China’s Twitter Weibo Gains on Original

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Sina’s Weibo zooms past Twitter

There are more than a billion Chinese people and a lot of them are not using Twitter, because it’s banned.  These are the two major advantages of Weibo (which translates in English as “micro-blogging”) that has allowed it to cross the 200 million registered user milestone in two years, a feat that took Twitter about five years.

Just to show off it’s emerging dominance in Chinese cyberspace, which should include not only the People’s Republic of China but all countries where people read Chinese characters or speak Mandarin or Cantonese, Weibo took out a seven story ad on Times Square.  Clearly, the message to the markets of the world is that if you want to sell anything in Chinese cyberspace, then you have to deal with Weibo.

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A Better Blog Contest

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A better blog award is one that highlights actual excellence in craftsmanship and the depth of one's knowledge on a subject matter.

There’s always one or other “blogging contest” going on around in the world, some are sponsored by “Big Money” and launched with obvious “Brand Promotion Agendas” while others promote “Presumably Good Causes”.

I’ve said previously, in general, joining a blogging contest is a good way to promote your blog and network with other bloggers.  You not only get a chance to build a wider readership for your audience, but you also get a chance to meet more established bloggers who can actually help you become a better blogger.

The right attitude in joining a contest, any contest, is to become more aware of what your capabilities are and learn how to improve them.  It is not so much winning that matters but finding and taking away lessons that you can help you achieve your own personal blogging goals.

However, it must be said, that some blogging contests are rigged in such a way that it essentially becomes a vehicle for establishing “no go” zones around certain brands.  Moreover, it can be a palliative remedy for what really ails people’s perception of the brand — bad service and bad practices.

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A petition on Facebook for Ernie and Bert to get married

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Ernie and Bert getting married.

It was a simpler time, perhaps, when Ernie and Bert were first introduced in 1969.  Originally, the two muppets created by Jim Henson, was supposed to teach children that people could be friends despite so many differences.

Ernie is a dark colored, rotund shaped puppet and Bert is a light colored, longish puppet who lived together in an apartment on Sesame Street.  On the surface of it, perhaps muppets showed children how vastly different people could get along with each other and on another level, it perhaps also reflected how the characters may have been conceived in the milieu of racial tensions in the United States.

They were probably also modeled after tandem comedians Laurel and Hardy and Abbot and Costello.  Ernie is the boring, straight-laced character while Ernie is the goofy prankster and most of the skits involving the two revolve around Ernie infuriating Bert.

In the face of the legalization of gay marriage, should the muppets be used to teach children the why two people of the same sex can get married?

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Facebook, Twitter, and RIM mulls UK PM Cameron’s riot block threat

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Social Media LogosIn the midst of the week’s widespread lootingBritish prime minister David Cameron suggested blocking individuals from accessing their social media accounts if they’re found to be openly plotting violent acts.

Twitter, Facebook, and BlackBerry Messenger have been pointed out as playing a role in organizing riots in London, Birmingham, Manchester and other cities in the UK.

Home Secretary Teresa May has summoned the three companies to discuss methods of preventing people from organizing violent mass actions.

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California Prison asks Facebook: Take Down Inmate Pages

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Facebook LogoCalifornia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation administrators  have begun reporting inmate Facebook pages and asking the company to take these down.

Corrections Department Secretary Matthew Cate  said that access to social media allows inmates to circumvent their monitoring process and may actually be allowing them to continue criminal activity.

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Spam King Sanford Wallace out on bail after indictment for Spamming 27 million on Facebook

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Facebook Phishing ScamsSanford Wallace, the self-proclaimed “spam king”, is out on bail after posting a US $100,000 bond on charges that he sent more than 27 million spam messages to Facebook users.

Sanford was indicted on July 6 on six counts of electronic mail fraud, three counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two counts of criminal contempt.

The indictment filed in San Jose federal court said Wallace compromised about 500,000 Facebook accounts between November 2008 and March 2009 by sending massive amounts of spam through the company’s servers on three separate occasions.

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Facebook Sues 25 Alleged Typosquatters

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Mark Zuckerberg

Have you ever visited ‘facebobk.com’, ‘facemook.com’, ‘wwwfacefook.com’, ‘ffacebook.com’ and ‘faecbook.com’?

Well, Facebook is suing the holders of these domain names and 20 others, accusing them of infringing its trademark.  In its suit, the holders of these domain names were essentially referred to as typosquatters.  This practice relies on  typographical errors or wrong spelling made by Internet users when keying in a website address.  Should a user accidentally enter an incorrect website address, they may be led to an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter.

There are a number of ways in which a typosquatter can benefit from this and among them could be traffic from the wrongly spelled domain name, especially if it’s from a site as Facebook.

But then again, could there actually be a reason to think that suits for typosquatting can actually be nothing more than plain harassment or bullying?

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