him then Kukoo would prove to be a great help to you. It helps you create email reply rules and provides you with an autoresponder email adders which lets the sender know instantly when he should be expecting a reply from you.
You can start by creating an account and claiming your email address with them. Once you verify that address, you get a new auto-responding email address which is created by adding .kukoo.com to your existing address. You can create separate reply rules for each day of the week and hence be more productive in handling your emails.
Tools & Techniques Can your email do all this?
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gmail-tips-four-degrees-towards-becoming-a-gmail-ninja/
Gmail Tips: Four Degrees Towards Becoming A Gmail Ninja
Jun. 26th, 2009 By Saikat Basu
What’s with Google? Googlers seem to never put down their thinking caps and out comes this little nugget of a page called Gmail Tips.
A few posts back, I had put up something on 10 Little Known Google Pages worth a Second Look. Now, here’s another section of Google which is far more useful and worthy of a bookmark.
… The Gmail Tips page is an effective course for someone new to Gmail. But even old hands can pick up a tip or two.
Here at MakeUseof.com, we aren’t doing too badly either with ways to make the most of Gmail. Whether it’s the Ultimate GMail Collection of over 80 Tools and Tips or How to Stay Connected with Gmail , our complete list of posts on Gmail covers quite a lot of ground
How to signal your displeasure without speaking a word.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-read-and-use-body-language-a-quick-guide/
How To Read and Interpret Body Language: A Quick Guide
Jun. 26th, 2009 By Tina
… Understanding body language and using that knowledge can give you a huge advantage over people who don’t pay attention. [i.e. Most people... Bob]
… Bodycom has a short quiz that will give you an idea whether you’re instinctively able to read and interpret body language. Once your score is good enough, you’ll receive a complimentary diploma.
… 2KnowMySelf has an excellent set of articles explaining everything about How to know if someone is lying to you. Similarly, What’s This? has three comprehensive articles on The Art of Lying, which explains body language in part two.
… The article How to Command Respect at Even Happier explains how you can use posture, things you’re looking at, the way you are sitting, your head, face, and hands to air confidence and competence. A similar article also telling you what not to do can be found on InsideCRM - Leadership 101: How to Command Respect through Body Language.
… The website Persuasive has a Persuade Someone in 5 Steps guide that makes body language its primary point. In fact, it’s a tool to positively step into the conversation.
… The Adult Dating Body Language and Attraction Blog has an article that provides you with 33 Ways to Tell She’s Definitely Interested In You. And wikiHow features an article called How to Make the First Move, which also explains how to react to signs and express your own interest.
… Marc and Angel Hack Life has an excellent list on 25 Acts of Body Language to Avoid, which can serve as a quick reference as to what behavior you have to stop immediately.
… Using Body Language is an encyclopedic collection for those wishing to go into the very details.
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