Duncan Riley, the founder of the Blog Herald, now runs The Inquisitr, as you probably well know. And successfully it would seem, at least in the eyes of the folks behind the Australian Startup Index, who lists The Inquisitr at number 7 in the January edition. Duncan blogs about it of course. Congratulations are in order, I believe, so congrats Duncan with crew!

If there is one element many people in the online world overlook it is making friends. It’s not just bloggers who do this, all kinds of internet folks think they have to do everything alone.

Not true!

Friendships and connections are far more than just down time and blowing off steam … read more

I received an email tip via Performancing today about some key b5media personalities having to leave the network–one of the bigger blog/new media networks today, in terms of content and contributorship. Foremost of these is AboutWeblogs.com founder and b5media “co-founder” Shai Coggins. In a blog post today, Shai explains the circumstances behind her leaving b5.

Even with the fresh injection of funding, the economic times aren’t cooperating.

So, it all ended with another Skype chat. Well, sort of. On the 14th of January 2009, I used Skype to pay for the call to the b5 conference line – where the company COO and CEO broke the news to me.

Times are tough.

And that’s how it ends.

I’m not sure I am at liberty to quote or discuss the actual contents of the email, as it appears to be privileged communication between Jeremy Wright and his fellow b5′ers. But it appears that this move was due to some belt-tightening measures that the company has had to do in line with its trimming of costs, refocusing of strategies and exploring of new opportunities. read more

SecurityFocus reports an estimated 3.5 million computers have been compromised due to a “Downadup worm,” a malicious bot that spreads through websites and blogs.

The Downadup worm, a malicious program that spreads using a recently patched Windows flaw, has compromised more than 3.5 million computers, security firm F-Secure stated this week.

The Downadup worm has successfully spread because it uses a major flaw that Microsoft patched in October to remotely compromise computers running unpatched versions of the Windows operating system. However, the malicious program’s greatest strength appears to be a feature that allows worm-controlled computers to download malicious code from a random drop point.

The program generates addresses for 250 different domains each day. The botnet controller need only register one of the domains and set up a download server to update the bot program with different functionality, said Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure.

“The bad guys only need to predetermine one possible domain for tomorrow, register it, and set up a website, and they then gain access to all of the infected machines — pretty clever,” Hyppönen said in a blog post.

According to the report, the Downadup worm uses Windows XP’s vulnerability in processing remote procedure call (RPC) requests. While a patch was issued and warnings announced, not everyone has upgraded. The top countries hit by the MS08-067 Worms, as F-Secure calls them, are China, Brazil, and Russia, but it is expected to spread further unless server administrators and webmasters update and patch their Windows Servers and Windows programs immediately, including Internet Explorer.

ZD-Net Security Threats reports that the first sign of infection is usually found when users accounts cannot access their accounts and they are locked out of the Active Directory domain as the worm tries to crack passwords in Windows Servers.

Tracking the Downadup infection, F-Secure reported that reports of infections are up by more than one million within just one day, and growing. As last check, they estimate 3,521,230 infections worldwide. read more

With the recession affecting everyone (big and small), it probably came to no surprise that Google was shutting down (or stunting) a few services ranging from Google Notebook, to Jaiku to even Google Video (as mentioned by TechCrunch).

While many BlogSpot users may not be familiar (or use) the first two services, the last one may affect them tremendously as Blogger’s video upload feature is powered by Google Video. read more

I’ve noticed a trend in my blogging pursuits. The articles that I write that are the best-written, most researched, headline-friendly and totally Diggable, quickly fade away with a whimper. Yet blog entries that are thrown together, posted for the sake of posting with minimal thought, bring in the most traffic.

What gives?

At first I thought that maybe I was over thinking things or being extreme. But no, it’s a fact. I rarely see a payoff for articles that I pour my heart and soul into.

It’s starting to frustrate me.

I’m curious to hear from you. Have the articles you expected to perform well done so? Or, have you been surprised by the success on a ‘thoughtless’ post?

Let’s see if we can identify any trends.

Google have decided to open source the Jaiku Engine and release it under the Apache license on Google Code. The actual Jaiku service won’t close, but neither is Google supporting it. Instead, the service will live on thanks to volunteers. Or, in the words of Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering:

As we mentioned last April, we are in the process of porting Jaiku over to Google App Engine. After the migration is complete, we will release the new open source Jaiku Engine project on Google Code under the Apache License. While Google will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase, the service itself will live on thanks to a dedicated and passionate volunteer team of Googlers.

Jaiku’s Jyri stresses that this isn’t necessarily the end of Jaiku, and that doom-mongerers should wait and see what’ll happen with the site. This in a comment to the announcement on the Jaikido Blog:

While the future is uncertain (it always is), it’s also worth noting that the Jaiku that exists today was developed by independent people who were brought together by an interest to create a cool tool for sharing presence and conversation.

read more

As part of my ongoing series on exploring social media tools, I’d like to take a look at the usage of curse words on the web, specifically those tracked by Cursebird.

Adult Content Warning: The following includes words that may offend some. Consider yourself warned.

A lot of SEO and web strategies specialists spend a lot of time tracking keywords, search terms, hashtags, and other frequently used words and phrases across the web, especially those used in social media tools. Cursebird takes this research a step further. read more

The Australian state of Queensland has advertised for an “Island Caretaker”. Forget the humdrum image the word “caretaker” conjures up and instead focus on the specifics.

It’s a six-month, live-in contract with flexible working hours that requires the successful applicant to explore the islands of the world-famous Great Barrier Reef, discovering more about it and then editing a promotional blog that will promote it to an international audience.

It pays the equivalent of US$100,000, and is described as “The Best Job In the World”. read more

Showtime, an US pay cable network that is also available in other parts of the world via satellite, utilizes the internet to launch a new TV series, called The United States of Tara. According to UPI.com, the first episode will be aired for free on sites like TV.com, Yahoo and Blockbuster.com, but also on blogs like Gawker, and social networking sites like Facebook. You’ll even be able to catch it in your mobile phone if you’ve got the necessary services from AT&T or Verizon. Read more about the series over at the Showtime site. The premiere is on January 18th.

My bet is that we’ll see more launches like this, especially using service like YouTube. It would be pretty easy to gain traction in the blogosphere if you played your cards right, so don’t be surprised when PR reps from TV companies start emailing you…