Key Twitter Myths Debunked

(NEWSER) - Time has unveiled its latest tallying of the world’s 100 most influential people, and yes, of course, Barack Obama is on it. But the other 99 choices aren’t as obvious. Bernie Madoff makes the list, as do Rush Limbaugh, George Clooney, and 4Chan’s Moot. And as usual, Time has snagged some celebrity writers, making for some great pairings, like JK Rowling on Gordon Brown, Ashton Kutcher on the Twitter guys, and Arnold Schwarzenegger on uncle-in-law Ted Kennedy. More»

(NEWSER) - The parallels between Twitter and LSD are just too trippy for blogger Phil Baumann to ignore. “What was once a side project, a sort of laboratory experiment,” he writes, “has now seeped into the public domain and everyday more and more people are tripping tweeting.” Highlights from his top 25 ways that Twitter resembles LSD: More»

First tweet spells 'I'm feeling lucky' in binary

(NEWSER) - Google’s Twitter feed has attracted a staggering number of readers in the two days since it launched, proving that the micro-blogging service is already a fixture of internet culture, cNet reports. Google’s feed already has 27,176 followers—not as popular as Barack Obama, whose Twitter has 333,381 readers, but head and shoulders above Microsoft’s Live Search and Yahoo, which have 1,536 and 4,876 followers, respectively. More»

Facebook engineers come up with way to revert to old Google searches

(NEWSER) - A few Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace engineers critical of Google's new search protocol spent the weekend cooking up a way to modify searches so they revert to the way they used to be. A new "Don't Be Evil" bookmarklet—ripping off Google's own mantra—was created by Facebook software engineers and its product director, reports the Los Angeles Times . The bookmarklet, available on the new website Focus on the User , returns searches to the old days before Google launched Search Plus Your World , which capitalizes on Google+ . The changes infuriated Facebook and Twitter managers and others because users were more likely to be directed to Google+ profiles. "When Google's engineers are allowed to focus purely on relevancy, they get it right," says a comment on Focus on the User. So "try a more relevant Google," urges the site. Google officials were unavailable for comment. More»

Says president, company support 'plain thievery'

(NEWSER) - Rupert Murdoch came out swinging at the Obama administration and Google over the weekend, using his Twitter account to blast them for their opposition to SOPA , the pending, heavy-handed anti-piracy legislation, reports Reuters . "So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery," wrote Murdoch , who also called Google a "piracy leader" because the company's search engine leads to illegal downloading sites. More»