Blippy’s Security Breach

Last week more than 125 Blippy users’ credit card numbers were exposed in Google search results. Blippy addressed security concerns with the following statement on its website:

“Blippy is very concerned about safeguarding the confidentiality of your personally identifiable information. We employ administrative, physical and electronic measures designed to protect your information from unauthorized access.”

Blippy immediately attempted to fix the issue, but Mashable.com reported that at least one other user had their information posted on a Google search. Online security experts have suggested that Blippy users revoke access from the site to their bank account and credit card information. 

Hugo Chavez Joins Twitter

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez joined Twitter late Tuesday night. The news was a bit shocking to most since, just a few months ago, Chavez openly announced he was against the use of social media and called it “a tool of terrorism.”  In March, he told Sky News that he will use Twitter as a way to share information and respond to his enemies. Today, fellow tweeters can find Chavez under the name @Chavezcandanga; so far, he has obtained more than 63,000 followers within the first 12 hours of creating an account.

Floppy Disk Sales Come to an End

Sony announced this week that they no longer produce floppy disks in the United States begining in March 2011. It seems the use of this old-school technology has come to an end as they were the only remaining manufacturer of the disks in the U.S.  

The first floppy disk was created in 1969 and had an 8-inch diameter. Over the years, the disk shrunk to the 3-and-a-half-inch diameter we are use to today. In March, Europe stopped selling floppy disks; however, they are the most popular way of transferring data in India and Japan.

The leaders of data protection from 10 nations wrote a letter to Google this week expressing their concern about a privacy issues regarding Google Buzz as well as Google Street View.  Some of that letter reads, “We were disturbed by your recent rollout of the Google Buzz social networking application, which betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws. In essence, you took Google Mail (Gmail), a private, one-to-one web-based e-mail service, and converted it into a social networking service, raising concern among users that their personal information was being disclosed.”  The letter also mentions that Google did not blur out a number of faces, license plates, and other possible private information in Google Street View.  It ends with a number of suggested principles that Google should integrate within it’s services.  Google has yet to respond, but isn’t expected to be a high priority since tension between Google and China is still high.

How would you like to own your own gas station, restaurant, general store, and even your own Zip Code?  You maybe out of luck for now but Maddie & Neil Love, of the Seattle suburb of Bothell are now the proud owners of the town of Wauconda, Washington in the northeast section of the state, just 25 miles from the Canadian border.  The couple had a bidding war on eBay and eventually won the town for $360,000 from Daphine Fletcher who has lived in Wauconda since.  Wauconda, at one time had a booming population of 350 people, during the gold rush but will soon only consist of the Love family.  The couple will run the Wauconda general store, as well as the Spaghetti Salon.  The town also comes with a four bedroom home. 

Today’s viral video comes just in time for Earth Day.  Victor Haung from Wellington, New Zealand was on a diving trip last week, when he came upon an octopus.  Haung was fortunate enough to have his brand new underwater digital camera with him.  However, the octopus quickly came out and snatched the camera from him and swam off.  While much of the video only consists of extreme close ups of the octopus tentacles, Huang was able to catch up with the octopus about five minutes later. Haung took out his spear gun and placed it underneath the creature until he dropped the camera. Once Haung had the camera back, the octopus did not want to give up the spear gun.  Haung decided to take the octopus on a bit of a wild ride.

On Wednesday, for the first time ever Twitter announced how many users are actually on the social networking site . Twitter CEO Biz Stone said as of Wednesday morning the site had exactly 105,779,710 users. That is about a quarter of Facebook’s Population and a third of the United State’s Population. Stone also added that the site is averaging 300,000 new users every day.

Sticking with Twitter, The Library of Congress announced this week that they would begin to archive all tweets that have been made public since 2006. In a blog post on the libraries website they actually said they had been collecting materials from the web since it began harvesting congressional and presidential campaign websites since 2000. Today they hold more than 167 terabytes of web-based information, including legal blogs, websites of candidates for national office, and the websites of Members of Congress. The Library of Congress asked Twitter for permission because they felt information on Twitter is important and worthy of preservation. Twitter users have had mixed feelings about the news. But we want to know what you think. Make sure you tell us by sending us a message on our Facebook or Twitter page both at iePlexus.

How would you like a VIP tour of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the chance to meet and talk with some of the astronauts who will board the next Space Shuttle Atlantis? Well, thanks to Twitter you can. NASA announced this week, for the second time, they’ll be offering the chance for 150 twitterer’s for a tweetup, which is basically a meet up of twitter users. Those who are chosen will get a VIP look for an opportunity to view the shuttle launch when it launches and speak with shuttle technicians, engineers, managers and of course like I said, astronauts . The Tweetup will include a “meet and greet” session to allow participants to mingle with other Tweeps and the staff behind the tweets on @NASA. The two day event is scheduled for May 13 and 14. To be eligible, you must of course have a twitter account, and follow NASA’s twitter page, @NASA. Registration will open on Monday at 10 am Eastern. Again you ned tofollow @NASA for all the details.

It’s time for today’s viral video. Meet Lun Yu Chun, who is a contestant on Super Star Avenue, almost like American Idol for Taiwan. The 23 year old contestant makes you giggle just a little bit, when we says he’s going to sing Whitney Houston’s song “I Will Always Love You.” His notes will amazingly surprise you. Lets take a listen.

We start with some news from Google. The company announced this week that it has formatted its algorithm so that depending on how fast or slow your site speed is, could change where your site fall in Google searches. Matt Cutts, is a Google software engineer said on Monday that “Speeding up websites is important – not just to site owners, but to all Internet users,” “Faster sites create happy users and we’ve seen in our internal studies that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there. But faster sites don’t just improve user experience; recent data also shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs.” Google also said they actually implemented the new system a few weeks ago, and say that less than 1% of actual search queries performed have been affected by the new calculations. While speed will now factor in to your ranking, you will want to continue everything you are currently doing to keep up your rankings, including keeping up with keywords and phrases.

We all know that Twitter is a social networking site that allows it users send and read small messages known as Tweets. Millions of people do it every day and until now the company has not made any money. On Tuesday, CEO Biz Stone said that that’s all about to change. Twitter announced that they are now selling ad space, or what they call “promoted tweets.” Here’s how it’ll works: when Twitter users type in a topic they are interested in, such as “coffee,” for example, a company like Starbucks can purchase that search word and their ad will pop up on the top of the Twitter search results. As of right now Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America are the only companies testing out the new feature but many are expected to jump on board fairly soon. Some analysts believe Twitter could pull in $100 million in ad revenue this year, proving social networking is not just a way to make friends, it also may be a way to make a lot of money.

We all dream about going certain places and doing certain things, but now 15 year old Parker Liautaud has made one of his dreams a reality. He was the youngest person ever to ski to the North Pole. He made it there this but he also was the first person ever to check into foursquare at the North Pole and unlock the Last Degree Badge. He’s been using his Facebook and Twitter pages as well to inspire youth “build a more sustainable future.” Since ice at the North Pole has been melting. Due to what Parker calls “insurmountable conditions” he was actually taken by helicopter to complete his journey. Parker also took YouTube videos which are still yet to be posted. Either way, he’s done an incredible job. Congratulations to you Parker.

It’s time for today’s viral video segment. Last night marked the season premiere of Glee as millions of people all around the world have anxiously been waiting for it’s return. In honor of the show’s premiere, Glee flash mobs have been popping up all around the world. Seattl actually having one of the largest crowds, preformed this dance over the weekend. Nearly 1,000 people participated, lets take a look.

We start with a bit of news out of China. On Wednesday evening, the nation fooled everyone as it unlocked Google Mobile searches, a feature which had been blocked for some time. And once again on Thursday, the feature was blocked again. Many suspected that things were clearing up between China & Google but it looks like it may have just been an error. No word from China or Google on the matter.

And this week, several new reports on how much we actually use social networking sites. The most recent survey from Arbitron and Edison Research say 48% of American’s aged 12 and older have at least one social media profile, that’s up from 24% back in 2008. The study found that the use of social networking sites is not just for the young. 78 percent of teens and 77 percent of 18 to 24 year olds have at least one profile pages, while 65 percent of those 25 to 34 and 51% of 35 to 44 year olds also have profile pages. The study found that 30 percent of Americans who have a profile on at least one social networking site, visit them “several times a day” compared to only 18 percent a year ago at this time. And for the first time, more Americans say the Internet is “most essential” to their lives when given a choice along with television, radio, and newspapers. Forty-two percent said the Internet was the “most essential,” while 37 percent chose television, 14 percent chose radio, and 5 percent chose newspapers.

We all know that the population of Facebook is well above 400 million now, but what about Twitter. According to WebProNews on Thursday, the social networking site has surpassed 100 million users, roughly 25 % of Facebook’s population. The news company also owns a Twitter service known as Twellow, which is more or less the yellow pages of Twitter. Matthew Daines is the lead developer for Twellow and said factoring in suspended accounts, Twitter likely has 102 million users. While this is impressive Twitter has not confirmed the reports, although the service has been generally correct in the past.

Last week, we told you about Earth Hour, a one hour campaign worldwide to help bring awareness to climate change. Well, it happened here in Seattle, you’re looking at footage from there. And about more than 4000 communities worldwide. We told you the campaign was almost exclusively promoted on social media sites like Facebook and twitter, and this weekend we have another event to tell you about that’s been promoted exclusively through social media. Saturday will mark International Pillow Fight Day, and no I’m not making this up, this is footage from previous pillow day fights on YouTube. 144 cities world wide have signed up to participate in festivities. From Boise to Berlin, from London to LA, and even from Shanghai to here in Seattle, most the cities have been promoting the event primarily through Facebook invitations only. The event here in Seattle was just established last week and started off with 12 people being invited and ask to send out invites to people they knew. The invitation has grown so much that just one week after those 12 people were invited more than 4,100 people have been invited to Seattle’s pillow. The event here in Seattle is tomorrow afternoon at 2pm at Westlake Center Plaza, if you want to find out if a pillow fight is happening in a city near you, be sure to visit pillowfightday.com.

It’s time for today’s viral video. Kurt Schneider and Jake Bruene are YouTube musicians as well as real life friends. The two however have started an online duel trying to play some of today’s hottest hits with simple instruments like the recorder and the GLOCKENSPIEL. Lets take a listen to each of them.