Friday, July 23, 2010
Friday, December 18, 2009
"Iranian Cyber Army" Takes Down Twitter
CNN has the story:
Personally, I find it highly doubtful that an organization actually affiliated with the Iranian government would take a step as bold as this. The Iranian regime is many things, but I doubt they're stupid enough to risk the backlash that an official, claimed attack on Twitter would provoke among their populace - especially given the prominence the microblogging site has played during their political upheaval over the past year. But who knows - perhaps they have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this action would be received.
If you ask me, though, it is far more likely that this is a group of hackers either within Iran proving their savvy, or a group outside of Iran hoping to stir things up. Either way, Twitter clearly needs to beef up on their cyber-security (not to mention their capacity), especially if they hope to monetize it as they continue to grow.
Those who tried to access Twitter were redirected to a site that had a green flag and proclaimed "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army."
The Web site was down for nearly an hour. Representatives from Twitter could not be immediately reached for comment, but the company spoke about the issue on its official Twitter page.
"Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We will update with more information soon," the company posted at about 2:30 a.m. ET Friday.CNN has the graphic.
It was unclear who the group Iranian Cyber Army was and if it is connected to Iran.
Personally, I find it highly doubtful that an organization actually affiliated with the Iranian government would take a step as bold as this. The Iranian regime is many things, but I doubt they're stupid enough to risk the backlash that an official, claimed attack on Twitter would provoke among their populace - especially given the prominence the microblogging site has played during their political upheaval over the past year. But who knows - perhaps they have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this action would be received.
If you ask me, though, it is far more likely that this is a group of hackers either within Iran proving their savvy, or a group outside of Iran hoping to stir things up. Either way, Twitter clearly needs to beef up on their cyber-security (not to mention their capacity), especially if they hope to monetize it as they continue to grow.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Prevent Facebook from Publishing Photos to Your Wall Automatically
Every time I am tagged in a photo on Facebook, it automatically publishes a set of thumbnails to my wall before I've had the chance to look at them. This is a supremely annoying feature, as it allows my friends ultimate control over what photos of me are provided on the web - a freedom I'm not willing to give up. Since I allow more people access to my wall than to my photos, I'd rather this feature be turned off completely.
Well, thanks to a Gawker reader, there is an answer. From the article:
The post is complete with graphics to help enable the privacy controls. Very nice resource. The tweak prevents photos from ever having access to my feed unless I choose to share them myself. Much preferable to an automatic update that I may or may not want people to see.
Ultimately, though, it would be nice if Facebook gave me the option of how I categorized photos as I uploaded them. Photos I'd like to share I could guide to my wall as well as an album, while those I didn't could simply be put in another place. Yes, I could do this by categorizing photos into different albums with different privacy permissions and uploading them accordingly...but that is a pain. It seems like it would be much easier to just have a check box that says "publish to wall" or "don't publish to wall." Please, Facebook?
Well, thanks to a Gawker reader, there is an answer. From the article:
UPDATE: According to a helpful tipster, this can be disabled by going to the Settings menu at the top right of your Facebook home page, then to "Application Settings," then the "Photos" application, then click "Edit settings." Then click the "Additional Permissions tab," and there is an option to "Publish to streams." Uncheck this.
The post is complete with graphics to help enable the privacy controls. Very nice resource. The tweak prevents photos from ever having access to my feed unless I choose to share them myself. Much preferable to an automatic update that I may or may not want people to see.
Ultimately, though, it would be nice if Facebook gave me the option of how I categorized photos as I uploaded them. Photos I'd like to share I could guide to my wall as well as an album, while those I didn't could simply be put in another place. Yes, I could do this by categorizing photos into different albums with different privacy permissions and uploading them accordingly...but that is a pain. It seems like it would be much easier to just have a check box that says "publish to wall" or "don't publish to wall." Please, Facebook?
Monday, December 14, 2009
Operation Chokehold: Suffocating AT&T
As an iPhone user that is frequently frustrated with lousy network coverage and dropped calls, this post from the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs outlining Operation Chokehold seems like a pretty fun idea:
Digital flash mob!!?? I love it. Think this idea has any traction? Any prayer of success? I wonder how many iPhone users it would take participating to seriously clog the network. I doubt this could ever actually work, but at least the idea gives me some satisfaction as an annoyed AT&T customer...
And seriously, Apple: get some new network providers. AT&T may be giving you huge subsidies on the phone, but they're not doing you any favors when it comes to actual service.
UPDATE: Well, I just saw this in the New York Times. Perhaps it is time to reconsider my iPhone as the other providers catch up. Anybody have a Droid yet?
Subject: Operation Chokehold
On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. THe idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!
Digital flash mob!!?? I love it. Think this idea has any traction? Any prayer of success? I wonder how many iPhone users it would take participating to seriously clog the network. I doubt this could ever actually work, but at least the idea gives me some satisfaction as an annoyed AT&T customer...
And seriously, Apple: get some new network providers. AT&T may be giving you huge subsidies on the phone, but they're not doing you any favors when it comes to actual service.
UPDATE: Well, I just saw this in the New York Times. Perhaps it is time to reconsider my iPhone as the other providers catch up. Anybody have a Droid yet?
When I set about looking for independent data, however, to confirm the superior performance of Verizon’s network, I was astonished to discover that I had managed to get things exactly wrong. Despite the well-publicized problems in New York and San Francisco, AT&T seems to have the superior network nationwide.
And the iPhone itself may not be so great after all. Its design is contributing to performance problems.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Twitter Across Ethnicity and Dayparts
Simply wanted to share this post from the Awl, titled "What Were Black People Talking About on Twitter Last Night?" The author notes the fact that he might get some flack for noting the trend - but I've certainly noticed the tendency of Twitter's trending topics to change in both subject and user base over the course of the day. Last night around 8:30, for example, the top trending topics were #isitme and the Soul Train Awards, with a quick look at the posts indicating that the majority of people involved in the conversations were indeed black. The Awl provides some stats, and asks the question:
...according to Pew, 26% of African-Americans online use Twitter; only 19% of white Internet people use Twitter. So really the question is: why does Twitter get so white and boring during the day?At least worth a look. And worth thinking - perhaps organizations looking to reach specific groups on Twitter - ethnic, racial, or otherwise - need to do quite a bit more research on their target audience's usage to effectively use the technology.
Twitter's Integration with LinkedIn: Why?
I admit that I feel like I've never fully understood the appeal of LinkedIn, apart from its ability to help job seekers and providers find one another. A social Monster.com, essentially, with some additional features like Groups that allow for further networking. I know very few people that use the site's introduction features that allow individuals to help their contacts network with each other, but perhaps that is a result of the circles that I run in.
I'm a member of a few LinkedIn Groups, and from the digests that I receive, I can also see it as a new community for professional message boards to discuss focused industries. I think it basically serves as a new aggregation point - a sorting mechanism, essentially, that allows for message boards organized by industry. The social capability of the job services the site provides makes it a natural spot for professional discussions. A public intranet, almost, for industry wide debate and conversation. Again - this I get. And I think organizations can harness this power effectively for a variety of purposes, be it establishing authority on a topic, monitoring discussion and sentiments on a subject, or simply becoming an active member of a community related to an organization's mission.
But why would Twitter and LinkedIn integrate with one another? Aside from the publicity it gains for both companies, of course? Aren't these networks used in fundamentally different ways, and for fundamentally different reasons? Do people post updates to LinkedIn the way that they do to Twitter and I'm just completely unaware of it? And if so, who actually does this? What demographics? What people? Don't most people sign up for LinkedIn to advance their career, while using Twitter for much more personal or message based reasons? The obvious exceptions are those working in the digital field, but still - who will use this functionality, and why?
In general, I'd love to hear more of what people see as the function of LinkedIn beyond the message boards and listservs. If any readers out there have any thoughts, please hit the comments.
I'm a member of a few LinkedIn Groups, and from the digests that I receive, I can also see it as a new community for professional message boards to discuss focused industries. I think it basically serves as a new aggregation point - a sorting mechanism, essentially, that allows for message boards organized by industry. The social capability of the job services the site provides makes it a natural spot for professional discussions. A public intranet, almost, for industry wide debate and conversation. Again - this I get. And I think organizations can harness this power effectively for a variety of purposes, be it establishing authority on a topic, monitoring discussion and sentiments on a subject, or simply becoming an active member of a community related to an organization's mission.
But why would Twitter and LinkedIn integrate with one another? Aside from the publicity it gains for both companies, of course? Aren't these networks used in fundamentally different ways, and for fundamentally different reasons? Do people post updates to LinkedIn the way that they do to Twitter and I'm just completely unaware of it? And if so, who actually does this? What demographics? What people? Don't most people sign up for LinkedIn to advance their career, while using Twitter for much more personal or message based reasons? The obvious exceptions are those working in the digital field, but still - who will use this functionality, and why?
In general, I'd love to hear more of what people see as the function of LinkedIn beyond the message boards and listservs. If any readers out there have any thoughts, please hit the comments.
Book Review: The Cluetrain Manifesto Gives Marketing a Clue
I realized about halfway into the Cluetrain Manifesto that I had probably purchased the wrong copy of the book that my class required; the edition that I have my hands on is a 2009 10th Anniversary version, which includes roughly 70 pages of new material current through November 2008. As such, I wanted to focus in my posting on the comments the authors provided on the updates to the book, as these updates touch on the main themes of the original publication while also providing insights more relevant to the modern web culture.
Originally published in 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto serves as a sort of blueprint for corporate marketers to understand the new reality of the web-based world. With 95 theses, the Manifesto serves as a great summation of many of the concepts discussed on this blog and in my course: that markets are conversations, and that businesses must adapt to become a part of this conversation or face extinction.
In that respect, I wish we'd read this book toward the beginning of the term, as I feel it provides a great overview of the concepts illuminated by the authors that have come since. That said, there are some phenomenal nuggets of information in here, largely because the Cluetrain Manifesto - unlike most of the books we've read - focuses on marketing and corporate culture primarily, with politics and government getting secondary mention. The corporate world is likely to be ahead of the political realm when it comes to the adoption of new techniques and strategies - after all, they have a profit motive to do so.
But in reality, what the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto really point to is a dynamic shift in the way in which we view our every day world - be it in government, the private sector, or in our own lives. The authors discuss the Internet's fundamental ability to reopen discussions and promote interaction - and emphasize that the true point of the web is to become whatever its users determine it to be. As such, marketers, governments, strategists - all of us that try to find ways to use the web to achieve an end are really working in an old world. The Cluetrain Manifesto suggests that the Internet has the power to ultimately bring about the end of the old world of top-down, corporate influence over culture, and replace it with something more organic, more determined by the masses.
In the updated version, the authors admit that their original vision has not come to fruition in quite the way that they expected. They note the rapid adoption of the web and the vast strides it has taken since 1999 - discussing blogs, comment sections, reviews on Amazon.com, and even Barack Obama's election to the presidency. They emphasize that the Internet continues to give people real power that they did not have before, and has served to make corporations more accountable to the people they are supposed to ultimately exist for.
But at the same time, the authors point out that the web has also served to promote authority figures; to give new and old figures alike new powers over new marketplaces. These figures - be them individuals like Oprah or mega-media companies that seek to control the web for their own purposes - possess only a limited understanding of what the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto believe the Internet can and should be. What's worse, they manipulate this understanding in an effort to quash a lot of the development that can bring about the ultimate transformation that the original Cluetrain had foreseen.
This vision is particularly interesting - and it is fitting that "Manifesto" is the term used here, as it reminds me a bit of Marx in the loosest sense. In essence, it seems that Cluetrain vision of the Internet is a truly level playing field, where any individual or company with savvy, an honest voice, and a willingness to engage the public can and should succeed. Trying to move away from this vision is no less than despicable to the authors - they view the old push media messages with scorn, and abhor the thought that the old players may co-opt the Internet for their own purposes. Manipulations of the Internet for traditional marketing purposes ultimately kill the very adaptability and openness that makes the Internet so exciting in the first place.
I was particularly fascinated in the new version's discussion of the goal of a semantic web, in which users would ultimately determine what was provided to them by the Internet. A notable example came in the form of a customer seeking a given product, at a given price. In this ideal future version of the web, that customer would simply post what they need, and companies would then bid to provide it to them. It is a fascinating idea - and one that could certainly be possible, if difficult, to achieve.
I have mixed feelings on the ultimate messages in this book - but it is one of the few in this semester that I would recommend to just about anybody. The ideas - agree or disagree - are essential. The book easily and succinctly sums up the new reality that the Internet demonstrates, and despite the fact that the scope of predictions offered by the 1999 version haven't yet come to fruition, the grander themes suggested are being played out each and every day in the modern world.
Originally published in 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto serves as a sort of blueprint for corporate marketers to understand the new reality of the web-based world. With 95 theses, the Manifesto serves as a great summation of many of the concepts discussed on this blog and in my course: that markets are conversations, and that businesses must adapt to become a part of this conversation or face extinction.
In that respect, I wish we'd read this book toward the beginning of the term, as I feel it provides a great overview of the concepts illuminated by the authors that have come since. That said, there are some phenomenal nuggets of information in here, largely because the Cluetrain Manifesto - unlike most of the books we've read - focuses on marketing and corporate culture primarily, with politics and government getting secondary mention. The corporate world is likely to be ahead of the political realm when it comes to the adoption of new techniques and strategies - after all, they have a profit motive to do so.
But in reality, what the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto really point to is a dynamic shift in the way in which we view our every day world - be it in government, the private sector, or in our own lives. The authors discuss the Internet's fundamental ability to reopen discussions and promote interaction - and emphasize that the true point of the web is to become whatever its users determine it to be. As such, marketers, governments, strategists - all of us that try to find ways to use the web to achieve an end are really working in an old world. The Cluetrain Manifesto suggests that the Internet has the power to ultimately bring about the end of the old world of top-down, corporate influence over culture, and replace it with something more organic, more determined by the masses.
In the updated version, the authors admit that their original vision has not come to fruition in quite the way that they expected. They note the rapid adoption of the web and the vast strides it has taken since 1999 - discussing blogs, comment sections, reviews on Amazon.com, and even Barack Obama's election to the presidency. They emphasize that the Internet continues to give people real power that they did not have before, and has served to make corporations more accountable to the people they are supposed to ultimately exist for.
But at the same time, the authors point out that the web has also served to promote authority figures; to give new and old figures alike new powers over new marketplaces. These figures - be them individuals like Oprah or mega-media companies that seek to control the web for their own purposes - possess only a limited understanding of what the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto believe the Internet can and should be. What's worse, they manipulate this understanding in an effort to quash a lot of the development that can bring about the ultimate transformation that the original Cluetrain had foreseen.
This vision is particularly interesting - and it is fitting that "Manifesto" is the term used here, as it reminds me a bit of Marx in the loosest sense. In essence, it seems that Cluetrain vision of the Internet is a truly level playing field, where any individual or company with savvy, an honest voice, and a willingness to engage the public can and should succeed. Trying to move away from this vision is no less than despicable to the authors - they view the old push media messages with scorn, and abhor the thought that the old players may co-opt the Internet for their own purposes. Manipulations of the Internet for traditional marketing purposes ultimately kill the very adaptability and openness that makes the Internet so exciting in the first place.
I was particularly fascinated in the new version's discussion of the goal of a semantic web, in which users would ultimately determine what was provided to them by the Internet. A notable example came in the form of a customer seeking a given product, at a given price. In this ideal future version of the web, that customer would simply post what they need, and companies would then bid to provide it to them. It is a fascinating idea - and one that could certainly be possible, if difficult, to achieve.
I have mixed feelings on the ultimate messages in this book - but it is one of the few in this semester that I would recommend to just about anybody. The ideas - agree or disagree - are essential. The book easily and succinctly sums up the new reality that the Internet demonstrates, and despite the fact that the scope of predictions offered by the 1999 version haven't yet come to fruition, the grander themes suggested are being played out each and every day in the modern world.
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