Rihanna Receives Online Backlash After Following Chris Brown On Twitter

Rihanna/Chris BrownComposed by AccessHollywood.comAccess Hollywood

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Rihanna added ex-boyfriend Chris Brown to the list of people she follows on Twitter on Friday, and shortly thereafter, Brown added Rihanna to his list in return - a move that had the "S&M" singer's fans instantly concerned.

"LOUD era is over... @chrisbrown is in the game again... Welcome back RATED R era ):," Rihanna fan iStan4Rihanna_ Tweeted on Friday.

The 23-year-old Barbados-born beauty had been prohibited from having contact with her R&B star ex until recently, when a judge lifted the restraining order against Brown.

However, Riri was quick to fight back against her fans' online hints that the estranged pair may reunite.

"Its [expletive] twitter, not the alter!" she Tweeted on Saturday. "Calm down."

"Ive wanted @rihanna to tweet me all my life, shes my idol, and she tweetd me somethng bad ):" iStan4Rihanna Tweeted in response.

After a flurry of messages defending the concerned Twitter user, Rihanna was quick to apologize to the disappointed fan, as well as to her legions of followers whom she fondly refers to as her "Navy."

"babygirl I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt or offend u!... Just needed to make it clear to the Navy! I still Stan for u xoxo," she Tweeted, using a portion of the Twitter user's name -- "Stan" -- in place of "stand."

As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, Rihanna recently revealed that she felt she didn't seek enough help from a therapist after finding herself the victim of domestic violence in 2009 at the hands of then-boyfriend Brown.

"I don't think I saw her enough," she told Rolling Stone magazine's April 14 issue, regarding the therapist she said she visited just one time following the incident. "I was like, 'You can't help me. I have to understand myself first.' A lot of it was talking out my story in my head, pretending it was somebody else. I started to judge it for what it really was, instead of being biased by my heart."

Facebook Busted in Clumsy Smear on Google

AFP/File – Facebook hired a public relations firm to pitch negative stories about Google to US news outlets

NEW YORK – The social network secretly hired a PR firm to plant negative stories about the search giant, The Daily Beast's Dan Lyons reveals—a caper that is blowing up in their face, and escalating their war. Plus, more on the ensuing blame game and the PR hacks who did the job.

For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

The plot backfired when the blogger turned down Burson’s offer and posted the emails that Burson had sent him. It got worse when USA Today broke a story accusing Burson of spreading a “whisper campaign” about Google “on behalf of an unnamed client.”

But who was the mysterious unnamed client? While fingers pointed at Apple and Microsoft, The Daily Beast discovered that it's a company nobody suspected—Facebook.

Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: first, it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.

Like a Cold War spy case made public, the PR fiasco reveals—and ratchets up—the growing rivalry between Google and Facebook. Google, the search giant, views Facebook as a threat, and has been determined to fight back by launching a social-networking system of its own. So far, however, Google has not had much luck, but Facebook nonetheless felt it necessary to return fire—clandestinely.

Here were two guys from one of the biggest PR agencies in the world, blustering around Silicon Valley like a pair of Keystone Kops.

At issue in this latest skirmish is a Google tool called Social Circle, which lets people with Gmail accounts see information not only about their friends but also about the friends of their friends, which Google calls “secondary connections.” Burson, in its pitch to journalists, claimed Social Circle was “designed to scrape private data and build deeply personal dossiers on millions of users—in a direct and flagrant violation of [Google's] agreement with the FTC.”

Also from Burson: “The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day—without their permission.”

Chris Soghoian, a blogger Burson offered to help write an op-ed, says Burson was “making a mountain out of molehill,” and that Social Circle isn’t dangerous.

Soghoian asked Burson directly what company was paying the agency to spread this stuff around. Burson wouldn’t say. Miffed, Soghoian published their email exchange online. You can see it here.

The story gained wider attention when USA Today reported that two PR flacks from Burson—former CNBC tech reporter Jim Goldman, and John Mercurio, a former political reporter—had been pushing reporters at USA Today and other outlets to write stories and editorials claiming Google was violating people’s privacy with Social Circle.

USA Today looked into it, but decided the claims were exaggerated—at which point, Goldman ran for cover. “After Goldman’s pitch proved largely untrue, he subsequently declined USA Today’s requests for comments,” the paper reported.

The mess, seemingly worthy of a Nixon reelection campaign, is embarrassing for Facebook, which has struggled at times to brand itself as trustworthy. But even more so for Burson-Marsteller, a huge PR firm that has represented lots of blue-chip corporate clients in its 58-year history. Mark Penn, Burson’s CEO, has been a political consultant for Bill Clinton, and is best known as the chief strategist in HIllary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Yet here were two guys from one of the biggest and best-known PR agencies in the world, blustering around Silicon Valley like a pair of Keystone Kops. Even yesterday, when I asked flat out whether Facebook had been the client behind the campaign, a Burson spokesman refused to confirm it. Then, later, learning that Facebook had come clean, the Burson spokesman wrote back and confirmed it.

As for Facebook, its pious handwringing about user privacy might be a bit of a smokescreen. What really seems to be angering Facebook is that some of the stuff that pops up under “secondary connections” in Google’s Social Circle is content pulled from Facebook.

In other words, just as Google built Google News by taking content created by hundreds of newspapers and repackaging it, so now Google aims to build a social-networking business by using that rich user data that Facebook has gathered.

Facebook claims that Google is violating Facebook’s terms of service when it uses Facebook member data in that way. “We are concerned that Google may be improperly using data they have scraped about Facebook users,” the spokesman says. A Google spokeswoman reached last night said Facebook’s allegation about Google improperly using data was a new one and the company needed time to consider a response.

The clash between Google and Facebook represents one of the biggest battles of the Internet Age. Basically, the companies are vying to see who will grab the lion’s share of online advertising.

Facebook has 600 million members and gathers information on who those people are, who their friends are, and what they like. That data let Facebook sell targeted advertising. It also makes Facebook a huge rival to Google.

Last month, Google CEO and cofounder Larry Page sent out a memo telling everyone at Google that social networking was a top priority for Google—so much so that 25 percent of every Googler’s bonus this year will be based on how well Google does in social.

It’s hard to say whether Google will ever be able to crack Facebook’s grip on social networking. But after this sorry, clumsy episode, Facebook no longer seems so invincible. In fact, it almost seems a little afraid.

Dan Lyons is technology editor at Newsweek and the creator of Fake Steve Jobs, the persona behind the notorious tech blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Before joining Newsweek, Lyons spent 10 years at Forbes.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

Social Networks Offer a Way to Narrow the Field of Friends

There are times when you just have to tell your friends about something -- but not necessarily your Facebook friends.

Just ask Becca Akroyd. When Ms. Akroyd, a 29-year-old lawyer in Sacramento, Calif., wanted to share a picture of her new vegetable garden, she didn't turn to Facebook. Instead she posted it on Path, a service that lets people share pictures, videos and messages with a small group.

"The people I have on my Path are the people who are going to care about the day-to-day random events in my life, or if my dog does something funny," Ms. Akroyd said. "On Facebook, I have colleagues or family members who wouldn't necessarily be interested in those things -- and also that I wouldn't necessarily want to have view those things."

Path, which limits friend groups to 50, is among a new crop of Web services that allow people to connect with a handful of friends in a private group. Users get the benefits of sharing without the strangeness that can result when social worlds collide on Facebook. Other start-ups in this anti-oversharing crowd include GroupMe, Frenzy, Rally Up, Shizzlr, Huddl and Bubbla.

Even Facebook recognizes that people don't want to share everything with every "friend." It has privacy settings that control who can see what, but many people find these challenging to set up. So last fall, Facebook introduced Groups, for sharing with subsets of Facebook friends. And in March, it acquired Beluga, a start-up that allows sharing photos and messages with small groups privately.

Last month, Facebook said its users had created 50 million groups with a median of just eight members. It also introduced the Send button, which websites can use to let people share things with Facebook groups.

"We realized there wasn't a way to share with these groups of people that were already established in your real life -- family, book club members, a sports team," said Peter Deng, director of product for Facebook Groups. "It's one of the fastest-growing products within Facebook. Usage has been pretty phenomenal."

Google is also working on tools for sharing with limited groups of people, according to a person briefed on the company's plans who was not authorized to speak publicly. Slide, a maker of social networking apps that was bought by Google, recently released an iPhone app called Disco, for texting with small groups.

©Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Dave Morin founded Path, a network that limits users to a small number of contacts.

Google may discuss its plans in this area at a conference for developers this week. A spokeswoman, Katie Watson, declined to comment.

No one expects the start-ups in this field -- most of which are new and have relatively few users -- to replace Facebook or Twitter. Instead, their creators say that they do a better job of mimicking offline social relationships, and that they represent a new wave of social networking that revolves around specific tasks, like sharing photos or coordinating plans for the evening.

Shizzlr, for example, was created by two graduate business students at the University of Connecticut after they realized it was impossible to organize plans on Facebook.

"You put out a status about weekend plans and, all of a sudden, you get your uncle commenting that he wants to go hiking with you and your friends," said Nick Jaensch, who created Shizzlr with Keith Bessette.

After users invite a few friends into a group on Shizzlr, the service grabs a list of coming events from Yelp, Google and Facebook and lets members discuss their options. The groups reach capacity at 20 people.

In the last three months, about 3,600 people have downloaded the application -- a tiny number compared with Facebook's 600 million members. But Mr. Jaensch says he is not interested in competing with Facebook.

"The people that you've called in the past two to three weeks are the people you actually do stuff with," he said.

Shizzlr is just getting off the ground, but some of the other services in this field have attracted the attention of prominent investors. Path has raised $11 million from venture capitalists, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Index Ventures. GroupMe, which says it is handling 100 million messages a month, raised $10.6 million from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst and First Sound, and others. AOL acquired Rally Up late last summer.

[Scams Common on Social Networks?]

Dave Morin, Path's founder, was an early Facebook employee, but thought the social network had grown too large and impersonal for sharing certain things. Hundreds of thousands of users have agreed and signed up for Path, sharing more than five million photos and videos so far, Mr. Morin said. Most of their groups include far fewer than the 50 friends they are allowed, he said.

"People pull out their phone and show their photos and start telling a story about their life -- 'Last week I was on vacation,' or 'here's my cat,' or 'here's what I ate for dinner last night' -- but when we ask if they put those photos anywhere, people would say, 'Oh, no, no, no, it's way too personal,'" Mr. Morin said.

Those photos might also be too boring for the full lineup of one's Facebook friends. And, of course there are other photos that your cubicle neighbors and former flames might find to be ... too interesting.

"The larger social networks have certainly become more loose-tie networks of acquaintances," said Mo Koyfman, an investor at Spark Capital who follows social media trends. "But the way we communicate with acquaintances is very different from how we communicate with friends."

Spark recently invested in Kik, a mobile group messaging app.

Mr. Koyfman said most of these start-up applications centered on cellphones because they were inherently more personal than websites used at a computer.

Mr. Deng at Facebook said that his company was working on more tools for small-group sharing. But some Internet users and entrepreneurs maintain that the big social networks will always be too big for people to share comfortably.

John Winter, a developer in New Zealand, cobbled together Frenzy, an application that lets friends share links, photos, songs and other items in an invitation-only folder on the Web storage service Dropbox, effectively turning it into a private social feed.

"Twitter is public and Facebook is basically public," he said. "What else are you going to use?"

Facebook sharing sending readers to big news sites

AP – FILE -- A Jan. 3, 2001 file photo shows the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. According to …

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Mon May 9, 1:08 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is influencing what news gets read online as people use the Internet's most popular hangout to share and recommend content.

That's one of the key findings from a study on the flow of traffic to the Web's 25 largest news destinations. The study was released Monday by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Facebook was responsible for 3 percent of traffic to the 21 news sites that allowed data to be tracked, according to the study's co-author, Amy Mitchell. Five of the sites studied got 6 percent to 8 percent of their readers from Facebook.

The referrals typically came from links posted by friends on Facebook's social-networking site or from the ubiquitous "like" buttons, which Facebook encourages other websites to place alongside their content.

The Facebook effect is small compared with Google's clout. Google Inc.'s dominant search engine supplies about 30 percent of traffic to the top news sites, according to Pew.

But Facebook and other sharing tools, such as Addthis.com, are empowering people to rely on their online social circles to point out interesting content. By contrast, Google uses an automated formula to help people find news.

Facebook is at the forefront of this shift because it has more than 500 million worldwide users. That's far more than any other Internet service built for socializing and sharing.

"If searching for the news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing the news may be among the most important of the next," the Pew report said.

Meanwhile, major news sites are getting less than 1 percent of their traffic from Twitter, even though it had about 175 million accounts last year.

Among those studied by Pew, only the Los Angeles Times' website got more traffic from Twitter than Facebook. Twitter accounted for 3.5 percent of the online traffic to the Los Angeles Times, compared with slightly more than 2 percent from Facebook.

The Drudge Report, a site started during the 1990s, is a far more significant traffic source for news sites than Twitter, according to the Pew study.

The Pew report is based on an analysis of Internet traffic data compiled by the research firm Nielsen Co. during the first nine months of last year

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Buys $7 Million Home

Mark Zuckerberg's $7 million Palo Alto home. Photo: Alain Pinel Realtors

Mark Zuckerberg is, at age 26, on the young side for a first-time home buyer these days. But the Facebook cofounder and chief executive isn’t exactly stretching financially to make his first purchase. Valued at $13.5 billion, and with a persona made famous by the Oscar-winning film The Social Network, Zuckerberg recently plunked down a relatively paltry $7 million for his first home.

The restored historic Palo Alto, Calif. abode encompasses 5,617 square feet on a 17,100 square-foot plot. It includes five bedrooms, five and a half baths, a banquet-size dining room, a music alcove and glassed-in porch. The backyard has a saltwater pool, a spa, an outdoor gazebo with a wood-burning fireplace and a carport. The lot, located on Edgewood Drive in the Crescent Park neighborhood, is shielded from nosy neighbors and gawkers by a wall and citrus trees. Crescent Park itself is a high-end neighborhood where median single-family homes went for an average of $1.9 million in February, according to the Zillow Home Value Index.

The young billionaire’s new pad hails from an earlier structure erected by William A. Newell, a physician and politician who helped establish and govern the area in the late 19th century. It was razed and rebuilt by another physician in 1903. Since then, it changed hands roughly seven times, going through several remodelings, before being acquired by the social media entrepreneur.

The property was listed through Sherry Bucolo of Alain Pinel Realtors. Both Bucolo and Facebook declined to comment on the sale, but public records indicate the deal closed in mid-March. As with most real estate transactions involving rich and famous homebuyers, the sale was conducted through a third party LLC.

The young billionaire has long been a fan of renting and of relatively modest digs. His last two places were rentals in the College Terrace neighborhood of Palo Alto, both of which were close to Facebook’s offices and significantly smaller than the new home.

Zuckerberg, who ranks 52nd on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires, paid $1 million more than the previously listed asking price of $5.85 million. The $7 million paid is about what the home is valued in the expensive 94301 zip code, according to Zillow.com.

That might seem like a hefty price tag to many middle Americans, but it’s pee wee league among billionaires. Yuri Milner, a venture capital billionaire and Facebook investor, shelled out $100 million for an 11 acre, 25,000 square foot estate in the area earlier this year. In April, news broke that Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s wealthiest billionaire, had snatched up a London penthouse for $221 million, the most ever paid for an apartment anywhere.

Five industries fighting extinction

If you read the print edition of a newspaper, still make calls over a landline or plan to rent a tuxedo for an upcoming wedding, you are doing what many of your friends and neighbors gave up long ago.

Analysts at IBISWorld, a market research firm, recently compiled a list of 10 industries that may be on the "verge of extinction in the United States." Within its database of close to 700 industries, about 200 are in decline, with the ones selected having seen large and steady drops in revenue and number of establishments. From the beginning of 2011 to the end of 2016, these industries are likely to deteriorate further.

"People might think that we are coming out of recession and these industries have hit bottom, so therefore everyone should be going up," IBISWorld Senior Analyst Toon van Beeck says. "But that is definitely not the case. A lot of these revenues peaked in about 2000 and since then they have declined year over year."

He explains that while economic cycles, the ups and downs of bull and bear markets, often swing every eight to 10 years, "industry life cycles can be three to 50 years where they go from maturity into decline." The industries singled out by the firm "are really at the end of their decline phase or they are in rapid decline."

Most of the industries share common reasons for their bleak prospects, including damage from advances in technology, industry stagnation and external competition, he says.

Because labor costs and regulations are high domestically, many manufacturers send their production to foreign countries. Downward price pressure from domestic wholesalers, retailers and consumers forces U.S. producers to cut costs to offer a competitive price. Many firms that cannot outsource have a difficult time competing.

Advances in technology are another drag on companies whose failures drag down their industry. The rapid pace of technological developments may create industries and business opportunities. But traditional companies not forward-thinking or nimble enough to adapt will court failure.

Adding to the vicious circle, struggling companies are often forced to cut prices and reduce production costs. Doing so hammers away at budgets for R&D, as well as capital and technology investments. The resulting stagnation drags down these businesses, and their overall industry, even more.

Wired Telecommunication Carriers

In singling out wired telecommunication carriers as among the 10 barely breathing industries, IBISWorld points that revenues have dropped nearly 55% since $341.8 billion in the year 2000. An additional decline of 37.1% is projected over the next six years.

Big players such as AT&T (NYSE: T - News) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ - News) still dominate the industry despite losing a steady stream of customers, he says, because of their prominence in the wireless space for which many former customers are jumping ship.

Record Stores

Record stores, van Beeck says, are a "sad story" hard hit by changes in how their customers now find, buy and listen to music. There may still be a strong, core following for traditional vinyl, but many shops haven't found a way to expand beyond that niche.

The industry saw revenue plummet 76.3% since 2000, to about $2 billion. IBISWorld expects the bad news to get worse as they lose nearly another 40% by 2016.

Van Beeck says record stores are a case study in not adapting nimbly enough to changing times.

Bookstores, which bear conceptual similarities to record stores, are themselves in rough shape these days -- with the once giant Borders (NYSE: BGP - News) now in bankruptcy. Their declines weren't substantial enough to make the cut of his ranking, van Beeck says. In fact, they may offer some hindsight into what record stores could have done -- creating a more customer-friendly environment with cafes and a more diverse inventory.

Photofinishing

The photofinishing industry has also lost its focus and vibrancy.

"While Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK- News), Fuji Film and Ritz Camera were once major and prominent companies, they are just a splash of what they were in their heyday," van Beeck says.

With about $1.6 billion in revenue last year, they have faced a decline of nearly 70% during the past decade. Revenue could drop another 40% by 2016, IBISWorld estimates.

Once again, technology is the issue. Digital cameras continue to offer improving quality and falling prices. Color printing can be done at home and cheap digital storage, on hard drives and flash sticks and through online services, has reduced the need to produce a hard copy of every shot as a keepsake. Overall, the total number of prints in the United States has fallen at an annualized rate of 3.5% over the past five years, he says.

Video Postproduction

Video postproduction is another industry done in by the do-it-yourself opportunities presented by new technology. Once requiring specialized expertise, many of these tasks can be done on even an average home computer.

Companies such as Technicolor have suffered as a result. Industrywide, revenues have fallen 25% in the past decade to just north of $4 billion, with another 11% decrease predicted by 2016.

Newspapers

The Internet's role as a creator/destroyer is also behind the constant talk of the demise of newspapers. Newspaper publishing, a $41 billion industry last year, fell 36% since 2000, with a 20% decline likely by 2016.

Failing to see the writing on the wall, and how the online world would snare eyeballs and advertisers, is once again a major part of the problem these companies face. It's been years and years since the "information superhighway" was a hot concept, and yet such companies as The New York Times {NYSE: NYT - News) are just now getting serious (though not yet successful) about such concepts as "paywalls" for their content.

Cable-Laying Boom, Boost Internet

Dozens of new undersea internet cables are set to be laid over the next couple of years, providing a huge boost to worldwide capacity.

The huge boom in internet video has led to Domesday scenarios of the internet running out of capacity.

Yet, most of the bandwidth bottlenecks are found in the "last mile" of connections to the home, and not the undersea cables that underpin the worldwide internet infrastructure. Indeed, many experts believe that there is abundant amounts of "dark fibre" that remains unused in oceans across the world.

Nevertheless, the Financial Times reports that major telcos are pushing ahead with projects that will see dozens of new cables laid before the end of the decade.

At least 25 new cables will be laid by 2010, at a cost of $6.4bn, according to TeleGeography Research, a Washington-based telecoms consultancy.

"In light of the tremendous untapped potential capacity on many submarine cables, it may seem surprising that a new cable-building boom is underway," TeleGeography claims.

"The reasons for cable construction are often a combination of several factors; including dwindling available capacity on some cables, a desire for wider restoration options, the need for physically diverse routes, competition, and high capacity prices in some regions of the world."

The cables are predominantly set to be laid in areas such as Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East, which are currently underserved.

Google, for example, announced plans to build a 10,000km fibre-optic cable linking the US and Japan in February.

'Saturday Night Live': 'The Social Network' Live

Mark Zuckerberg surprises Jesse Eisenberg on "SNL"

Dana Edelson/NBC

Last night's "Saturday Night Live" got off to a hot start, featuring a buzzworthy cameo by none other than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whom host Jesse Eisenberg famously portrayed in "The Social Network." Andy Samberg got in on the action as well uniting the 'bergs' onstage. To quote Samberg: "Awk-berg!" Watch the whole encounter unfold below along with a few other highlights.

Jesse Eisenberg Monologue

Mark Zuckerberg, meet Mark Zuckerberg. No seriously, the real Mark Zuckerberg. Fiction meets reality during the opening monologue when the inventor of "poking" meets his "evil twin" for the first time. Let's just say things get kind of uncomfortable when Jesse asks Mark if he's seen "The Social Network."

Yahoo To Allow Users To Sign In Using Facebook and Google IDs

Yahoo is turning to its “greatest competitor” to save its dying race. In the official blog, Andy Y Wu, the product manager of Yahoo Membership announced that they are opening third-party user authentication with Facebook and Google across the Yahoo Network. Henceforth, from now on, all those who have accounts in Google or Facebook would be able to sign into Yahoo and avail the services. This is a bold step from Yahoo and might help it regain some lost ground. Users who are redirected from Facebook or Google to Yahoo, are reluctant to login using another id and password, and can now login with the service they want.

And guess what! Now you can chat with your friends and post question on yahoo answer community without having an id on the server. Spending time on creating an id, remembering the password and all other password recovery details… these are basically hazards. Instead the new feature would let you sign with Facebook or Google Ids. On their part, Yahoo authorities have made it clear that whether a user signs in by using his stable yahoo id or via third party authentication service, there won’t be any discrepancy in the services offered by them.

Generally, the kinds of services that most users avail are commenting on news articles, playing sports sponsored by the site along with sharing and commenting on photos on Flickr. Since both Google and Facebook have large number of users, Yahoo will surely get lots of new visitors. In the blog, Wu mentioned that in October 2010, Yahoo provided users with Google IDs to access Flickr, one of their products. But it wasn’t that user-friendly, so they had to come up with something new and something more interesting.

Wu sounds optimist about this new facility and says, “Our goal is to make it extremely simple and transparent for anyone to authenticate and engage with Yahoo! with an online identity that they already have.” However, he also speaks of the potential challenges — this new feature won’t support signing into mobile or desktop clients using Facebook or Google ids. But Wu expressed his hope that soon the developer team will appear with more upgrades.

Yahoo, instead of fighting with Facebook and Google, is accepting their superiority and using their audience to its benefit. MySpace was also competing in the race to be the face of the internet with Facebook, Google and Yahoo, but has accepted defeat already. Now , Yahoo is also leaving the race. This leaves Facebook and Google to compete for the spot of the defacto internet identity provider.

Google with Gmail, its array of services and its rumoured Google +1, and Facebook with its Open Graph, Like button and Instant Personalization, are rearing to take the fight to the next level. As for Yahoo, this step might just turn their fortune.

The sneakiest new shopping scams

Easy ways to avoid the biggest rip-offs online and in stores

By the editors of Shop Smart Magazine

Just as important as knowing how to sniff out great buys is understanding what it takes to avoid rip-offs. And with Internet fraud on the rise, it's getting tougher to outsmart the criminals. Complaints to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a joint operation of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, jumped 22 percent last year. The complaints include plenty of run-of-the-mill scams, like sellers who steal credit-card numbers or take the money and run. But those are child's play compared with what else is brewing.

More from ConsumerReports.org Store brands vs. name brands Get the best price on anything Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers or sponsors on Yahoo!

Think you're too savvy to get taken? OK, maybe you don't fall for those e-mails from Nigerian royalty asking you to wire money, but digital criminals are getting sneakier every year. One scam that can trip up even the most cautious consumers involves "skimmers" attached to ATMs. Those devices record account numbers and passwords so that thieves can clean out your bank account.

"These guys are constantly thinking of new ways to swindle you, some of which are quite sophisticated," says Brian Krebs, a computer security expert and author of "Krebs on Security" at Krebsonsecurity.com.

Think you're safer shopping at the mall? Official purse-snatching statistics show there's been a downward trend, but many of those crimes aren't reported to law enforcement officials. And pickpocket activity always jumps around holiday time, says Bob Arno, co-author of "Travel Advisory! How to Avoid Thefts, Cons and Street Scams While Traveling" (Bonus Books, 2003). But you can outsmart even the craftiest swindlers if you know what's in their bag of nasty tricks. Here's a guide to the latest, sneakiest scams, and simple tips that can help you protect yourself.

'Smishing'

How it works "Phishing" is when you get an e-mail from a supposedly trustworthy source, such as your bank or PayPal, claiming a problem with your account and asking for your user name and password. When you respond, your information is stolen and your account is siphoned. "Smishing" is the latest twist on that scam—instead of getting an e-mail, you get a text message. (The word is a combination of "SMS," for short message service, aka text messaging, and "phishing.") You're told to call a toll-free number, which is answered by a bogus interactive voice-response system that tries to fool you into providing your account number and password.

"It works because people don't give their cell-phone numbers out," Krebs says. "If someone has my cell number, I figure it's someone I know." Thieves can use random-dialing telemarketing services to hit on your number, says Rod Rasmussen, president and CTO of IID, an Internet security firm. If you belong to a credit union, be especially wary—members are targets because often the call-back number has a local area code, not an 800 number, which makes victims less likely to suspect a hoax, Rasmussen says.

Prevent it If you get a text alert about an account, don't respond before you verify that it's legitimate. You can do a Google search on the number to see whether it matches your financial institution. Even better, call the customer-service number at your bank or other service provider to give any needed information to a representative.

Teeny, tiny charges

How it works Thieves get hold of your credit- or debit-card number and make very small charges of 20 cents to $10. The charges appear on your bill with an innocuous-sounding corporate name, and a toll-free number may appear next to the charge. But when you call the number, it's either disconnected or you're instructed to leave a message and your call is never returned.

That was precisely the scam that the Federal Trade Commission broke up in June, according to spokesman Frank Dorman. "We don't know where the thieves got the card numbers, but we're looking into that," he says. The scam was successful because most consumers either didn't notice the charges or didn't bother to correct them because the amounts were so small. In all, the crime ring racked up more than $10 million in bogus charges, the FTC estimates.

Prevent it Scrutinize every item on your bill every month, and question those you don't recognize. (Some charges, but not all, will list a phone number.) If you think a charge is fraudulent, notify your card company as soon as possible but no later than 60 days after the charge appears. By law, the card company must remove the disputed amount from your account while it investigates. Worst case, by law you're liable for only the first $50 on a credit card. (In most cases, Visa and MasterCard will cover the full amount.) Debit cards offer fewer protections: You must report the problem two days after you notice it. If you don't, you could be liable for the first $500 in fraudulent charges. If you wait more than 60 days after your statement is mailed, you could lose all the money in your account.

Skimmers

How it works Skimmers, devices that thieves attach to ATMs or gas pumps to steal your debit account number and password, have been around for years—and they're not going away. They're getting even more sophisticated.

The devices are placed at the mouth of the card-acceptance slot and record the data off of the magnetic strip on the back of your ATM card when you slide it into the machine. Crooks will usually plant a second device, such as a hidden camera or a transparent plastic PIN pad overlay, that's used to record your PIN when you type it in. In the early days of skimming, the thief had to return to the ATM or gas pump to retrieve the apparatus. But now, Krebs says, wireless technology enables the devices to be rigged to send account information via text message to the thief's cell phone. "The thief can be down the street in a coffee house or halfway around the world," he says. "As long as he's got a working phone signal, he can get the information sent to him right away and start using it."

Prevent it Use credit cards and avoid using non-bank ATMs. Those machines are generally located in areas that are less secure, making it easier for thieves to tamper with them. And check the card slot: If there's a plastic strip or plastic film sticking out, or anything glued to the card reader, go elsewhere. If your card is stuck inside the card slot, do not leave the machine. Use your cell phone to call your bank branch or the 24-hour service number to report the problem.

Membership programs

How they work You're buying from a large, reputable website but just before you click the "confirm" button on your purchase, you see a pop-up window or banner ad with an offer such as "$10 Cash Back on Your Next Purchase!" Here's the catch. By accepting that so-called deal, you're agreeing to enroll in a Web discount program that's run by a completely separate company. Those programs, which have innocuous names such as "Reservation Rewards," "Travel Values Plus," or "Great Fun," often provide a 30-day trial period during which you get discounts on a variety of merchandise and services. After that, a monthly membership fee, usually $10 to $20, will appear on your credit-card bill—even though you never gave that outside company your card number.

Sounds dicey, doesn't it? A Senate committee headed by Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., thought so, too. Last year, the committee launched an investigation into three large companies that sell memberships to those discount clubs: Affinion Group, Vertrue, and Webloyalty. The committee's report was issued last November and alleged, among other things, that "misleading 'Yes' and 'Continue' buttons cause consumers to reasonably think they are completing the original transaction, rather than entering into a new, ongoing financial relationship with a membership club operated by Affinion, Vertrue, or Webloyalty."

The problem is so ubiquitous that in May, Rockefeller introduced a bill to ban that and other misleading sales practices. Meanwhile, the three companies mentioned in the report have pledged to change their ways. Previously, customers' credit-card numbers were provided to the discount company by the original site without the consumer's knowledge. After the investigation began, all three companies started to require consumers to type in, at a minimum, the last four digits of their card number to make it clear that they are entering into a separate transaction. We'll be on the lookout for whether those changes are enough to keep consumers from being duped.

Prevent it Be wary of pop-up windows or banner ads that promise an additional discount before you complete a transaction. If you do click on an offer, take the time to read the fine print. Scrutinize your credit-card statement every month and question any unfamiliar charges, no matter how small. Check your e-mail inbox and spam folder because Web loyalty programs often send a notification e-mail before they start charging your credit card, when you still have time to cancel.

Stripped gift cards

How it works Thieves look for gift cards that are displayed on grab-and-go racks, such as in grocery and department stores. They use a handheld scanner—which you can buy online for just a few hundred dollars—to read the code behind the magnetic or scratch-off strip on the back of the card. That, combined with the card number on the front, gives them everything they need to steal the value of the card. Then they put the card back on the rack. Later an unsuspecting buyer purchases the worthless gift card. Even if a card isn't preloaded, a thief can steal the card number and security code, then call the 800 number shown on the card every few days to check the balance. Once a shopper has purchased the card and loaded it with a dollar amount, the thief can spend it before the purchaser does.

Prevent it Buy cards that are behind a customer-service desk, says Tom Browning, vice president of corporate compliance and chief security officer for AlliedBarton Security Services. Inspect the card; if the magnetic or peel-off strip on the back isn't pristine, the card might have been tampered with. When buying a preloaded card, ask the cashier to scan it to make sure the full value is on it. If you're buying from a third-party gift-card site, look at the refund policy. And always hang on to the receipts. If something goes wrong, it can help you—or the gift recipient—get a refund.

Counterfeit electronics

How it works Counterfeiting might seem like old news, but it's still going strong—in fact, stronger than ever. Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection made 14,841 seizures of fake and pirated goods worth $261 billion, an all-time high. The counterfeits seized included the usual suspects—footwear, apparel, and accessories—plus a huge number of electronics. "A knockoff handbag may not present a direct risk to consumers," says Anthony Toderian, spokesman for CSA International, which tests and certifies products, "but counterfeit electronics certainly do." Fake goods could have substandard wiring, faulty fuses, flammable plastic casings, and harmful chemicals such as lead and mercury. All kinds of electronics have been illegally copied, including computers, phones, and handheld gaming devices, he says. Although online shopping and auction sites and deep-discount stores are the most likely places those fakes will pop up, some have made their way onto the shelves of major retailers. "Buyers for stores can be fooled just as easily as regular consumers can," Toderian says.

Prevent it Look for a label stating that the product has been certified by CSA International or Underwriters Laboratory. (Go to CSA -International. org and click on "Certification Marks" to see what genuine labels look like. At UL.com, go to the search box and type in "How to spot fakes.") Look at the product, too. Are there misspellings on the package? If the box is see-through, does it contain all of the listed components, including batteries, cases, and power cords? Is the manufacturer's contact information, including address and phone number, clearly displayed? When in doubt, buy from well-known retailers that offer a full refund.

3 simple ways to protect yourself

Get the right security software In recent tests, we found two great, downloadable programs that protect against viruses, spyware, and other online threats at no charge. Try Avira, at www.free-av.com, or Microsoft Security Essentials, at www.microsoft.com/security_essentials.

Fight fraud There are several useful resources for ensuring your online safety. Bookmark these!

FTC.gov The Federal Trade Commission's site has lots of fact sheets that tell you what to do you if you've been scammed. Under the Consumer Protection tab, click on "Consumer Information" and then "Shopping for Products & Services." Don't miss the helpful primers on what to do if you're billed for merchandise you never receive and "How to right a wrong."

Safeshopping.org This site is sponsored by the American Bar Association and is packed with advice on safe payment methods, protecting your privacy when you shop, and other need-to-know topics.

OnGuardOnline.gov This site has tips on Internet shopping and is sponsored by government agencies. Quizzes test your knowledge of spyware, online auctions, ID theft, and more.

Antiphishing.org The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry-sponsored association, has a tip sheet on how to avoid being scammed. Click on "Consumer Advice," then "How to Avoid Phishing Scams."

Check sellers Before you do business with anyone, go to the Better Business Bureau, at www.bbb.org/us. Grades A to F are based on how long the seller has been in business and how good a job it does resolving complaints. Other sites that are worth a look include SiteJabber.com, Complaints.com, and RipoffReport.com, for its user reviews. Also do a Google search of the site or retailer and the word "complaints."

Hang on to your handbag!

Bob Arno, an author and anti-theft consultant, has traveled the world secretly filming pickpockets. So he knows their tricks and how to thwart them. Here's his advice:

Get a grip Thieves are just as likely to snatch your purse as to slip a hand inside it to grab a wallet. So keep your handbag tight against your body and in front of you at all times. And when you're sitting down in the food court at the mall, don't sling your purse behind you on the chair. Even if you think you're maintaining physical contact with your bag, leaning forward for just a second is all the opportunity a thief needs to grab it. And never put it on the floor, even if it's in front of you.

Nix knapsacks They're back in style, but any bag that's not within your view is a juicy target for skilled pickpockets, no matter how securely it's fastened. And avoid purses with open compartments. Bags with zippers are best.

Keep your focus A classic ploy of purse thieves is to create a diversion—pointing at something, talking loudly, holding open a map and asking for directions, or spilling something on your coat then offering to clean it up. It can happen in a restaurant or a busy mall. Whenever anyone approaches you, be sure to firmly hold your purse and keep it in front of you.

Pare down your wallet Do you really need to bring all of your credit cards and ID cards with you? Leave everything except the necessities at home. And never routinely carry around anything with your Social Security number on it. (Photocopy all of the cards in your wallet, just in case.)

Be smart with your car Park in well-lit areas. If it's still daylight but you plan to shop for a while, park under a street lamp or in a well-lit garage. Always put up your windows and lock the car. If you go back to your car to stow packages, put them in the trunk—visible boxes and bags are magnets for thieves. Don't load up with so many packages that your purse dangles from your arm, out of your sight. Take advantage of curbside pickup or ask the store to hold bags for you. If someone tries to grab your purse, don't resist. "It's not worth losing your life over," Arno says. Also, if you have a GPS device in your car, program it so that your "home" setting isn't your home address. Instead, use the school or church down the street, or crooks will know how to get to your house while you're out. GPS thefts are also on the rise, so don't leave any visible trace of one in your car, including the mount.

Check sellers Before you do business with anyone, go to the Better Business Bureau, at www.bbb.org/us. Grades A to F are based on how long the seller has been in business and how good a job it does resolving complaints. Other sites that are worth a look include SiteJabber.com, Complaints.com, and RipoffReport.com, for its user reviews. Also do a Google search of the site or retailer and the word "complaints."

ShopSmart;) the unique shopping magazine, offers unbiased, easy-to-read advice on the best brands of household appliances, kitchenware, electronics, and more. Subscribe today!

Copyright © 2006-2010 Consumers Union of U.S., Inc. No reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission.

Facebook in Privacy Breach

Kim White Bloomberg

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the F8 developer conference this spring.

Many of the most popular applications, or "apps," on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook's rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users' activities secure.

The problem has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online—a practice the Journal has been examining in its What They Know series. It's unclear how long the breach was in place. On Sunday, a Facebook spokesman said it is taking steps to "dramatically limit" the exposure of users' personal information.

Many top applications on Facebook have been transmitting identifying information to Internet tracking and ad companies. Emily Steel discusses. Also, Michael Ramsey discusses skepticism about the auto industry's big bet that battery-powered cars will become big sellers.

"A Facebook user ID may be inadvertently shared by a user's Internet browser or by an application," the spokesman said. Knowledge of an ID "does not permit access to anyone's private information on Facebook," he said, adding that the company would introduce new technology to contain the problem identified by the Journal.

"Our technical systems have always been complemented by strong policy enforcement, and we will continue to rely on both to keep people in control of their information," the Facebook official said.

"Apps" are pieces of software that let Facebook's 500 million users play games or share common interests with one another. The Journal found that all of the 10 most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users' IDs to outside companies.

The apps, ranked by research company Inside Network Inc. (based on monthly users), include Zynga Game Network Inc.'s FarmVille, with 59 million users, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille. Three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user's friends to outside companies.

Facebook says it is taking steps to "dramatically limit" the exposure of users' personal information, after a WSJ investigation showed that personal IDs were being transmitted to third parties via Facebook apps. But how hard is it to fix such a breach - and how concerned should users be about the sharing of these IDs? Julia Angwin joins Digits to discuss.

Most apps aren't made by Facebook, but by independent software developers. Several apps became unavailable to Facebook users after the Journal informed Facebook that the apps were transmitting personal information; the specific reason for their unavailability remains unclear.

The information being transmitted is one of Facebook's basic building blocks: the unique "Facebook ID" number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person's name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with "everyone," including age, residence, occupation and photos.

The apps reviewed by the Journal were sending Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data firms, several of which build profiles of Internet users by tracking their online activities.

Defenders of online tracking argue that this kind of surveillance is benign because it is conducted anonymously. In this case, however, the Journal found that one data-gathering firm, RapLeaf Inc., had linked Facebook user ID information obtained from apps to its own database of Internet users, which it sells. RapLeaf also transmitted the Facebook IDs it obtained to a dozen other firms, the Journal found.

Name Games

All 10 of the top Facebook apps transmitted users' IDs, The Journal found

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RapLeaf said that transmission was unintentional. "We didn't do it on purpose," said Joel Jewitt, vice president of business development for RapLeaf.

Facebook said it previously has "taken steps ... to significantly limit Rapleaf's ability to use any Facebook-related data."

Facebook prohibits app makers from transferring data about users to outside advertising and data companies, even if a user agrees. The Journal's findings shed light on the challenge of policing those rules for the 550,000 apps on its site.

The Journal's findings are the latest challenge for Facebook, which has been criticized in recent years for modifying its privacy rules to expose more of a user's information. This past spring, the Journal found that Facebook was transmitting the ID numbers to advertising companies, under some circumstances, when a user clicked on an ad. Facebook subsequently discontinued the practice.

"This is an even more complicated technical challenge than a similar issue we successfully addressed last spring on Facebook.com," a Facebook spokesman said, "but one that we are committed to addressing."

The privacy issue follows Facebook's effort just this month to give its users more control over its apps, which privacy activists had cited as a potential hole in users' ability to control who sees their information. On Oct. 6, Facebook created a control panel that lets users see which apps are accessing which categories of information about them. It indicates, for example, when an application accesses a user's "basic information" (including a user ID and name). However, it doesn't detail what information friends' applications have accessed about a user.

Video From 'What They Know' Series

• All 'What They Know' videos

It's rarely a coincidence when you see Web ads for products that match your interests. WSJ's Christina Tsuei explains how advertisers use cookies to track your online habits.

A new report in the Wall Street Journal's "What They Know" series illustrates how companies like Microsoft must balance conflicting interests: helping people surf the Web with its browser to keep their mouse clicks private, and helping advertisers who want to see those clicks. WSJ's Julia Angwin, Nick Wingfield, and Jessica Vascellaro join host Simon Constable as panelists on this special Digits live show.

Facebook apps transform Facebook into a hub for all kinds of activity, from playing games to setting up a family tree. Apps are considered an important way for Facebook to extend the usefulness of its network. The company says 70% of users use apps each month.

Applications are also a growing source of revenue beyond advertising for Facebook itself, which sells its own virtual currency that can be used to pay for games.

Following an investigation by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Facebook in June limited applications to accessing only the public parts of a user's profile, unless the user grants additional permission. (Canadian officials later expressed satisfaction with Facebook's steps.) Previously, applications could tap any data the user had access to, including detailed profiles and information about a user's friends.

It's not clear if developers of many of the apps transmitting Facebook ID numbers even knew that their apps were doing so. The apps were using a common Web standard, known as a "referer," which passes on the address of the last page viewed when a user clicks on a link. On Facebook and other social-networking sites, referers can expose a user's identity.

The company says it has disabled thousands of applications at times for violating its policies. It's unclear how many, if any, of those cases involved passing user information to marketing companies.

Facebook also appeared to have shut down some applications the Journal found to be transmitting user IDs, including several created by LOLapps Media Inc., a San Francisco company backed with $4 million in venture capital. LOLapp's applications include Gift Creator, with 3.5 million monthly active users, Quiz Creator, with 1.4 million monthly active users, Colorful Butterflies and Best Friends Gifts.

Since Friday, users attempting to access those applications received either an error message or were reverted to Facebook's home screen.

"We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms," a Facebook spokesman said.

Data From 'What They Know'

The Wall Street Journal analyzed the tracking files installed on people's computers by the 50 most popular websites, plus WSJ.com. Explore the data here and see separate analysis of the files on popular children's sites.

A spokeswoman for LOLapps Media declined to comment.

The applications transmitting Facebook IDs may have breached their own privacy policies, as well as industry standards, which say sites shouldn't share and advertisers shouldn't collect personally identifiable information without users' permission. Zynga, for example, says in its privacy policy that it "does not provide any Personally Identifiable Information to third-party advertising companies."

A Zynga spokeswoman said, "Zynga has a strict policy of not passing personally identifiable information to any third parties. We look forward to working with Facebook to refine how web technologies work to keep people in control of their information."

The most expansive use of Facebook user information uncovered by the Journal involved RapLeaf. The San Francisco company compiles and sells profiles of individuals based in part on their online activities.

The Journal found that some LOLapps applications, as well as the Family Tree application, were transmitting users' Facebook ID numbers to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then linked those ID numbers to dossiers it had previously assembled on those individuals, according to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then embedded that information in an Internet-tracking file known as a "cookie."

RapLeaf says it strips out the user's name when it embeds the information in the cookie and shares that information for ad targeting. However, The Wall Street Journal found that RapLeaf transmitted Facebook user IDs to a dozen other advertising and data firms, including Google Inc.'s Invite Media.

All 12 companies said that they didn't collect, store or use the information.

Ilya Nikolayev, chief executive of Familybuilder, maker of the Family Tree application, said in an email, "It is Familybuilder's corporate policy to keep any actual, potential, current or prior business partnerships, relationships, customer details, and any similar information confidential. As this story relates to a company other than Familybuilder, we have nothing further to contribute."

Write to Emily Steel at emily.steel@wsj.com and Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com

Kanye West and how Twitter's changed how we communicate

Kanye West's Twitter stream shows how the site has changed communication.

(Mashable) -- If you needed any more proof that Twitter has transformed how we absorb information and communicate, look no further than Kanye West.

[On Sunday], the superstar rapper let loose a barrage of 70+ tweets, starting with a declaration of his love for Twitter and ending with an apology to Taylor Swift.

His apology refers to last year's VMA incident, where West rushed onto the stage and interrupted Swift's acceptance speech for best female music video. The incident has since turned into anInternet meme.

More importantly, the 33-year-old rapper was vilified by music fans, the media and even President Obama.

Yes, the rapper apologized on national TV and on his blog, but he has never been able to shake off the 2009 VMA incident, and if his Twitter is any indication, there are a lot of people that (understandably) won't let him live it down.

For whatever reason though, Kanye West decided [Sunday] to make his case, and he used his brand new Twitter account to do it.

Whether you think his "stream of consciousness" is the rambling of a broken man or his most heartfelt attempt yet to put the incident behind him, you can't help but appreciate the rawness of each tweet. There is no filter or middle man between his thoughts and the rest of the world.

I won't repost all of his tweets (check out his Twitter stream if you want the whole thing), but I do want to highlight a few of the tweets that encapsulate the raw nature of Sunday's barrage of tweets:

- "Had to let employees go... for the first time I felt the impact of my brash actions ... I felt the recession from an ownership side"

- "How deep is the scar... I bled hard.. cancelled tour with the number one pop star in the world ... closed the doors of my clothing office"

- "That's when you realize perception is reality. I've been straying from this subject on twitter but I have to give it to you guys raw now."

- "If you google Asshole my face may very well pop up"

- "I'm the guy who at one point could perform the Justin Timberlake on stage and everyone would be sooo happy that I was there"

- "When I woke up from the crazy nightmare I looked in the mirror and said GROW UP KANYE ... I take the responsibility for my actions"

- "These tweets have no manager, no publicist , no grammar checking... this is raw"

- "It starts with this..."

- "I'm sorry Taylor."

A few months ago, we would never have heard something like this from Kanye West. That's because his publicity team would never have let him say these things.

Then he got a Twitter account, giving him an opportunity to talk to his fans and to the rest of the world directly, without anybody to say "no."

Social media has changed the way we communicate. Information has never traveled faster. It has created frank and transparent conversations. It has given people a chance to directly express their thoughts to the rest of the world in a mater of seconds.

For years we've chronicled the amazing impact Twitter has had on our world here on Mashable.

In 2008, a Berkeley grad student used Twitter to tell his friends he was arrested in Egypt, leading to a mobilization effort that got him out of jail. Last year, Twitter rose to prominence for its role in theIran Election crisis. Earlier this year, Twitter showed us the devastation in Haiti in a way that has never been possible.

These are just a few examples of what Twitter has done. While Kanye West's tweets don't come close to the level of importance these events carried, his raw line of communication is another shining example of just how Twitter has changed our lives. Information has been set free.