Bloggers Blog: Blogging the Blogsphere

Twitter is Follower Central So Follower Issues Really Sting

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:15:00 EST

The most important feature on Twitter is followers. People's followers/following relationships is what makes the website's simple service work. Despite hot competitors like Plurk and FriendFeed, Twitter is still follower central. They are by far the leading microblogging site and many up-and-coming microblogging services and social networks let you import your Twitter friends. New services pretty much have to use Twitter in this way because Twitter's community is already so large and so active. As more services launch in the future they will also try and get their users to import their Twitter friends. This will help to make Twitter a bigger and bigger player in the social networking world. They are quickly becoming a major friend source like Facebook and Gmail.

Recently, Twitter started curbing the number of followers people could have so they could attempt to reduce spam. However, these following limits unfairly impact Twitter users like @CreativeSage, @PPRLisa, @MarkDavidson and others. You can read more about this follower limit here on ReadWriteWeb.

Twitter's lost follower problems this week may be related to the following limit they recently imposed. Twitter has recovered some of the lost follower data but many users are still missing as many as 10% to 50% of their followers.

Apparently, they are still working on the issue today. They really need to solve it because it is this community that makes Twitter what it is. If the cruicial relationships in this community are disrupted it makes things very complicated for everyone. As Profy.com writes this issue is much worse than Twitter's omnipresent Fail Whale. You can read another post about Twitter's huge follower disruption here on TwitterStars.com.

Ironically, on the same day that the massive Twitter follower distruption occurred Twitter's Ev was blogging about a new service called TwitterCounter that offers follower stats. Twitter knows how important followers are and as you can see by Ev's tweet below they are still trying to solve this latest crisis.

Posted in Twitter

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Blogspot.com #1 Malware Source Says Sophos

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:06:00 EST

A Sophos study has found that Blogspot.com is the biggest malware site on the Internet. CNET reports that the Sophos study says Blogger accounts for nearly 2% off all malware sites.

As for illegitimate sites, Sophos notes that Geocities and Blogger both make it easy for anyone to set up a Web site without much identification. Blogger, owned by Google, is particularly problematic, says Sophos, with the blog site alone accounting for nearly 2 percent of all malware hosts. I is not only possible for the Blogger sites to host malicious code, but criminal attackers can also inject links to malicious sites in the comments sections of the blogs.

In the past (see here and here) Google's Blogspot.com site has been blamed for being a big source of splogs. Malware is an even bigger problem than splogs. Google should eradicate this problem immediately - especially since there seems to be a malware infestation on its own blogging platform. Here's Google's response to the news according to CNET.

"Google takes the security of our users very seriously, and we work hard to protect them from malware. Using Blogger, or any Google product, to serve or host malware is a violation of our product policies. We actively work to detect and remove sites that serve malware from our network."

Hopefully the same thing that has happened to Blogspot.com won't happen to Knol - Google's recently launched challenge to Wikipedia.

And another Malware source according to Sophos - messages claiming to contain pictures of hot female celebrities.

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Amazon S3 Crash Hampers Web 2.0 Sites

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:15:00 EST

A crash of Amazon.com's heavily used Amazon S3 storage service has caused problems for many Web 2.0 sites that rely on the service. You can find a status page for Amazon's service here.

Here are a few of the outages and problems.

Plurk, Twitter and Kwippy are having problems showing images loaded with Amazon A3. It sounds minor but it just isn't as much fun microblogging without the avatars.
Posterous.com reported problems posting different types of files.
Picnik, a web graphics tool, has reported problems (via Technologizer)
Another site down is Smugmug.com - you can see their message here.
Slideshare.net reported problems related to the outage.
A video and photo sharing site called Phanfare also reported problems.
More discussion of the outages can be found here on Techmeme.

This is just a sample of the many sites affected by an Amazon Web Services problem. The cheap hosting service has become popular with Web 2.0 startups. There was a similar Amazon Web Services outage back in February, 2008 - see here.

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Two More Microblogging Sites: Identi.ca and Kwippy

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:20:00 EST

The number of microblogging worlds to visit continues to climb. You can add them to growing number existing microblogging tools like Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, Jaiku and Pownce. Twitter - the most popular of these types of tools - has been functioning better lately but this improvement has come at the expense of the Twitter API. The latest microblogging entries are Identi.ca and Kwippy.

Identi.ca is a recently launched microblogging service that has a similar feel to Twitter. It is unique in that it uses the Open Microblogging specification. Identi.ca recently added a response tab and they are planning many more features. You can read some other posts about Identi.ca here, here, here and here.

Kwippy is a microblogging service with a unique look that allows updating via GTalk and Yahoo messenger. Kwippy groups comments together in threads which makes them easier to follow than on Twitter. Kwippy also allows entries that are longer than 140 characters. Following is easy on Kwippy and can be done with a single click. You can read a few other posts about Kwippy here, here, here, here and here.

Both of these new microblogging sites can be updated through ping.fm. You can follow bloggersblog on identi.ca here and on Kwippy here.

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Twitter Confirms Summize Acquisition

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:37:00 EST

Twitter has confirmed rumors from earlier this month that they would be acquiring the Summize search engine.

Last month, Twitter had a very special date in New York City. We met with another startup, had lunch at the famous Shake Shack, and spent some quality time together in Union Square. The meeting with this other startup was largely a formality-we had already fallen in love with both the technology and the team.

Keeping up with interesting news and people you care about is one dimension of Twitter, but what if you need to find out what's happening in the world beyond your personal timeline? How do you find out about updates from Mars? What do people think of the new Will Smith movie? Providing tools for filtering all the real-time information coursing through Twitter has long been part of our vision.

We introduced a feature called Track close to a year ago because we recognized filtering as a key component of the Twitter experience. The folks over at Summize discovered Twitter and significantly improved on this idea of filtering and search. Twitter and Summize met last month to discuss a more formal relationship.

You can see the Summize search now on Twitter at search.twitter.com. Summize.com now redirects to this domain. A ZDNet post wonders what will happen to other Twitter search tools like Tweetscan. It remains to be seen if the deal will help Twitter with its stability issues. They have been more stable lately but the Fail Whale still makes appearances - especially it seems when you are checking direct messages.

It feels right that a microblog service has its own built-in search tool. Plurk, a rival microblogging service, also has a built-in search tool here.

Update: Silicon Alley Insider says Twitter paid $15 million for Summize in a cash and stock transaction.

Posted in Twitter

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Jason Calacanis Retires From Blogging

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:57:00 EST

Jason Calacanis founded Weblogs, Inc. and made it popular enough that he was able to sell it to AOL for $25 million back when many people had not even heard of blogs. Calacanis continued blogging after the sale of his company. He used his blog and other channels to promote his Mahalo company but now he claims to be finished with blogging. He has retired with an emotional post on his blog. He says it was taking too much time away from his family.

"It's with a heavy heart, and much consideration, that today I would like to announce my retirement from blogging." Jason McCabe Calacanis, July 11th 2008.

This was an extremely difficult decision, and I haven't made it lightly. After five years I'm not sure I know any other way of being but the blog, but at some point you have to hang it up. I know that I had made the right decision for me and my family. I am very proud of the success that we have had in blogging and I leave the game with few regrets.

To be sure, I am going to miss blogging. I am going to miss the relationships with my fellow bloggers. I am going to miss the readers. I am going to miss the great friends that I have made over this time. I am going to miss all the good times that we have had together. But most of all, I am going to miss the comments.*

Is Jason Calacanis really retiring? It seems unlikely. For many blogging is like writing. Most writers will tell you that writing is something that you continue doing until you can't do it anymore because you are dead.

Valleywag says Calacanis is returning to the now old-fashioned email newsletter so his writing and marketing will continue in some format. It seems that he also still has his microblogging accounts on FriendFeed and Twitter.

The "retirement" of Jason Calacanis is getting some coverage in the blogosphere - even from those who refuse to care. Jim Kukral links Jason's departure from blogging to the death of the A-list. The A-list may not be completely dead but it is certainly more diffuse than it was when everyone was blogging and no one was microblogging.

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Guardian Media Group to Buy paidContent For Over $30 Million

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:30:00 EST

Kara Swisher is reporting that the Guardian Media Group is going to buy the popular paidContent blog published by Rafat Ali for over $30 million.

In what will be seen as a new media coup, sources tell BoomTown that Britain's Guardian Media Group is set to announce this morning that it will buy the company that runs the high-profile digital media news site paidContent for a price "north of $30 million."

That price, though, includes an earn-out, sources said, which will depend on future performance of the company.

The paidContent site is owned by ContentNext and was founded by Publisher and Editor Rafat Ali in 2002.

With the motto, "The Economics of Content," paidContent has been a pioneer in the online news space, doing high-quality reporting about online media and digital efforts by big media companies.

paidContent consists of four blogs - all listed here in a post by VentureBeat. No one seems to have traffic specifics but paidContent was one of the most widely read blogs covering digital media. You can more about the deal at GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb and TechMeme. The official press release can be found here on paidContent. The Guardian also has the story here.

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Rumors Swirl That Twitter is Buying Summize

Tue, 8 Jul 2008 06:20:00 EST

Rumors are swirling here and here that Twitter is buying the Summize search engine. See Techmeme for still more rumors about a possible acquisition. Twitter refers users directly to Summize at times - such as when its replies tab is not functioning. A lot of Twitter users rely on the Twitter search engine to keep track of when their username is mentioned. Silicon Alley Insider says they don't know if the deal is true but that it sounds plausible.

The deal was first reported by English blogger Josh Chandler; Path 101 founder Charlie O'Donnell confirms the deal on his blog, but doesn't cite any sources. Meanwhile, a source close to the company tells us it's not true.

So we don't know what to believe, but it sounds plausible -- Summize's real-time Twitter search is a nice feature that Twitter doesn't have. And Summize has helped Twitter out in the past -- when Twitter's "replies" feature went dead a few weeks ago, Twitter officially recommended using Summize as a quick fix.

One way for Twitter to add the features users is want is to simply buy the third-party apps they like. Twitter's uptime issues have continued this summer so much so that the Fail Whale image that appears when Twitter is struggling has become a popular icon and Internet meme of its own. ReadWriteWeb notes that Twitter's uptime issues has cynics concerned that a Twitter-Summize deal might mean Twitter will now break Summize. That's pretty cynical but it's easy to see why people might worry about it.

For more on this story use Summize to see what Twitter users are saying about the speculation.

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YouTomb Site Keeps Data About Videos Removed From YouTube

Mon, 7 Jul 2008 13:23:00 EST

Everyday numerous videos are removed from YouTube. Often videos are removed because of an alleged copyright violation. A judge recently sided with Viacom in its request for the records of every video YouTube users have watched including IP data. Wired says Google was also ordered to provide "copies of all videos that it has taken down for any reason." The process by which YouTube removes videos is complex but a site called YouTomb is dedicated to tracking the videos removed from YouTube because of a copyright complaint. It is an interesting compilation and includes videos that have been on YouTube for over two years before they were taken down. YouTomb says it is a research project by MIT Free Culture.

YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.

More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.

The videos discussed on YouTomb cannot be viewed. It is merely a research project to find out more information about how YouTube goes about removing videos.

Posted in Videos

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Google and MacFarlane Cut Web Video Distribution Deal

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:52:00 EST

Google and Seth MacFarlane have cut a distribution deal that will send fifty short two-minute episodes of a MacFarlane-created show called Cavalcade screaming around Google's AdSense network. It's an interesting use of the AdSense network and one that is likely to garner Google new content partners if it is successful.

Silicon Alley Insider notes that Kim Malone Scott from Google Adsense boldly claims that Google has just "recreated the mass media." Silicon Alley Insider also notes that MacFarlane is wisely keeping his hefty Family Guy job with Fox.

Lots of interesting implications here for publishers, content creators and advertisers here if this takes off. Google's Kim Malone Scott, who runs sales for AdSense, modestly suggests "we have recreated the mass media."

But one thing isn't changing in the short term: If content creators want big paychecks, they had better stick with big media. MacFarlane's deal with Google is a side project, not one that will interfere with his day job working for Rupert Murdoch's Fox network. Good call: The Times notes that he's just signed a multiyear deal with Fox that will pay him more than $100 million.

It is certainly a unique deal and it will be fascinating to see how it all pans at both for Google and MacFarlane but also for the future of online video. Eric Berlin as Online Media Cultist reminds us that the "quality of the new show is obviously going to affect how popular it is, but more than likely that won't be a huge factor in the overall storyline." This is a good points because the public often surprises tv execs with what shows they love or hate. Unfortunately, sometimes shows people love are also canceled because of these same tv execs. How this all translates to online media remains to be seen.

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Paris Hilton Slams Media in Blog Post

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:47:00 EST

Paris Hilton is using her MySpace blog to counter stories about her she says are not true. Paris writes that, "These stories have gotten out of control and I want to clear some things up." In her latest post titled "Sick of Rumors," Paris says a New York Post story that she tried to buy a dog from a pet store to use in a photo shoot is false.

Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend! I just shot the finale for my BFF show and I can't wait for you all to see it...I'll let you all know when it premieres, it's going to be amazing and everyone did such an incredible job.

I wanted to let you know that I've been getting messages and reading stories about an incident that supposedly happened with me and a pet store: I was catching up on news last week only to read a story about me walking by some puppies for sale, and demanding that I be given a Yorkie puppy to be an accessory for a photo shoot. These stories have gotten out of control and I want to clear some things up-

I wasn't looking for a new pet, I wasn't even at a photo shoot that day, (I was down the street at Benji's DCMA clothing store) and I actually have a Yorkie puppy. I love animals and the cruel things people say are not acceptable. Puppies are not accessories or toys and I love my own pets dearly--I treat them as if they were my children. Of course I support pet adoption from shelters, and I made sure that my BFF show involved a local one to spread the word about how these animals need loving owners. So it is sad that someone felt the need to invent a story about me throwing a fit for a dog that would "go with my outfit."

I have no idea where people come up with these stories and they are spreading to so many news outlets that I just have to speak my mind and clear things up, especially with my fans. I love you all and appreciate your messages, as always.

Have a great week, and I will post again soon--after wrapping the BFF show, it's on to more projects, travel and time with the people (and pets) that I love.

Xoxo Paris

Paris Hilton has 177,066 friends on her MySpace site. That's a pretty large group to turn to if you need to correct a story you think is false or misleading. Paris Hilton should really also set up a Twitter page to farther expand her reach.

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