16 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- Official Google Latitude iPhone app returns to the Store [TNW Apps]
- Like Gawker, McDonalds targeted by hackers. [TNW Media]
- App Store Classics: Cupcakes! is catnip for toddlers [TNW Apps]
- British Prime Minister urges Twitter to choose London for its European HQ [TNW UK]
- ITV and Channel 4 to launch on PlayStation 3 this week [TNW UK]
- Top Twitter trends for 2010 led by Gulf Oil Spill [TNW Twitter]
- ‘Acai Berry’ Twitter attack reportedly linked to Gawker hack [TNW Twitter]
- Updated: Digital ‘Good Samaritans’ warn Gawker userbase about data hack [TNW Media]
- Skydiving, Google Earth Style [TNW Shareables]
- The Top 10 YouTube Videos of 2010 [TNW Social Media]
- Gawker hackers release file with FTP, author & reader usernames/passwords [TNW Media]
- All of Amazon’s European domains are down. [Updated: Sites are live again] [TNW UK]
- WikiRebels: The Must Watch Wikileaks Documentary [Video] [TNW Shareables]
- The Art of Trolling: A 2 Minute Video Explanation [TNW Shareables]
- Fancy launches fabulous iPhone app to curate your style anytime, anywhere [TNW Apps]
- Death and Twitter: Why you should make every tweet count [TNW Twitter]
- OMG! Maktoob Launches in Arabic. Ya Elahi! [TNW Middle East]
| Official Google Latitude iPhone app returns to the Store [TNW Apps] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 03:54 AM PST
Last week we reported that Google’s long-awaited official Latitude app for the iPhone was briefly available in Japan before mysteriously being pulled again. Well, it’s back and available in the UK App Store. We’re going to download and update with our first impressions shortly. You can get the app here. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Like Gawker, McDonalds targeted by hackers. [TNW Media] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 03:51 AM PST
There was another hack that didn’t quite make the headlines, occuring on Friday but only coming to light as of now. It appears that late on Friday, McDonald’s was subject to an attack by hackers, with email addresses and phone numbers, amongst other data, compromised. McDonald’s immediately sent an email to customers notifying them of the potential data breach, warning them to be wary of any further contact from the fast food retailer asking for personal or financial data. It started as follows:
The breach was identified by one of McDonald’s partners, Arc Worldwide, who notified the restaurant chain that data it collected via McDonald’s websites and promotions was now in the hands of an unauthorised third party. The full email can be found on the McDonalds website, which notes that ”information required to confirm your age, a method to contact you (such as name, mobile phone number, and postal address and/or email address), and other general preference information”. It is not known how many customer records were compromised in the hacking but we expect the number will be well into the thousands. Many customers register for coupons and other related promotions via its website. The websites affected by the breach were:
This leads us to think that data is limited to customers based in North America, although this is not confirmed. McDonald’s released a statement to the media, which was picked up by the Orange County Register:
Did you receive an email from McDonalds over the weekend? Let us know in the comments.Image Source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| App Store Classics: Cupcakes! is catnip for toddlers [TNW Apps] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 03:08 AM PST
I know what you're thinking and no, I have not taken leave of my senses. If you have young kids, or any young relatives, this app is amazing. In a nutshell, you get to bake cakes. You choose a cupcake liner, select your batter and pop them in the oven before setting the timer. This sounds quite dull admittedly, but the fun begins when you start choosing toppings. There's icing, sprinkles, candy lettering, jelly beans, frosting, candles which you get to blow out – pretty much everything a toddler loves except actually making a mess. You then get to 'eat' your cake by tapping the finished masterpiece with your finger, each press taking a bite out of it accompanied by a munching sound. My daughter and nephew, both three, find this, and blowing out the candles beforehand totally absorbing. You can also save a picture of your creation to your photo library, email it, upload it to Facebook or submit it to the Cupcakes! Hall of Fame, where it will be shown in the app's news section if it makes the grade. Admittedly I don't expect my three year old to use most of that functionality (yet), but it's nice to know it's there. Some of the graphics in Cupcakes! are pretty poor it has to be said, but the frosting looks delicious most of the time and to be honest, my daughter couldn’t give a fig anyway.
Everyone who has toddlers around will know that they tend to have the attention span of a gnat, constantly flitting from one activity to another, but my daughter really gets engrossed in this app – it's tricky getting the iPhone from her when I need to make a call – and that means i get a bit of time to wipe up the orange juice, glitter and humus mixture from the lounge floor, put a few toys away, or just fix myself a cup of tea. That, my learned friends, is well worth $0.99 in my humble opinion. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| British Prime Minister urges Twitter to choose London for its European HQ [TNW UK] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 02:46 AM PST
According to The Telegraph, British Prime Minister David Cameron, joined by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, met a number of Twitter executives at Number 10 on Thursday, using the meeting as an opportunity to convince Twitter staff that London would be the ideal location of its future European headquarters. According to sources, Mr Cameron and Mayor Johnson focused squarely Twitter’s Head of International Strategy Katie Jacobs Stanton, detailling the benefits of London to her plus a number of advertising executives and key technology partners. As The Telegraph points out, David Cameron looks to have impressed Twitter’s Strategy head, who tweeted she was impressed with the British Prime Minister, London’s Mayor and the teams at Number 10:
We are keeping an eye on this story, more as it comes in.Image Source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| ITV and Channel 4 to launch on PlayStation 3 this week [TNW UK] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 02:02 AM PST
Shows will be available via the respective channels’ catch-up TV services ITV Player and 4OD, launching this week as the first commercial television content that can be accessed and viewed via the Playstation 3 console. The move follows that of UK film service LoveFilm which launched on the console last month. ITV and Channel 4 aren’t the first broadcasters to make their content available via the console, the BBC launched its iPlayer service last year. ITV has reassessed its digital strategy, making shows available via a number of different services. The company reportedly rejected content deals with US companies YouTube and Hulu, focusing on delivering its content via UK-based services in the UK hosted by Virgin Media, BT Vision and in the near future, Freesat. With about 4 million PS3 consoles in the UK and 80% of them connected to its gaming and content service, Alan Duncan, Marketing Director for PlayStation in the UK believes both channels will see an incremental increase in traffic of about 10% from users watching shows via their Playstation consoles. Sony aims to help publicise new content via email marketing, posting to its PlayStation blogs and advertising directly on the console itself. Next year, the company is expected to launch a new advertising campaign and a TV sponsorship deal to further promote the PS3 media capabilities also.Image Source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Top Twitter trends for 2010 led by Gulf Oil Spill [TNW Twitter] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 01:41 AM PST
The BP Gulf oil spill, undoubtedly the biggest story of the the summer, tops the list with “FIFA World Cup”, “Vuvuzela” and “Pulpo Paul” (the ‘Psychic Octopus’) nodding to the year’s biggest sports tournament. The most talked about tech subjects were Apple’s iPad and Google Android, movies get a nod from Inception and Harry Potter, while teen popster Justin Bieber comes in a lowly 8th, something that will no doubt frustrate his loyal legion of rabid, tweeting fans. Twitter’s top trends for the year come just hours after YouTube published its most popular videos of the year. Google’s annual Zeitgeist report on search trends for the year was released last week. Here’s the full Top 10 Twitter trends for 2010: 1. Gulf Oil Spill The full list of top trends across a number of categories can be found here.Image source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| ‘Acai Berry’ Twitter attack reportedly linked to Gawker hack [TNW Twitter] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 12:51 AM PST
The attack, first reported as a ‘worm’ by Mashable, may actually, it appears, be related to this weekend’s hacking of Gawker Media’s database. @Delbius, leader of Twitter’s Trust and Safety team says: “Got a Gawker acct that shares a PW w/your Twitter acct? Change your Twitter PW. A current attack appears to be due to the Gawker compromise.” If true (and you’d expect Twitter staff to be in a good position to judge such things) it’s likely to have affected anyone with the same password and email address for their Gawker and Twitter accounts. If you fit that bill, we recommend you change passwords on both accounts immediately. The fallout from yesterday’s hack of the Gawker Media database has so far seen goodwilled coders send out warning emails to those concerned. This Twitter worm, if related, is the first time we’ve seen the hack exploited. Twitter seems fairly certain that the two incidents are related. It has now tweeted warnings from its @support and @spam accounts. We’ve contacted Twitter for further comment. Oh, and if you’re wondering about the odd image choice, that’s actually Acai pulp being separated from Acai seeds at a market in Brazil.Image source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Updated: Digital ‘Good Samaritans’ warn Gawker userbase about data hack [TNW Media] Posted: 13 Dec 2010 12:01 AM PST
Here’s a rare positive story to come out of the Gawker data hack, a group of goodwilled coders look set to warn the 200,000 people affected. As we reported this weekend, hacker group Gnosis has exposed a huge dump of data from Gawker Media websites and published it as a Torrent file on The Pirate Bay. While a reported 200,000 user email address and passwords are exposed via the hack, Gawker is yet to email its userbase to warn them of the problem. Now it seems a group of “Good Samaritans” may be stepping in to do that for them. As first reported by Media Mob, users of the Hacker News message board have discussed the idea of using a mass emailing program like MailChimp to send out a mass email to everyone with a compromised Gawker account. One user discussed sending warning email via large-scale email service SendGrid, while another user began writing code to send out a warning email. Meanwhile, another Hacker News user, Dru Wynings, claims to have “The entire list covered”. While Gawker has an FAQ published on its Lifehacker site, it’s unlikely that all of the 200,000 users will read it – many of them may not even be aware of the issue. So, assuming they go through with their plan, it’s good to see some ‘digital Good Samaritans’ stepping in to warn them directly. As yet, we’ve seen no reports of an actual email being sent. Have you received one? Let us know. UPDATE: Indeed, Dru Wynings informs us that the emails have begun to be sent. One reader sent us the following screenshot of an email sent from teamhint@hint.io. Please note, that although the emails appear to be good-natured, we haven’t received one to verify this. You should always treat any unsolicited emails you receive with care. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Skydiving, Google Earth Style [TNW Shareables] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 09:46 PM PST Skydiving over Hawaii (in Japan) for Google Demoslam. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The Top 10 YouTube Videos of 2010 [TNW Social Media] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 08:18 PM PST
There are more than 35 hours of video uploaded to YouTube each minute; more than 700 billion playbacks and there were more than 13 million hours of video uploaded during 2010. It’s the site we absorb our news from, our music from, entertainment, science, technology, sports and it even acts like a social network allowing you to subscribe to interesting channels and friends.
So what we’re we watching this year? From Bieber to the Bed Intruder to double rainbows, check out this year’s s most-watched YouTube’ videos of 2010. #1 The Bed Intruder Song wins with nearly 50 million views as the most watched video in the US and around the world. The video was produced by YouTube partner Auto-Tune the News aka the Gregory Brothers. Inspired by a local news segment, this song featuring an 'auto-tuned' version of Alabama man Antoine Dodson entered the music charts, and the revenue it generated helped Dodson purchase a new home. Missed it or want to see it again? #2 TIK TOK KESHA Parody – Key of Awe$ome #13- glitter + throw up. #3 Greyson Chance Singing Paparazzi- Lady Gaga just got pwned. #4 Annoying Orange Wazzup: an equally obnoxious spoof of the old Budweiser commercials. #5 Old Spice | The Man Your Man Could Smell Like: We reported earlier this year that with two new TV spots and the online response videos, Old Spice sales were up a whopping 107 percent. #6 Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Double Rainbow 1-8-10: Like Grizzly Man meets Burning Man meets the Wizard of Oz. Is there anything more awe inspiring than a double rainbow?! And where can I get whatever he’s on? #7 OK Go – This Too Shall Pass – Rube Goldberg Machine version: From OK Go's new album "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky," this awesome video makes Doc's kitchen in Back to the Future look like Lego play. The video, directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs and produced by Shirley Moyers, was filmed in a two story warehouse in Echo Park, CA. The "machine" was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs over the course of several months. #8 THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE – Trailer: I know more men that think they look like or wish they looked like Robert Pattinson and the same for women and Kristen Stewart than I actually know people with crushes on these actors. Also interesting, “eclipse trailer” was the most searched for query on YouTube during the month of March. #9 Jimmy Surprises Bieber Fan: I still don’t know who Justin Bieber really is. #10 Ken Block’s Gymkhana THREE, Part 2; Ultimate Playground; l’Autodrome: Shot just south of Paris, France in Linas at l’Autodrome de Linas –Montlhéry, this 1.58 mile oval track, built in 1924, features banks as steep as 51 degrees, which is more than double the standard incline of most NASCAR ovals. Chosen by Ken Block for this specific reason, the ramp-like banking proved to be a unique and exciting challenge. This man definitely studied physics. For more information on the most-watched videos of 2010, check out YouTube Trends [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Gawker hackers release file with FTP, author & reader usernames/passwords [TNW Media] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 03:04 PM PST
Gawker has released Gawker Media is under siege at the moment, fighting off attacks from a group of attackers that have been able to compromise the entire database of Gawker Media’s web properties. Sensitive information has been exposed, including staff conversations, their private passwords used within the network and passwords also used by people who have registered to comment. All of the above information has been outputted by Gnosis, a group who wanted to seemingly put Gawker back in its place, creating a 500MB torrent file, currently residing on the popular torrent tracker ThePirateBay. Inside the torrent file lies a file entitled Readme.txt. This file is potentially the most sensitive of them all, for it holds the usernames and passwords used by the entire Gawker staff, focusing particularly on Gawker’s founder Nick Denton. The usernames and passwords to Denton’s Google Apps, Twitter, Campfire accounts are all listed; Denton uses the same password for them all:
Gawker Media uses Campfire as their backchannel to discuss site operations and potential stories. The attackers managed to unearth 4GB of data from the Campfire logs, unveiling seven FTP usernames and passwords setup by a number of different gaming companies:
Details are provided on how to access Gawker’s gaming website Kotaku, referencing the FTP server, username and password and the processes associated with how to access its server and data stored on it. Back in November, Denton was told by a co-worker that he was spotted logged in to the Campfire backend, this was not him. Instead of safeguarding his credentials, Denton is convinced by other staff members that it was his own fault and doesn’t change his passwords, something he may later regret. Then it gets even more interesting. We speculated that the Gawker attacks could be associated with a previous feud between Gawker and 4Chan, where Ryan Tate and other Gawker staff called out 4Chan publicly on the site. This is confirmed when the attackers post up staff conversations relating to the feud, laughing off 4Chan’s so-called attacks and discussing ways they can antagonise 4Chan users even further. It reads as follows:
And here we are today, a retaliation, so it seems. The rest of the file goes on to list numerous different MySQL databases, security credentials and examples of user accounts compromised in the process. Users that registered on Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Kotaku have found their accounts posted to the file. Gnosis, the team behind the attacks, pause to show just how many users use “password” in their login details, over 2700 records share the same password at a rough count. It’s a clear show of strength on Gnosis’ part, who have actually distanced themselves from 4chan in email exchanges between the team and us here at The Next Web. We have been told that there are still things to come and that Gnosis aren’t finished yet. UPDATE: If you’re worried about whether your Gawker user password has been compromised or not, the company’s Lifehacker blog has published an FAQ on the issue. Essentially, if you logged in to comment on Gawker, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Kotaku, Lifehacker, Deadspin, io9, or Fleshbot you need to change the password for both your Gawker account and anywhere else you use that password. Gawker says it is working on an ‘Account Delete’ tool, which will be available soon. The only exception to all this is if you logged in via Facebook Connect, in which case you’ll be safe. Update 2: Worried that Gawker wasn’t quick enough to warn its users of the data breach by email, members of the popular Hacker News website have combined to draft an email warning 200,000 Gawker users about the data breach. If you receive this email, it is one off email that is purely designed to warn you about the breach and get you to change your password. If you used Facebook to connect, you should be fine. However, if you connected your Twitter account to Gawker, it is possible that some accounts are tweeting messages containing “Acai Berry” tweets without their consent. The attack, first reported as a 'worm' by Mashable, may actually, it appears, be related to this weekend's hacking of Gawker Media's database. @Delbius, leader of Twitter's Trust and Safety team says: "Got a Gawker acct that shares a PW w/your Twitter acct? Change your Twitter PW. A current attack appears to be due to the Gawker compromise." If true (and you'd expect Twitter staff to be in a good position to judge such things) it's likely to have affected anyone with the same password and email address for their Gawker and Twitter accounts. If you fit that bill, we recommend you change passwords on both accounts immediately.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| All of Amazon’s European domains are down. [Updated: Sites are live again] [TNW UK] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 01:02 PM PST
See updates at the foot of the post. It appears that the UK domain for online retailer Amazon is down. With reports all over Twitter and confirmed by TNW personally, the site does not appear to be responding regardless of the location from which you’re trying to access it. Catching you up to speed, it is entirely possible that Anonymous, the 4chan-started “hacking” group could be behind the down time. The group, which has tossed attacks at MasterCard, Visa and PayPal since the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has claimed in the past that it would target Amazon. It was widely known that Wikileaks was using the Amazon DNS services, and Amazon then pulled the site from the services due to its activities. Interestingly, and as a testament to how some offshoot groups of Anonymous don’t always “follow the leader”, one sect of the group recently released a statement in which it explained why it wouldn’t target Amazon. At the moment, a trip over to the .co.uk and .de domains of Amazon simply show an unavailable notice. We’ll be keeping up with the story and let you know more details as we find them.
Update: Since our first publishing of this story, it now appears that all European domains of Amazon are down. If they are accessible at all, it is only with an error page:
It does appear that some offshoot of Anonymous is behind the attacks. In a now-deleted Tweet, it was noted that the sites are down, but no credit was taken:
However, according to Adrian Chen from Gawker, the talk inside of the Anonymous IRC channel is all surrounding an attack on MasterCard and there is only confusion concerning the European Amazon servers.
Most recently, the @AnonOps Twitter account does somewhat take credit for the downtime:
As of 9:44pm UK time, all of the Europoean Amazon sites appear to be back online. We have contacted Amazon for comment and will update this post as we find more information. In the mean time, it is worth noting that Amazon’s AWS Service Health Dashboard does continue to show elevated error rates for services under the EU domains. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| WikiRebels: The Must Watch Wikileaks Documentary [Video] [TNW Shareables] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 08:15 AM PST WikiLeaks has provided us all with a great deal of news of late. The videos below provide the background story to the organisation and while disturbing at times, is quite simply a must watch. The documentary is made by Swedish SVT, a television network that has been following Assange and Wikileaks since the summer of 2010. Reporters Jesper Huor and Bosse Lindquist travelled to the key countries where Wikileaks operates and managed to create this wonderful film. It all just seems too perfectly planned for my liking. As if we’re all living in this Hollywood blockbuster where Assange plays the lead and others only manage to land a side role. Well, at least you can already try revealing classified documents yourself in this game based on the whole affair. Oh and if you’re curious as to why he was arrested – this video, is well worth a watch. Part 1
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The Art of Trolling: A 2 Minute Video Explanation [TNW Shareables] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 07:47 AM PST
[Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Fancy launches fabulous iPhone app to curate your style anytime, anywhere [TNW Apps] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 07:06 AM PST
What is Fancy? “Fancy is for curators of style. It’s part blog, part magazine and part bookmarking tool.” “It’s a place to share and discover great stuff, to curate a collection of things that define your style, to create a museum of Me.” “We built it because we love to show off the things we have and to window-shop for things we admire” An incredible idea, carried out in an equally incredible manner, Fancy is, if you haven’t already experienced it (it is an experience), something you need to. As soon as possible. Fancy features gadgets, art, fashion, media and more, added by users who, while visiting websites, click the “Add to Fancy” below one’s web browser bookmark bar, to add anything to one’s Fancy page. For example, on my Fancy profile (below), I’ve collected items I find fascinating, items I want for my future home, items I want tattooed, and items I want for my iPhone, among many other things.
Profiled on TNW a little over a month ago, at that time one had to be invited to Fancy. While that’s still the case if you desire to use Fancy through your browser, those with an iPhone can register for the site and bypass the invite only system. The idea behind the Fancy iPhone app is to further develop a social network built around items from the world around us. Using Fancy on the Internet, when one sees something interesting a simple clip and tag of the item adds it to one’s stream. Now, with the iPhone app that experience becomes limitless. Download the Fancy iPhone app, spot something, snap it and it’s added to your profile and your stream. So how does the Fancy’s iPhone app look and work? Here’s your first peak… There’s more. When one captures and submits a photo, it will go into their system along with the location where the photo was taken. The system will then match it to their database providing one with a link to additional information on the web regarding the product, including where one can purchase the item.
Super neat, and an app I, for one, have been waiting to arrive for sometime having already downloaded and used the app from those behind Fancy, thingd. What’s next for Fancy? In speaking with Joseph Einhorn of thingd,
An incredible site, an incredible iPhone app, and what appears to be an incredible future, Fancy is trending upward at a parabolic rate. If you have yet to try Fancy, I encourage you to do so. Once you do, you’ll immediately realize what’ve you’ve been missing and after using it for sometime, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Death and Twitter: Why you should make every tweet count [TNW Twitter] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 05:01 AM PST
I’m writing this on the flight back to the UK from the LeWeb conference. It’s only an hour-long flight but I’m painfully aware that if, heaven forbid, the plane should drop out of the sky into the English Channel, my last ever tweet will be a silly reply message saying: “Oh Noes!” They’re not what I’d prefer to have as my last-ever digital words, that’s for sure. How long will your Twitter account stay in place after you die? That depends. Over on our Dutch language service, Patrick recently covered the story of celebrity Antonie Kamerling in the Netherlands who was still being recommended to other users after his death. Twitter told us that in order to remove an account:
So, depending on what instructions Twitter receives from your family, your account could be around for days, weeks, months or years after you pass away. You might think that no-one will care about your Twitter account once you’re gone. That may not be the case. Recently a popular, but not ‘famous’, member of the UK’s digital industry community passed away. Although I’d never followed the man, I was moved by the sight of my Twitter stream being filled for two days by people expressing their grief for the passing of someone who, in many cases, they’d never met. The only way they knew him was from his tweets. In essence, they were mourning the death of a digital persona. So, your Twitter presence may be a more significant part of your overall ‘life story’ than you think. Simply by sharing your thoughts, your favourite links and snippets of your life, you could be nurturing a bond with your followers that runs deeper than you might think. While I’m not suggesting that every tweet you publish should be a profound statement, it’s worth bearing in mind that your Twitter account could end up becoming an unintended legacy. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| OMG! Maktoob Launches in Arabic. Ya Elahi! [TNW Middle East] Posted: 12 Dec 2010 04:19 AM PST
The original OMG! is a celebrity news and gossip website run by Yahoo! News’ entertainment division. Launched in 2007 it started off as merely a news aggregator but has since partnered up with outlets such as X17 and Access Hollywood to not only use their resources but to also compile their own features and stories. The name OMG! comes from the Internet slang abbreviation, meaning “Oh, my god!” which roughly translates to ‘Ya Elahi!’ in Arabic. I can see why they didn’t to attempt to translate and put it up. The translation would have probably stirred up a hurricane of controversy throughout the region. The reason I say this is because gossip is considered Haram (against Islamic teachings) by many scholars from even the moderate side of the fence. The move makes sense from a pure business perspective considering OMG! is the second most visited gossip website in US, maybe the guys from Maktoob hope the Arabic OMG! will be just as popular in the Middle East. It also shows Yahoo! Maktoob are taking steps to cater to the increasingly important online Middle Eastern female consumer.
The design they went with is similar to other International versions of OMG! such as the Indian version instead of sticking to the look and feel of the original International version. "Originally a news aggregator, OMG! has seen an explosion of user involvement as technology enables people to connect and voice their enthusiasm like never before," commented Ahmed Nassef Vice President and Managing Director of Yahoo! Middle East. "In this part of the world in particular, celebrity icons extend well beyond national borders to embrace the affection of people of all ages and backgrounds. Few opportunities exist for these audiences to congregate within one region-wide forum, and it is our goal to have OMG! Arabic serve as a locally relevant platform designed for the public and incorporating their views and opinions." Currently most of the region’s gossip goes on in forums which Maktoob also has a regional grip on. Maktoob plans on providing insight into whats trending in their forums on the Arabic OMG website as well. This move is definitely a move on existing gossip and fashion platforms in the region such as Wikeez and MusicNation.me owned respectively by Diwanee and Rotana, which time will tell whether or not they’ll be able to compete with Maktoob on becoming the region’s leading source for gossip.Image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
It’s been a big year for YouTube, closing out its 5th year in the world and there is no other website that better epitomizes the possibilities of the last 5 years of the Internet than YouTube.
One of the sites I spend the majority of my time on is 
Just when you thought the average reader wasn’t getting enough mindless celebrity gossip from satellite channels, Yahoo! Maktoob launch OMG! and put it in writing, images and video for Arabic speaking users around the world.
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