News as it is, the blogosphere has reported the sale of Pirate Bay, controversial for being a haven for multimedia torrents shared by the world. In a blog post written today, the founders expressed how thoughts about bringing new people into the “organization” was something they’d been hoping to do for some time. More importantly, they are pretty much aware of the ramifications of going into this partnership:

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The official Michael Jackson website invites its visitors to share their MJ memories in classic blog comment form. As of writing there are 354 044 memories “from Michael Jackson fans worldwide”, and growing naturally. Meanwhile, the Facebook page now clocks in 2 414 413 fans. On June 26, the same page had 880 991 fans…

This comes as no surprise at all, really. After all, with the Facebook front page upgrade some time ago, I’m surprised this hasn’t hit harder yet. Buy a status update on eBay, and get noticed. Or at least you could, the auction is removed. Inside Facebook broke the story, and has screenshots if you’re curious. read more

Want to protect your brand (ie your name) on Facebook? Then be at the ready on Saturday, because that’s when Facebook will roll out the vanity URLs we’ve mentioned before. As in facebook.com/peter/ rather than facebook.com/profile.php?id=12354477861485115. Looks better doesn’t it, and will show up in search as well. This from the official announcement:

Starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, you’ll be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/. You’ll also see a notice on your home page with instructions for obtaining your username at that time.

About time. More on Techmeme.

Regardless of your political leaning, you would be hard pressed to dispute the fact that the New York Times was at one point the most significant print news source on the planet.

Ravaged by accusations (and some proven cases) of plagiarism and an era of shaky old-school media, the New York Times, like many tabloids, is looking to the Web for salvation. Taking one step closer to the virtual silver bullet that isn’t, the Times announced the addition of a new position today: social media editor. read more

This is good news for marketers as well as companies trying to make money on social media services, sites, applications, and so on. IAB, which is responsible for the de facto standard of online advertising, have released a hefty tome on social media practices. Nick Gonzales of SocialMedia.com writes a guest post on TechCrunch covering this:

As part of a company that makes social ads, I’m excited that the IAB has released a new set of social advertising best practices to help bring consistency to the marketplace, similar to the way IAB standards brought efficiency to online advertising back in the 90’s.

I agree, social media needs some directions when it comes to advertising, and that is IAB’s desk. This could also lead to marketing firms eyeing social media with even more interest, since there is now some sort of guidelines to go by, although that remains to be seen.

In “Five Tips for Composing a More Effective Social Networking Bio” by Maria Langer of Maria’s Guides, she asks if your social media bio is really saying what you want it to say and makes a good point:

Your bio is your primary way to tell people who don’t know you what you’re all about. If they’re heard about you from someone else or stumbled upon one of your Twitter tweets or Facebook wall posts, they might be interested in learning more. They might even want to become your . . . wait for it . . . friend.

…Think of your bio as bait on a fishing line. Who will it attract? But, at the same time, how many people will ultimately be disappointed by the mismatch between what your bio says about you and who you really are?

She includes some basic tips for creating a virtual biography such as be brief, accurate, meaningful, careful with word choice, and avoiding really personal and private information, but let’s take the picture you paint of yourself online in these various sharing outlets a step farther.

What is most important for you to share publicly? read more

It is not just by advertising that you can monetize your twittering, you could also get paid to write tweets for somebody else. I’m sure a lot of people are making a living doing this, at least part time, since social media is as hot as it is these days. If you doubt that, Simon Owens found at least one person who does twitter for a living, for a magazine called Sky Mall. The twitterer, whose identity is unknown, was mentioned in a New York Times piece on the mag, although I doubt it is a 40 hour workweek. If it is, what a hack…

Recently, Sam Bauer announced TalkPress, the WordPress.com of bbPress.

With the power of the WordPress Community behind it, could TalkPress ignite the fire under forums?

WordPress.com has been an incredible success with millions of bloggers registering millions of blogs and having their chance to blog free, or for a small fee for some services. Blog topics range from personal and private to politics and raising social consciousness. Some WordPress.com blogs have become popular and even famous, such as Robert Scoble and icanhascheezburger.

As a hosting company, WordPress.com hosts some of the largest websites and blogs in the world including icanhascheezburger, CNN news sites including Political Ticker, the Dow Jones’ All Things D, GretaWire, Time’s The Page, People Magazine’s Style Watch, and more. These companies provide the revenue to keep the free blog hosting services rocking and prove that WordPress has the strength and capabilities to support serious demands from users and servers. read more

With the recent fears of a pandemic with the Mexico Swine Flu and an earthquake today in Mexico City, there is a lot to be nervous about. Add to it the continued spread of the conflickr/downadup virus online…with all the manmade and natural disasters and our obsessive interest in them, you would think that there would be an easy way to find out what there is to be worried about in the world.

Oh, wait. There is. Meet Twisaster. read more