Twitter Opens Account Verification to Everyone But There's A Catch

For several years now Twitter has made attempts at filtering out imposter accounts from the real deal by verifying high profile business and celebrity accounts. For the most part the process and qualifications to becoming Twitter Verified has been a little bit vague to say the least. There wasn’t really a formal procedure to request a verified account, but as of today that has all changed.

Twitter has announced that they have created an online application process that makes it possible for just about anyone to request account verification. There is however, a bit of a catch. Twitter must deem you worthy of being verified - shocking I know but we'll get into that below.

“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification,” Twitter User Services VP Tina Bhatnagar said in a press release Tuesday. “We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to connect with a broader audience.”

Getting Started
The process to becoming verified is pretty simple and for the most part Twitter has streamlined things as much as possible. For starters users who want to verify their account will obviously need to verify themselves, it wouldn't make much sense otherwise right? You''l need to first verify a few things like your phone number and email associated with your account. You'll also need to have an actual photo and bio on your profile, if you are an individual it will need to be a photo and info on you. Twitter may also request that you scan and upload a legible copy of your government-issued ID (such as a passport or driver’s license) to confirm your identity.

If you are looking to verify a business the photos will need to have the corporation’s branding, or the company’s branding. The email address and website associated with the account will also need to point to a corporate or company email address or website.

In addition to those basics Twitter says they may ask you for a few more things, and here is where things start to get a bit tricky. Someone, or a team of someones at Twitter are going to judge whether or not you are worthy of being verified. To do so Twitter is going to ask you to explain to them why they should bother with verifying your account. If the account represents a person, they want to understand your impact in your field. If the account represents a corporation or company, they want to know what your company's mission statement is.

What Does It Take To Be Twitter Verified?
Essentially  what it boils down to is Twitter wants to know if you are truly a person of public interest. What exactly does that mean? Well Twitter says the accounts they are most looking to verify are those maintained by public figures and organizations in music, TV, film, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas. So we are guessing here that they are looking for people that are high profile and attract a lot of attention.

This really doesn't give us much to go on as there doesn't seem to be much in the form of official criteria for what makes one person “of public interest” and another not. We've seen several of our fellow bloggers as well as several media personalities that have verified account while co-workers or cohorts in the same field don't. Either way at least now we have a bit more detail and a bit easier route to take to get verified.

Want To Get Verified? Submit Your Request To Twitter
You can submit your request to verify an account by filling out this form, and Twitter will respond to your request via email. If your request is denied, you can submit another request for the same account 30 days after receiving the email.

Even if you aren't sure if you should become verified or not, I say go for it. You really have nothing to lose here. Just think, if you are verified you'll become one of the 187,000 or so people out of 310 million or so that are verified on the site.

All You Need to Know About Twitter's New Algorithmic Timeline

Sometime change is necessary for companies and their websites to remain relevant to the world and/or to keep the cash flowing. Sometimes those changes are good, most the time they aren't, but almost always they are met with some level of negativity. Hey no one likes to change, especially when they are major shifts to your favorite sites!

Today one of our favorite social media sites Twitter has enacted a major shift in focus. One that has been met with a ton of negativity from users whom have made their opinions well known on the site with hashtags like #RIPTwitter trending for the past few days when rumors of the change first starting going mainstream.

Twitter's new 'algorithmic timeline' feature will display “important” tweets at the top of your news feed, instead of simply displaying the most recent tweets. On the company's blog, Senior Engineering Manager Mike Jahr explained how the new service works, and why Twitter thinks it is something that users will eventually like and want to use. Essentially their reasoning behind this massive change is they feel that by displaying tweets that Twitter thinks you will like best immediately at the top of your news-feed when you log in, you will be more likely to respond to or retweet them, increasing the amount of conversation around those tweets.

To put that into plain English, and to highlight why most Twitter users aren't all that thrilled with the new changes, what Twitter is saying is they are changing your feed so they can select what news they think is most relevant to you and which tweets they want you to see and ultimately engage with first. Basically it comes down to the dollar and their power ability to market sale position and tweets. This gives them more 'pulling power' which in turn means more revenue down the road.

Since they are choosing what is prioritized for you, instead of you just seeing what you want and being able to scroll through your normal feed as you always would, they now have an option to 'prioritize' paid accounts (should they go that route) contributing partners, or more advertisers without them appearing as ads. This shift isn't anything new, in fact is very similar to the way Facebook runs things now days, and well we see how many users hate that!

How Do I Opt-In or Opt-Out?

For now at least, Twitter has said the new timeline feature will be an Opt-In only option and that even after you have tested out and decided for yourself if you want to use it or not you can opt-out. However, we seriously doubt that will last and figure that eventually Twitter will make it go live for everyone. Their choice of phrasing on their blog post explaining the service was odd and seemingly admits it will be 'turned on' for everyone in the coming weeks.

To check it out now, just go into the timeline section of your settings and choose 'Show me the best Tweets first'. We'll be listening to your feedback and making it even better over time. Then we'll be turning on the feature for you in coming weeks — look out for a notification in your timeline.

You can turn the new algorithmic timeline or "Show me the best Tweets first" feature on or off from your account settings page:

On twitter.com:

1. Log in to your account on twitter.com and go to your Account settings page.
2. Under Content, look for Timeline and toggle the box next to Show me the best Tweets first to change the setting.

Twitter for iOS:

1. On your profile, tap the gear icon and select Settings.
2. Tap the account whose settings you’d like to adjust.
3. Under Timeline, tap Timeline personalization.
4. Next to Show me the best Tweets first, tap to turn it off.

Twitter for Android:

1. Tap the overflow icon (3 small dots)
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Timeline.
4. Next to Show me the best Tweets first, uncheck the box to turn it off.

For more details you can view the help center support page and of course if you would like to share your feedback with Twitter you can send them your thoughts, we hope everyone takes the time to! And please feel free to comment below letting us know how you feel about the new changes!

Twitter Finally Makes Popular Live Streaming App Periscope Available On Android

For some time now you've likely heard of the rising popularity of the live streaming app Periscope, which until today was an iOS exclusive.  Finally after months of hearing how great the app is, us Android Geeks finally get to take it for a spin!

Today's release of the Android version comes roughly two months after the iOS version, which has shown to be very popular with more than one million users joining Periscope in its first 10 days on the iPhone app store.The app has quickly become a go-to of sorts for Twitter users, celebrities, and those citizen journalist out there that want to be seen and heard.

For those unfamiliar with the app it offers a couple of basic functions with the main concept of Periscope being the ability to allow viewers and broadcasters to virtually connect anywhere in the world. The app provides the opportunity for those wanting to broadcast to share their experience with others, be it something personal, newsworthy or whatever. With the simple press of a button, broadcasters connect and instantly notify followers that they are live allowing them to view video streams.

For viewers you get the opportunity to see the world from the broadcasters POV. You essentially step into someone else’s shoes, following along with whatever might be happening at the moment. On Periscope, viewers are also encouraged to influence the broadcaster by sending messages, and engagements to create an interactive experience.

At its core, the Android app functions the same as it does in iOS, letting you both watch and record live broadcasts on your phone, but there a couple features exclusive to this new release. The major difference Android users will notice is the addition of useful new feature called "return to broadcast," which lets those watching a stream quickly get caught up to the live action after interruptions like phone calls and text messages. Other changes are limited to UI design and greater control over app notifications.

For those Android Geeks out there that are interested Periscope is available now for download on the Google Play Store, requiring Android version 4.4 KitKat or above. Of course if you do try it out, let us know in a comment below, we'd love to see some feedback!

Twitter's New “Buy” Button Offers In Tweet Purchasing

Some Twitter users will begin seeing a new option tacked on to some of their Tweets in the form of a 'Buy Button' that will allow you to make purchases directly from several select sources. For the test market the social media site has partnered with several major musicians (Brad Paisley, Eminem and Soundgarden just to name a few), retailers such as The Home Depot and Burberry, and nonprofits (The Nature Conservancy) to let you buy merchandise share from their Tweet.

“Users will get access to offers and merchandise they can’t get anywhere else and can act on them right in the Twitter apps for Android and iOS; sellers will gain a new way to turn the direct relationship they build with their followers into sales,” Twitter group product manager Tarun Jain said in a Monday blog post.

Twitter says an entire purchase can be completed in just a few taps. After tapping the “Buy” button, you will get additional product details and be prompted to enter your shipping and payment information. Once that’s entered and confirmed, your order information is sent to the merchant for delivery and all your payment will be secured and processed via Stripe's payment system.

Here are just a few of the current groups and artists listed: 

• Dan+Shay (@DanAndShay)
• Death From Above 1979 (@dfa1979)
• Demi Lovato (@ddlovato)
• DonorsChoose (@DonorsChoose)
• GLAAD (@glaad)
• GLIDE (@GlideSF)
• Global Citizen (@GlblCtzn)
• Hunter Hayes (@HunterHayes)
• Kiesza (@kiesza)
• Keith Urban (@keithurban)
• The Nature Conservancy (@nature_org)
• Megadeth (@Megadeth)
• Mike Stud (@mike_stud)
• Panic! At The Disco (@panicatthedisco)
• Pharrell (@pharrell)
• Paramore (@paramore)
• (RED) (@RED)
• Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams)
• Soundgarden (@soundgarden)
• 9/11 Day (@911Day)

According to Twitter the 'Buy Button' will initially be rolling out to a small percentage of U.S. based users with more availability coming soon

Mute Those Annoying Tweets With The New Twitter Mute Feature

We've all got them, you know those annoying friends on our social media feeds that over share everything! Thanks to a new Twitter feature you can now block those friends while not offending them by totally un-friending them.

The new Twitter Mute feature, which Twitter announced early today in blog post, allows you to avoid seeing tweets from people you'd rather not engage. Leaving them the ability to see your tweets and retweets just as if you were still a happy follower.

"In the same way you can turn on device notifications so you never miss a tweet from your favorite users, you can now mute users you'd like to hear from less," Twitter wrote in its blog post. "Muting a user on Twitter means their tweets and retweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline, and you will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from that user."

People will still be able to see, "re-tweet," or comment on Twitter posts of those who have muted them, but the person doing the muting will not be looped into the activity.

To mute a user from a Tweet on your iOS or Android device or on Twitter for web tap more and then mute @username. To mute someone from their profile page, tap the gear icon on the page and choose mute @username.

New Twitter Update Allows Others to Tag You In Photos

Twitter has added a few new 'social' features to the site, and they are all about sharing pictures. With today's update you can tag up to 10 people in your images as well as attach up to four images to a single post all without wasting any of you 140 characters.

Tag up to 10 people in a photo

Tagging people in a picture is a quick easy conversations starter or any easy way to get someone's attention. With the new feature you can tag up to 10 people in a photo and still have all 140 characters at your disposal, making it easier to connect with your friends or others on Twitter. If you’re the one being tagged, you’ll get a notification allowing you to checkout the photo or join the conversation.

The new feature allows not only tagging of friends but almost anyone on Twitter, so for some this might be an annoyance or a violation of their privacy. For those that are concerned be sure to checkout the bottom of the post for options to select who can tag you.

Share up to 4 photos in a single Tweet

Hitting iOS devices first and coming soon to both Android and the Twitter website, will also be the option to upload multiple photos to a single tweet. Users will be able to share a series of up to four photos that automatically create a collage. Just tap on a preview to get the full image and slide through the group. The ability to upload multiple photos is starting to roll out today on iPhone, and is coming soon to Android so hit your respective app store now to get the appropriate update.

How Do I Turn Off Twitter Photo Tagging?

For those that aren't at all interested in being tagged in photos of others the settings are fairly easy to change. You can adjust notifications, as well as who can tag you, in your Security and Privacy Settings. Under Privacy you'll have three options - allow anyone to tag me, only allow people I follow and don't allow anyone. Simply select which option you prefer and save your changes and you are done, easy peasy! To learn more, read this Help Center article.

Twitter Mistakenly Resets Untold Number Of Passwords

Earlier today several Twitter accounts had their passwords reset and an email was erroneous sent to the users prompting them to change their passwords immediately.

"Twitter believes that your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter. We've reset your password to prevent others from accessing your account," read an email with a timestamp of around 2:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

According to the official statement on the Official Twitter Status page this email was sent in error and those users might not actually have been affected.

We’re committed to keeping Twitter a safe and open community. As part of that commitment, in instances when we believe an account may have been compromised, we reset the password and send an email letting the account owner know this has happened along with information about creating a new password. This is a routine part of our processes to protect our users.

In this case, we unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts, beyond those that we believed to have been compromised. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused.

As always, we recommend that people review these tips on how to keep their Twitter accounts secure: https://support.twitter.com/articles/76036-keeping-your-account-secure#

Even still users that had received the email will need to update their passwords, and just in case anyone else that is concerned that this might not have been in error should do so as well. It is always good practice to change your passwords on a regular basis just in case. Just make sure you follow some of the practices outlined in our recent post Top 10 Worst Passwords of 2012.

Twitter Vows Not To Aggressively Enter The Patent Wars

On Tuesday Twitter introduced the Innovator’s Patent Agreement an initiative proclaiming the company won't use Intellectual Property (IP) obtained from it's employees to entire into the patent wars that many tech giants are waging today.

In brief the Innovator’s Patent Agreement, (draft of which was released on GitHub), will allow inventors working with Twitter, or on Twitter projects to retain control of their inventions and their IP rights. It even applies retroactively to patents the company has already filed and still gives designers and engineers ultimate power even after they leave Twitter. With the IPA Twitter asserts it will not use the patents from employees’ inventions, or those previously acquired in offensive litigation without their permission and would only use those IP patents for defensive purposes.

Does It Really Mean Twitter Is Staying Out Of The Patent Wars?

At present it seems as though almost every major tech company is fighting a legal battle over IP and patents. Apple us suing just about everyone, Facebook and Yahoo are battling it out, Microsoft is always fighting a fight somewhere and Google, well they are just the new whipping post on the block.

From the post Twitter may seemingly be saying we are staying out of the patent battles. But are they? Lets take a closer look at the break down of what's behind the Innovator’s Patent Agreement.

First off, what does “Defensive” really mean?

Well at first glance one would say Twitter would only use their IP collection if another company aggressively sues them. That may be, however in this case (and most others) what is defensive and what is in the IPA is incredibly broad and allows for Twitter to interpret almost anything as a defensive use.

The draft agreement defines defensive purposes as follows:

Company, on behalf of itself and its successors, transferees, and assignees (collectively “Assignee”), agrees not to assert any claims of any Patents which may be granted on any of the above applications unless asserted for a Defensive Purpose. An assertion of claims of the Patents shall be considered for a “Defensive Purpose” if the claims are asserted:

(a) against an Entity that has filed, maintained, threatened, or voluntarily participated in an intellectual property lawsuit against Assignee or any of Assignee’s users, affiliates, customers, suppliers, or distributors;

(b) against an Entity that has filed, maintained, or voluntarily participated in a patent infringement lawsuit against another in the past ten years, so long as the Entity has not instituted the patent infringement lawsuit defensively in response to a patent litigation threat against the Entity; or

(c) otherwise to deter a patent litigation threat against Assignee or Assignee’s users, affiliates, customers, suppliers, or distributors.

Note paragraph "C". "To deter a patent litigation threat," this can be openly interpreted to mean they could offensively sue a company they think may be proposing action against them. That hardly seems defensive!

Secondly, "We will not use the patents from employees' inventions in offensive litigation without their permission."

The draft agreement states that:

If Assignee needs to assert any of the Patent claims against any entity for other than a Defensive Purpose, Assignees must obtain prior written permission from all of the Inventors without additional consideration or threat. An “Entity” includes any related entities, where the entities are related by either ownership, control, financial interest, or common purpose.

Clearly this leaves the door open for active offensive maneuvering. Twitter is simply stating they, with the blessing of the IP holder, can sue any company they feel is infringing upon their intellectual property just that they must seek approval of the IP holder before doing so.

This hardly put them in the position of sitting on the side lines, after all what inventor isn't going to want to protect their invention and their IP. Especially with the monetary concerns involved these day.

So while we applaud Twitter for what they are doing, and actually hope they are trying to set a tone that others may follow. I feel as though in the end this may be nothing more than empty gesture.

Top Searches, Tweets And Trends Of 2011

Every year some of our favorite sites release a list of their top searches, hashtags or mentions. Giving us a glance at what has been the most popular items through the year. Most of the time we see celebrities, hot news topics or pop-culture items topping the list. This year however we are surprised to see a few geeky items perched in the top ten for most sites.

Google Zeitgeist 2011: How the World Searched

This is the 11th year that Google has published the Google Zeitgeist list. With Zeitgeist, Google looks at the most popular and the fastest rising terms—the terms with the highest growth in 2011—in many categories across many countries around the world. This year they've incorporated several changes including improved visualizations, added detailed infographics and even adding in a few extra lists featuring sports, entertainment, people and news.

Google's Top Searches

1. Rebecca Black
2. Google +
3. Ryan Dunn
4. Casey Anthony
5. Battlefield 3
6. iPhone 5
7. Adele
8. 東京 電力 (TEPCO) Fukushima I Plant
9. Steve Jobs
10. iPad 2

For us geeks Google also released a list of the fastest growing searches for consumer electronics. Amazon's Kindle Fire topped that list, followed by Apple's iPhone 4s, the Sidekick 4g Android phone, the HP Touchpad and the Android app Spb Shell 3D.

Yahoo's 2011 Year In Review

This year Yahoo has also expanded their list. Not only does it included the top 10 search terms but also some culture items which includes top scandals, heroic acts and extreme weather.

Yahoo Top 10 Searches

1. iPhone
2. Casey Anthony
3. Kim Kardashian
4. Katy Perry
5. Jennifer Lopez
6. Lindsay Lohan
7. “American Idol”
8. Jennifer Aniston
9. Japan Earthquake
10. Osama bin Laden

Top 2011 Searches from Bing: A Year of Breakthroughs and Heartbreaks

Instead of a traditional top ten list like Google and Yahoo have provided. The fine folks over at Microsoft have chosen to give us several lists of their top search terms broke down into the following categories:

• People
• News Stories
• Sports Stars
• Musicians
• Consumer Electronics
• TV Shows
• Movies
• Celebrity Events
• Destinations
• Other Interesting Searches

Wonder what people are talking about on your favorite social media sites?

On Facebook the death of Osama bin Laden was the most talked about topic in 2011, with nearly 10 percent of English-speaking Facebookers posting about it on May 1. Facebook refers to the tracking of these trends as "memology," which they have detailed in an extensive blog post.

Facebook says, "Memology takes the pulse of this global community by comparing this year's status updates to last year's, unearthing the most popular topics and cultural trends - or memes - emerging on Facebook. Whether it's hmu, lms or tbh, each year brings a new set of three letter acronyms that go viral."

For you tweeters out there Twitter has released a list of the top hashtags of 2011. The post is part of the sites year in review series which highlights the leading topics and hashtags of the year.

"The list of Hot Topics and Top Hashtags charts the keywords that rose the fastest in conversation over the course of the year," Twitter wrote in a blog post. "This reveals what grabbed our attention most dramatically in 2011, and which events, inventions, changes, and ideas made the deepest impression on us."

Popular question and answer site Ask.com released its list of top 10 questions for 2011 by category.  

Top celebrity search terms and questions include:

1. Kim Kardashian: Was Kim Kardashian's wedding fake?
2. Justin Bieber: Is Justin Bieber going to be a dad?
3. Lady Gaga: Are Lady Gaga's face implants real?
4. Beyonce: Did Beyonce fake a baby bump?
5. Kate Middleton: Who made Kate Middleton's wedding dress?
6. Ashton Kutcher: Did Ashton cheat?
7. Michael Jackson: Was Michael Jackson murdered?
8. Selena Gomez: Is Selena Gomez pregnant?
9. Lindsay Lohan: Is Lindsay Lohan going to jail?
10. Charlie Sheen: What happened to Charlie Sheen's teeth?

Top news search terms and questions include:

1. Earthquake in Japan: How big was the earthquake in Japan?
2. Hurricane Irene: What caused Hurricane Irene?
3. Steve Jobs: How much was Steve Jobs worth?
4. Royal Wedding: What did William whisper to Kate on the balcony?
5. Occupy Wall Street: Who started Occupy Wall Street?
6. iPhone: When will Apple release the iPhone 5?
7. Osama Bin Laden: Who killed Bin Laden?
8. Casey Anthony: Where is Casey Anthony hiding?
9. 10th Anniversary of September 11: What is happening on the 10th anniversary of 9/11?
10. Amy Winehouse: How did Amy Winehouse die?

Top political searches and questions include:

1. Barack Obama: Will Obama get re-elected?
2. Mitt Romney: What is Mitt Romney's religion?
3. Sarah Palin: Is Sarah Palin running for president?
4. Michele Bachmann: Is Michele Bachmann crazy?
5. Anthony Weiner: Where can I find Anthony Weiner's Twitter pics?
6. Arnold Schwarzenegger: Who was Arnold's mistress?
7. Gay Marriage: Which states allow gay marriage?
8. Withdrawl from Iraq: When will the troops come home?
9. Iowa Caucus: When is the Iowa caucus?
10. Muammar Ghadafi: Who will lead Libya after Ghadafi?

Top predictions for 2012:

1. George Clooney wins his second AND third Academy Award
2. Dr. Oz surpasses Dr. Phil in ratings in a post-Oprah world
3. Green Bay Packers wins Super Bowl second year in a row
4. McDonald's adds the McRib to its permanent menu
5. New York reclaims its spot as top the US travel destination from 2011 leader Orlando
6. Breakout star of 2011, Nicki Minaj, leapfrogs pop icon Katy Perry in album sales
7. Pippa jumps onto the list of top ten baby names of the year
8. Facebook goes public with world's largest IPO
9. Tiger Woods retires from golf
10. And, finally…will the world end in 2012? Spoiler alert! IT WON'T

Everyone Is Getting In On The 'Button' Game

We've seen them all around the web. Facebook has its Like button, StumbleUpon has their stumble button and Twitter has a retweet button. This week however we were introduced to two new buttons with reports of a third major site releasing one of their own.

The first of the new button army comes courtesy of Twitter which revealed a new Follow Button. The new Twitter Follow Button allows visitors to instantly follow Twitter accounts directly from any website. It gives readers one click access to a pop out which features a snapshot of the button users Twitter profile and Tweets. Giving your viewers easy access to follow your Twitter account.

The second button in this button onslaught that we'll see populating web pages soon is the new Google +1 button. Google started rolling out the +1 button in March via their search results. On many Google search page you'll see a small +1 symbol next to your results allow you to recommend content to your friends and contacts directly from the Google search results and ads. This week Google announced plans to allow webmasters to add a Google +1 button to any site on the web. Making it quicker and easier for you to share those sites with your Google social circle.

Not to be left behind is LinkedIn who is reportedly set to launch a button for employers’ websites called “Apply With LinkedIn”. Unlike the others that promote sharing this new button allows job candidates easy access to LinkedIn to submit their LinkedIn profiles as resumes.

The new button, which will be displayed alongside job descriptions on partner sites, features a pop-up box with a prompt to sign into LinkedIn. The user is then given the option to edit parts of his or her LinkedIn profile and contact information. There is also an option for employers to add a few quick questions for potential employees to answer. Once the user finalizes the application by clicking a “Submit Application” button the box then displays an application confirmation, and displays either additional job openings at that company or a list of the user’s LinkedIn contacts who are affiliated with the company to which he or she has just applied.

The new Twitter and Google buttons are currently out in the wild and can already be found on several major sites. There is no word on when the "Apply With LinkedIn" might go live but I'm sure we'll see it soon.

TweetDeck Officially Bought By Twitter For A Cool $40 million

In two separate announcements Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and TweetDeck Founder and CEO, Iain Dodsworth, officially put an end to the rumors and speculation that Twitter would be buying TweetDeck. The terms of the deal weren't disclosed however CNN.com reported Tuesday that Twitter was buying the maker of the very popular TweetDeck applications for $40 million in cash and stock.

"This acquisition is an important step forward for us," wrote Twitter CEO Dick Costolo in a blog post on the official Twitter blog. "TweetDeck provides brands, publishers, marketers and others with a powerful platform to track all the real-time conversations they care about. In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love."

Dodsworth also confirmed the announcement in his own TweetDeck blog post.

There is no word whether or not Twitter will keep moving forward with development of TweetDeck, something that concerns many of the applications users. Dodsworth would only confirm that his team would remain intact for now. Stating, "Change may well be inevitable, but we remain the same team, staying in London, with the same focus and products, and now with the support and resources to allow us to grow and take on even bigger challenges."

Hopefully Twitter won't strip down the application or the team and the company will allow them to continue to work on bettering an already great piece of software!

Twitter Hit With Major XSS Hack

Just after 7:30am EST this morning Twitter was hit with a major XSS hack that spread like wildfire. The bug was first discovered by security researchers at Kaspersky Lab who then noted that the several Twitter accounts had already been hit.

"Apparently, there is an actively exploited XSS vulnerability on Twitter. From my first preliminary analysis, you'll have to hover over a link to activate it and so far I have just seen some proof of concepts from people I follow. However, this vulnerability looks at least semi-wormable, so better turn JavaScript off on Twitter for now," Kaspersky Lab researcher Georg Wicherski said in a blog post on the bug.

In all it is expected that more than 500,000 users may have been hit by the the exploit before Twitter could patch the hole. According to a post by Del Harvey (@delbius), the head of Twitter's Trust and Safety Team the security hole was patched at about 9:45 AM ET.

The original attacks leveraged a common javascript feature, onmouseover, which showed a pop-up window that displays the logged-in user's Twitter cookie. The attack later incorporated a cross-site request forgery component that forced users to retweet a piece of code.

Update: Twitter has now responded to the issue: All about the "onMouseOver" incident

Twitter's @earlybird Service Kicks Off With New Deals

Last week, Twiiter unveiled a new daily deal service that will deliver tweets on exclusive offers, previews, and events from the companies select advertising partners. The new service called, @earlybird, officially launched their first set of offers this morning partnering with The Walt Disney Studios.

For a limited time, @earlybird followers in the U.S. can get a special deal on tickets for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” a new feature film from Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films that opens in theaters today.

Get 2 for 1 tickets at Fandango theaters to Sorcerers Apprentice while supplies last! Click for rules and limitations! http://t.co/zEgBXjn.

Twitter has not announced any further official partners but they are promising deals ranging from entertainment, fashion, technology, beauty and travel in the coming days and weeks.

Win A Free Copy Of Windows 7 With The #WinWin7 Twitter Contest

As part of a promotion to reach 77,777 followers by the Windows 7 launch date on October 22nd the Windows Outreach Team on Microsoft’s official Windows Twitter account @MSWindows has been busy giving away some great prizes to their followers.

The #WinWin7 Twitter contest, which officially launched earlier this month, will run throughout the next 7 weeks. The Windows Outreach Team will use the official MS Twitter page @mswindows to give away prizes all based on the number 7 (for Windows 7). Winners must take part in the challenges and are encouraged to invite friends to join in on the fun which all culminates on launch day - October 22nd.

The Windows Outreach Team has already given away great MS items like Microsoft mouse and keyboard combos, gaming keyboards, 7 hot pizzas and 7lbs of candy (yes these are odd prizes). At a given point in the contest the team will select one one lucky follower to give out a copy of Windows 7 to. Starting there, they will continue to give away a copy of Windows 7 for every 2,000 followers (so, at 44,777 then 46,777 and on and on). For those good at math, the more people that join, the more chances everyone has of winning a copy of Windows 7.

All followers of @MSWindows are eligible, both new and old follower. So far they are at 45,228 (as of post time), so we need to enlist another 1,549 followers to reach the next "7" milestone.

When the magical number of 77,777 is reached, the Windows Outreach Team has some great prizes to hand out. No word on what these prizes might be but Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc promises they will be great prizes.

Twitter Updates Their TOS

Twitter today announced a new terms of service. Twitter founder Biz Stone says the new upgrade to the TOS "more appropriately reflect the nature of Twitter and convey key issues such as ownership. For example, your tweets belong to you, not to Twitter."

Ownership over posts as well as shared materials have been a key topic of debate amongst users of other social networking sites like Facebook. In those cases the sites have claimed ownership of material, including pictures and have used such materials in ways users have thought were inappropriate. In this case Twitter does have similar wording however they expressly add that you retain your rights to any content you submit, post or display on or through the services.

Here are a few highlights from the updated page which can be viewed here.

Advertising—In the Terms, we leave the door open for advertising. We'd like to keep our options open as we've said before.

Ownership—Twitter is allowed to "use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute" your tweets because that's what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you.

APIs—The apps that have grown around the Twitter platform are flourishing and adding value to the ecosystem. You authorize us to make content available via our APIs. We're also working on guidelines for use of the API.

SPAM—Abusive behavior and spam is also outlined in these terms according to the rules we've been operating under for some time.

TweetDeck Set To Hit An iPhone Near You

Digg co-founder Kevin Rose got his hands on a new iPhone application that I'm sure many of you iPhone user have been waiting on. Yes that's right the very popular Twitter app TweetDeck will be making its way to the iPhone.

According to a post on Rose's blog the desktop application is coming to the iPhone “soon,” and will replace Tweetie as his person favorite iphone app. You can checkout Kevin's blog for some great screenshots of the app in use.

Features include:
- Column based friend groups! (like TweetDeck desktop)
- TweetDeck desktop syncing (make a change on the iphone and it's reflected back on the PC)
- Facebook toolbar like status updates

According to reports at TechCrunch TweetDeck for the iPhone is currently in the process of being reviewed by the App Store. It’s been about 9 days since it was submitted, but we all know how fast (or slow) Apple works and apparently the company is a bit backed up on approvals following its big WWDC conference, so it should launch any day now.

Twitter Worm Writer Gets A New Gig

Michael Mooney the teen that has come forth to take credit for the StalkDaily worm that has plagued Twitter over the past week has found himself a new job building of all things applications for businesses.

Mikeyy told BNO News last week that he created the XSS worm StalkDaily out of boredom and to promote himself and his website. Well Mikeyy it looks like your plan has worked. Travis Rowland the CEO of exqSoft Solutions LLC reportedly spotted Mikeyy's work in Twitter and contacted the teenager. He has offered him a new gig as a programmer doing custom Web application development, primarily geared toward businesses.

Rowland has also confirmed that they'd be putting Mooney to work checking security of their current and future applications as "security analysis for us". He'll be making sure exqSoft's applications are as secure as they can be.

Shortly after hiring new of the hiring Rowland Tweeted Biz Stone asking him not to take legal action against the new employee. Its unclear were Stone stands on that issue but recent actions might have sway him away from any sort of lenience as the newest variant of Mikeyy has been spamming Twitter with links to the exqSoft Solutions website.

Rowland has denied claims that the new worm is acting on their behalf. Tweeting two post:

Was just informed new Mikeyy is spamming my website all over Twitter, I did not ask him to do that and can't get a hold of him right now. (link)

We did hire him, but we have nothing to do with the current Mikeyy variant. (link)

While Rowland doesn't see Mooney's actions as "malicous" and goes so far as to blame Twitter for not adequately protecting its site at least one security researcher has spoken out against the recent hiring.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant with security firm Sophos told CNet.new that he feels Mooney should not be rewarded for behaving irresponsibly. "The teen not only wasted the time of thousands of Twitter users and company engineers," Cluley said, "but put Twitterers at risk of having their identities stolen or malware installed on their machines by financially-motivated hackers who could have used the cross-site scripting flaw that Mooney used."

Cluley's remarks in his Dark Reading blog echo many of my sentiments on the issue. There he writes, "In my opinion, ExqSoft Solutions were utterly irresponsible in offering Mooney the job and publicizing his acceptance, less than a week after the first wave of attacks. The last thing we want is a a legion of other kids exploiting software and websites, in the hope that they might be rewarded with a job offer."

Is Twitter Growing Too Fast For It's Own Good?

Twitter has seen exponential growth over the past several months but is all that growth too much and too fast? According to recent reports from ComScore Media Metrix Twitter is surging in popularity with the number of visitors to Twitter in March jumping by more than 5 million visitors, or 131%, from February.

It's not news that Twitter is popular and if you are a user like me (@Geek_News) you know why. Twitter provides a great platform to reach out to others. Whether it be tweeting business, sharing blog posts or just tweeting your day to day activities. But all this popularity and growth has come at a price.


Just last weekend the site was hit by a round of computer worms that spread more than 10,000 spam tweets while compromising at least 190 accounts. And other such incidents have disrupted Twitter in recent months as well. Back in January the site was hit by phishers that gained control of several high profile accounts. While both incidents were handled quickly they did show that the site had gained increasing attention by hackers and cyber thieves.

Then of course there is the slew of "over capacity" pages, that have been cropping up more and more as Twitter's servers strain under the burden of volumes of traffic. When I first joined the site it was a rarity to see an over capacity page and rarely did you see the outages or issue we seem to see on a daily basis now days.

So while the growth might be a good thing for Twitter it might not be so for their users. Undoubtedly these things are just part of the growing pains any site feels and they'll be hammered out. But you have to wonder if they can keep up with the fast pace they seem to be off to.

Someone Opened A Can Of Worms At Twitter

Shortly after Saturday's report of the StalkDaily worm hitting Twitter and Twitter's subsequent announcement that they had closed the hole the worm was using, Twitter posted confirmation of yet another worm.

The new "Mikeyy" XSS worm used the same cross site scripting hack as the previous StalkDaily worm and spreads in the same similar fashion. According to Twitter about 200 accounts in all had been infected , sending out about 10k tweets in all. These malicious tweets contained links to an off Twitter site that was used to propagate the bad code.

Twitter says they will remain on high alert throughout the weekend reviewing all the details of the attack, cleaning up the malicious tweets and evaluating their coding for any further holes.

In the mean time BNO News has been reporting that a teenager, Mikeyy Mooney, has come forward and claimed responsibility for the creation of both worms.

According to their first report Mooney created the StalkDaily worm from “boredom” and because he “needed a way to make money." He used the worm and the links posted to drive traffic to his own site. According to BNO News and their follow up post the second worm, which used the same coding, was created by Mooney to "give the developers an insight on the problem and while doing so, promoting myself or my website."

Mooney warns that there might be more attacks on the way, meaning it might be a long weekend for the Twitter staff and those of us that use the site.

Users should take care to avoid being a part of the attacks. Don't blindly click links even if they do come from trusted sources. As always you shouldn't blindly retweet something you haven't checked for yourself first. For the time being you can disable javascript or use FireFox with the no-script add-on.

If you have been affected by Mikeyy or StalkDaily, you should:

1. Temporarily turn off javascript
2. Clear your browser cookies and cache
3. Log into Twitter and check for anything suspicious, particularly in the URL or location. If there’s anything there, delete it fully and replace with your actual URL and location.
4. Re-enable javascript and check the Design section of your Twitter profile to make sure there are no changes to your profile colors. If there are, delete these too and replace with whatever colors you want.
5. Delete unwanted Tweets, specifically anything containing Mikeyy or StalkDaily or anything you don't remember tweeting
6. Reset your Twitter password.

Mashable recommends using Twitter via a desktop client like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop, rather than on the web. The thinking behind this is that the javascript exploit won't work via the desktop clients. I can't confirm that and wouldn't rely on that as a line of defense. You're best bet would be erring on the side of caution and staying off suspicious profiles, not clicking off site links and running FireFox with no-script.

Update -4/13 - As of early Monday morning Twitter had yet to find a resolution to the issue and Mikeyy version 4 was seen spreading through the system. Twitter Status shows that as of 8hrs (2am pst) they were working to solve the problem and approximately 6hrs ago Twitter posted to @Spam that they believed they had a resolution. Considering they thought they had a resolution to the issue on Sat. I'll be on wait and see status to see if they actually got it fixed.

So Called StalkDaily Worm Hits Twitter

According to several reports that began coming in earlier this morning there is anew worm on the prowl and its attacking unsuspecting Twitter users.

The worm, dubbed StalkDaily, because it has been reportedly originating from the owners of the website StalkDaily (Note: Do not visit this website, as it may cause your computer to become infected), has been infecting Twitter accounts. Details of how the infection occurs are a bit limited, however it appears as though it is done through adding a javascript into affected accounts. Other than that details are fairly uncertain.

Update- as I was writing this I found more details.
According to a recent Twitter Status posting the attack was carried out via a cross-site scripting vulnerability. Twitter stated they have taken steps to remove the offending updates, and to close the holes that allowed this “worm” to spread.

What is clear is that once the account has been taken over it is then turned into a bot that spams tweets with links to the StalkDaily website. It is reported that the site can infect your Twitter account even if you do not register or login at the site. So while Twitter has posted that they have closed the hole that allows accounts to spread the worm it may still be possible that the off site attack could work, so users should take caution when clicking off Twitter links!

Mashable and Twittercismis have been advising readers to follow the following steps if they think they have been infected:

1. In your browser, clear your cache and empty all of your cookies. This can be found in your settings.
2. Log out of TweetDeck and any other external applications you are using.
3. On Twitter.com, change your password and ensure that your profile, website, and location have not been changed.
4. Log back in. It should be okay. If so, log back into TweetDeck et al.
5. Go back and delete any tweets sent by you recommending StalkDaily. This is important to help stop the spread of the worm.
6. Report @stalkdaily in a tweet to Twitter’s @spam account as follows: @spam @stalkdaily

For more details about the StalkDaily infection checkout some of the related article below.

• TechCrunch - Warning: Twitter Hit By StalkDaily Worm
• Mashable - Alert: StalkDaily Worm Runs Rampant on Twitter
• Mashable - How StalkDaily Opened a Gaping Hole in Twitter