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Karen Solomon using Twitter from her home kitchen in San Francisco. Credit: Associated Press One immediate lesson from the leaked Twitter documents for journalists and bloggers, which we wrote about yesterday, is the ethical question of publishing stolen company files.
Further ethical issues came into question in a follow-up post today on TechCrunch in which the blogger claimed that Twitter gave them "the green light" to post the information.
Twitter Chief Executive Evan Williams quickly questioned the claim in a tweet, and Co-founder Biz Stone followed up with a blog post denying giving authorization.
Inside the eye of the ethical hurricane is something everyone can take away from this (or at least those who use computers with any regularity) -- cyber-security is important.
Whether you argue that cloud computing via Google Apps or one of the company's many consumer software is dangerous, having passwords is inevitable in order to use the Internet. If you use e-mail or log-on to WiFi or buy things online, you're going to need passwords. And your account is only as secure as your password.
"Biz Stone said it best in his blog" when he stressed the importance of strong passwords, wrote Google Spokesman Andrew Kovacs in an e-mail, defending cloud computing (what a shocker).
Another Google spokesman adds, "Among the many solutions we offer are tools for consumers that help rate password strength and tips for creating stronger passwords during the sign-up process."
Security experts jumped at the opportunity to stress the importance of smart, safe computing, saying users should ...
Read on »
Twitter co-founders Biz Stone (left) and Evan Williams. Credit: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press. Last night, TechCrunch Editor Michael Arrington posted an animated article describing 310 private documents from Twitter Inc. that had been leaked to the technology blog. Arrington plans to publish them over a period of time, he wrote.
Needless to say, the idea was polarizing.
As evidenced in comments on the post and in the flurry of tweets that followed, the existence of these secret documents, containing information about user and financial predictions, employees' personal details, TV show pitches and plans for a future office, tickled the curiosity of many.
In addition to feeding an insatiable appetite for gossip about San Francisco's hottest Web start-up, the ordeal also carries obvious ethical implications.
An overwhelming number of readers blasted Arrington for exposing classified papers from the Internet darling, calling the leaks "a violation of privacy," "a bad move," "disappointing" and illegal. The immediate reactions incited a quick response from Arrington, who defended the ethics of his decision.
How the Twitter documents were obtained also calls cyber security into question.
It speaks to the potential dangers of storing sensitive information on "the cloud," as some of the obtained messages were stored using Google Apps, according to a post by Twitter’s Biz Stone stressing the importance of having strong passwords. He and co-founder Evan Williams could not be reached for comment. A Google spokesman said the company doesn't comment on specific user issues.
-- Mark Milian
 A series of similar streams: FriendFeed 2.0, TweetDeck, and Facebook.
FriendFeed launched a new beta interface this morning, and, even though you've never seen it before, you've seen it before. FriendFeed, which is a sort of real-time discussion feed, is now a lot more real-time. The new interface paints the screen with your friends' latest musings while you watch, blasting another high-caliber round into the now bullet-riddled concept of "refreshing" a Web page. In other words, it just became more like Twitter. Desktop clients such as Twhirl and TweetDeck have for some time employed constant refreshing to keep users' incoming message stream forever scrolling, pumping the present into the past to make way for the future. Facebook, too, has become a believer in the Big Stream. Its controversial revamp got rid of a slower but less noisy news feed in favor of a roaring "river of everything" approach. Which is also what FriendFeed does. FriendFeed and Facebook also depart from Twitter's unadorned look and draconian character limit, allowing longer, bulkier messages, embedded multimedia content and strings of comments from followers. There are other differences between the three services. Facebook and Friendfeed are still private by default -- that is, access to users' profiles is governed by an explicit approval process. Twitter profiles are visible to anyone, unless the owner decides otherwise. And Twitter and FriendFeed make more sense for sharing content with professional colleagues and people you've never met, while Facebook, even though it's trying to be more public-facing, is still the best service for sharing with personal friends (as distinct, I guess, from impersonal friends). Still, it's clear that Twitter's huge success has influenced the growth strategies of the other two services. What's tougher to decide, though, is whether the ape-Twitter approach is smart or short-sighted. It may be early enough in the history of micro-blogging for the pretenders to steal a piece of Twitter's micro-pie, especially if the young company makes any serious missteps. But Facebook and FriendFeed are not, fundamentally, micro-blogging sites -- and mama always said you're better off being yourself. -- David Sarno
Google's buying Twitter? Dang! I'd make a "Stop the presses" joke if the presses weren't already stopping of their own accord.
On his mega-megaphone TechCrunch blog, Michael Arrington reported Thursday night that "Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter," citing two people close to the negotiations. If it were true, this news would be the biggest tech bombshell of the year, with the Web's richest behemoth snapping up its biggest darling. But later, Arrington exploded his own ordnance by citing a third unnamed source who contradicted the first two by saying the talks were "still fairly early stage." AllThingsD's Kara Swisher kicked around the shrapnel too, quoting more anonymous sources who said the rumor was bunko: “Seriously, no negotiations, no deal, nada,” the person told her, although there apparently was a discussion about "real-time search and about product stuff." Add to that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone's straight-faced performance on the "Colbert Report" Thursday night, during which he said his company would become "strong, profitable and independent," a statement he might not make on the teetering verge of a buyout. TechCrunch has a less than spotless record with anonymously sourced buyout rumors, including last July's dead-ender about Google almost buying Digg and last March's similar rumor that Google and Microsoft were bidding on Digg ("a sale looks like it might happen, and soon"), the latter of which made Digg Chief Executive Jay Adelson an unhappy camper. Swisher also recalls TechCrunch floating a Google-to-buy-Bebo rumor that didn't get much past the embryo stage. Of course, this is the blogosphere, and everyone loves scuttlebutt. Plus, this one probably has truth to it, warped as it may have become. As Arrington himself says, one of Twitter's greatest assets is its searchable, 1.5 billion-tweet database, a platinum mine for marketers and info-entrepreneurs of many stripes. Adding a Google-strength search infrastructure on top of all that data would unleash the value that Twitter's limited, keyhole search engine just can't. And, seriously, Google and Twitter's business development people would be bobbing for pink slips if they weren't at least discussing some kind of tie-up. Moreover, if the Twitter rebels are right, the natural course for the micro-messaging space is to move away from a monopoly model and splinter into a thousand networked mini-Twitters, the way e-mail became an open standard in the 1990s. If that's true, Google would be better off going with its DNA and establishing itself as the leading search provider for mini messages, crawling the Web of twitters like it does the Web of Web pages. And I've already thought of the name for Google's real-time search engine: Glitter. (Printing out trademark application now). Update, 11:16 a.m.: Twitter's Stone responds to the rumors, saying what we're saying, which is that "it should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects." -- David Sarno
Kalina Magazine, an independent photo magazine that's printed on-demand with HP's MagCloud. Credit: Noah Kalina
And you thought starting a blog was easy… Why start a blog when you can start a nice, glossy
print magazine? Hewlett-Packard recently launched a new service called MagCloud, which
flattens the entire magazine distribution process into one website. Give HP the content in PDF form and out comes a magazine. The cost: 20 cents per page. HP handles all the printing, mailing and subscription
management. Users can set the subscription price for their rag (above
the base price plus postage), leaving some room for profit if they choose. Gutenberg
would be proud. And so was the New York Times.
It used to be that only companies the
likes of Amazon.com had access to such print-on-demand power, but MagCloud
lowers the barrier of entry for niche blogs about gourmet cashews or antique typewriters seeking to become 'zines. Print-on-demand allows Amazon to offer a slew of
niche titles without investing in the actual books unless they’re
sold. For a blogger who’d like to see their stuff in print, it’s
the same business model: pay only for what you can sell.
Using MagCloud, a one-person blog can
go to print with only a little design experience. In fact, with sites
like FeedJournal and Tabbloid (which, by the way, HP developed), a blog could completely automate
a not-so-shabby print layout, simply by handing over its RSS feed.
It's not free: A 10-page
monthly magazine would cost the blogger $24 plus postage per year, per
subscriber. But if a dedicated audience is willing to pay a few dollars
per month so that they can hold the blog in their hands, then there’s
nothing to lose. Make that into a quarterly, annual or one-time e-book,
and the profit margin starts to grow quickly.
This could have a impact on
the already woeful print publishing industry. Though it seems like a
step in the wrong direction, the indie blogs that bite into their online
product can take a shot at their stubborn print subscribers as well.
And why not? It’s about as risky as starting a blog.
-- Chris Lesinski
Visitors to Austin's South by Southwest
conference arrived Friday to a sky like a wet blanket. A cold, wet
blanket. We traipsed our way from panel to panel, grumbling from
beneath convenience-store umbrellas, wondering about the possibilities
for eating barbecue in a rainstorm.
In
the same kind of way, discussion at the new media portion of this
year's conference was shot through with a chilly strain of winter. At
least five panel titles mused grimly about which parts of the old
culture are headed for the graveyard. "Is Privacy Dead?" one asked.
"Are PR agencies a dying breed?" worried another, and while we're at
it, "Is Web 2.0 Killing the Sports Business?" Others didn't even bother
with question marks, declaring the death of friendship, personal
blogging and print media.
It's true that giving your proposed
panel an extreme name is a surefire way to grab attention and thereby
boost your chances of winning a spot on the crowded schedule. Except I
took a look back at last year's listings, and there wasn't a deathwatch
in sight.
No, this year a woeful economic climate has compounded the
problems of a slow-footed industry that's watching the Internet turn
its revenue streams into...
Read full article here
-- David Sarno
 Lawrence Lessig at South by Southwest. Inset magnified below. Credit: David Sarno. This is Twitter's third year at South by Southwest. The first year, 2007, was its coming out party, where the newly-introduced system was adopted by partygoing technophiles here in Austin as a way to coordinate their evening activities on the fly.
Last year, when it had a few watts of buzz behind it and a larger user base, Twitter made headlines for enabling "back channel chats"--where a few audience members would whisper to one another about the happenings onstage: this kind of silent chatter made headlines when an irate crowd--which had riled itself up via a stream of heated tweets--revolted during Sarah Lacy's keynote interview of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
 But this year, backchannel chatting has moved to the front of the room. Live conversations have become a primary and even officially endorsed way for audience members to participate in talks and panels.
Once the lights go down, you won't go ten seconds without seeing an eager audience member tapping a few sentences into their Twitter client via laptop, iPhone or Blackberry. It's a lot like a college classroom where everyone is taking notes. Except the notes are public.
If you wanted to stay home from class but still enjoy a running commentary on, say, Lawrence Lessig's presentation on money, lobbying and democracy this morning, you need only have searched Twitter for the word "lessig." Dozens of twitchy-fingered participants contributed to a non-stop flow of Lessig notelets, quoting the Stanford law professor's pithiest formulations, summarizing his points, and finally tweeting in unison about the standing ovation Lessig got at the end. (Being one of the favorite voices of the digital culture crowd, he was not playing to a tough audience--except for this guy.)
Though I counted more than 500 tweets from the hour long talk, chatting was happening in more places than Twitter, too. Sitting prominently on the stage next to Lessig was a sign advertising a live chat room on Meebo, and a group of chroniclers was collectively transcribing the presentation on the live-blogging service Scribblelive.
It's hard to know if there's a true audience for all the note-taking, or if the audience is its own audience, but one thing's for sure: By the time an old-media blogger gets back to his hotel room an hour later, ready to cough up a post about the talk (a previous version of which is available here), the event feels like old news. The Twitter/livechat/liveblogging storm has moved on to new country, and all that's left to do is make a meta-comment on all the commenting...
--David Sarno
 Ever wonder how your blog's well-turned phrases ripple across the Web? Put another way, would you like to know who's cutting and pasting your best work onto their sites without giving you an ounce of credit? Attributor and Creative Commons have joined forces to help you track the dissemination of your posts and other published texts across the Internet, showing you where to find potential partners -- or to send takedown notices.
 Attributor is a Silicon Valley start-up that creates digital fingerprints of published content online, then crawls the Web to find where all or part of that content is reused; Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation that helps copyright owners set less restrictive rules for the reuse of their material online. Today they announced the public launch of FairShare, which enables creators to apply Creative Commons license terms to their text-based work, then use Attributor's free service to track how that work is reused and whether the license terms are complied with. Attributor CEO Jim Pitkow said his company can tell the percentage of a text that's reused on each page, whether there's a link back to your site, whether there are advertisements on the page, the number of visitors that site receives, the number of times in the last 30 days your material has been reused on that site, and the average amount of text that's been cut and pasted. (To give you a better idea of what this looks like, keep reading after the jump.)
Read on »
Apparently Twitter is so hot among news folks right now that the company doesn't even need to say anything new to make headlines.
 Twitter co-founder Biz Stone. (Credit: Mai Le via Flickr) TechCrunch, along with dozens of other online news sources, ran with a statement that co-founder Biz Stone made to a British trade magazine, Marketing, about Twitter charging for corporate accounts.
Stone and co-founder Evan Williams have been murmuring about the likely business model for some time now -- we and the New York Times both covered it in December.
The idea is to provide premium features to businesses that elect to sign up for premium accounts. One such feature Stone shared with us was an account verification tool, which would've come in handy recently with the Dalai Lama fiasco.
Stone never seemed to give the impression that companies would be required to pay for such accounts, but that's exactly the conclusion that some bloggers drew from today's resurfacing of the news. He put those concerns to rest in a company blog post this afternoon.
"Twitter will remain free to use by everyone -- individuals, companies, celebrities, etc.," Stone wrote. "What we're thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services."
There's no additional news on the Twitter revenue front at this point. But you can be sure we and every other tech blogger on the planet will report it as soon as it happens. And maybe even again a few months earlier.
-- Mark Milian
The real Dalai Lama, who does not have a Twitter account. (Photo: Christophe Simon / AFP/Getty Images)
Updated 4:43 p.m.: @OHHDL is back on Twitter, but it's now labeled as "the UNOFFICIAL Twitter page of His Holiness the Dalai Lama."
Some members of Twitter, the micro-blogging service, received a surprise over the weekend when they were informed that the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, had joined the site. "Dalai Lama (OHHDL) is now following your updates on Twitter," the message read.
They bragged about it to friends, talked about spirituality and cracked jokes ("Can enlightenment be reached 140 char at a time?"). Agence-France Presse even banged out a news story about the Dalai Lama joining Twitter. By Sunday night, he (or is it He?) had attracted 13,000 new followers, an impressive number even for a guy who spiritually represents the whole Tibetan people.
But today, as Mondays are wont to do, brought disappointment and disillusionment. Turns out the person twittering from the Dalai Lama's account, @OHHDL, was an imposter.
"Everyone who's wondering why @ohhdl was suspended. The official ohhdl in Dharamsala, India, informed us that @ohhdl is an impersonator. Sorry," wrote Caroline, a Twitter spokeswoman. The San Francisco company had been contacted by the real Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to break the news that the enlightened Twitterer was not, in fact, the Enlightened Twitterer.
Many were surprised that the account, whose archives you can read here, was fake. The fake Dalai Lama's office referred ...
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