Exploding Or Eroding Your Brand Via Social Networking

Social media savvy can come in handy while trying to market your business, brand, product, or service; however the Globe and Mail has compiled a list of anecdotal evidence and they've spoken with the "experts" who warn that the opposite can also be true. The truth of the matter is that exploiting social media is like a wild fire rather than a controlled burn, and just as you might hope the winds are in your favour, they'll sometimes turn on you and you'll get burned!

"...where potential returns come with risk, summarized in this warning from Della Smith, the principal of Q Workshops: With social media, “you can do a lot of brand damage very easily.”"

Check out Timothy Taylor's "Are Twitter and Facebook evil?" a short, but interesting read.

Jetman Yves Rossy Aborts Africa To Europe Flight

Yves Rossy, also known as Jetman or Fusionman by some, was forced to ditch in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting an intercontinental jetpack flight from Africa to Europe. The 23 mile flight would have been just 1 mile longer than his successful trek across the English Channel to France earlier this year. According to Gizmodo, Rossy will make another attempt sometime around New Years.

Check out this video, now this is a guy who is truly excited about his work!

Facebook Positioning For An IPO?

Facebook announced Tuesday that it was creating two classes of stocks for itself and converting all existing stock into so-called Class B shares with 10 voting units per share. Class A shares which could be sold at an initial public offering would represent 1 vote per share.

“We did introduce a dual-class stock structure because existing shareholders wanted to maintain control over voting on certain issues to help ensure the company can continue to focus on the long term to build a great business,” a Facebook spokesman, Larry Yu, said in an e-mailed statement. “This revision to the stock structure should not be construed as a signal the company is planning to go public.”

What this does is allows the company, via a public offering, to raise cash by selling the Class A shares on the open market while retaining a firm grip on things with it's Class B shares. While they may be denying that an IPO is in the works the signs are pointing in that direction.

Source: New York Times

Apple Smack Down Ads Continue...

With a plethora of smartphone choices in the marketplace Apple has taken to the air waves again in a show of oneupmanship with the holiday season in full swing. This time however, Apple has not been so bold as to name it's rival, perhaps that's because there are multiple targets? It'll be interesting to see how the competition reacts and who will fire the next volley? Will Google stick to it's "do no evil" motto or will Microsoft see this as an opportunity to shoot back for the I'm a Mac... I'm a PC ads in the wake of the recent iPhone security problems?

Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.

New iPhone Worm Targets Netherlands Users

A new worm detected that targets the iPhone is specifically directed at users in the Netherlands who use their device to do online banking with Dutch online bank ING Direct according to security company F-Secure.

"It's the second iPhone worm ever and the first that's clearly malicious - there's a clear financial motive behind it," F-Secure research director Mikko Hypponen told the BBC.

"It's fairly isolated and specific to Netherlands but it is capable of spreading."

The worm again attacks iPhones which have been "jail-broken" and have SSH (secure shell), a file-transfer program that enables users to remotely connect to their phones, installed.

I wonder how long it will be before we see Microsoft adds poking fun at iPhone's security? "I'm a Windows Mobile, and I'm a iPhone OS"

NASA Fans Plan Shuttle Launch Tweetup

About 100 NASA fans have converged on Cape Canaveral for today's launch of the shuttle Atlantis, with plans to tweet the event providing a virtual play by play. "I'll be uploading stuff as it happens," promised Steve Wake, 38, a computer programmer who flew in from Denver. "On launch day, who knows? I may be too excited about everything else to even think about doing that stuff. When it's over with, I'm sure I will."

NASA invited it's Twitter followers to make the trek with 100 slots, and 50 backup positions, filling up in less than 20 minutes on Oct. 16th. The tweeps will represent 21 states, the District of Columbia, and five countries, including Morocco and New Zealand. Each of which are traveling at their own expense.

Weather is expected to be excellent for the launch schedules for 2:28 p.m. local time.

Source: USA Today

Microsoft Bans Modded Consoles From Xbox Live

Microsoft has banned as many as 1 million users consoles from the Xbox Live service for having modified consoles which allow them to play games they have copied. The users themselves have not been banned, only the modified consoles, users can play on the service if they purchase a new unmoded console. "We can assure you that if an Xbox Live member follows the Xbox Live terms of use, purchased a retail copy of Modern Warfare 2 and played the game on an unmodified Xbox 360, no action will be taken," the firm said. I wonder why it's taken them this long to take such actions?

Source: BBC

Bing Adds New Features

Trying to make further gains on the two search leaders Google and Yahoo!, Microsoft's Bing team have announced the inclusion of results from Wolfram Alpha and a few other changes. According to the NYTimes Bits Blog "Over the next few weeks, Bing will also add a handful of other features and revamp existing ones in what Microsoft calls a “rolling update.” They include localized results for weather and events, a revamped shopping section and an updated preview feature, which lets users see a snapshot of a Web page directly on the search results page. A video describing each of the features is available here."

Even so, it will be a hard slog for Microsoft.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Released

The holiday season is officially underway with the release of what is expected to be this years blockbuster game, and maybe the biggest selling game of all time. Tuesday was the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the must have game for this holiday season. The fifth game of the console series has been highly anticipated and will likely show up under a lot of Christmas tress, if anyone can wait that long. The game industry however has not been immune to the global economic downturn as many believed it would be and is starting to feel the pain. Game developers are saying that they will be aiming for more spread out release dates in the coming year, rather than focusing solely on the holiday season. Most of us will be glued to the consoles and won't notice a thing, there is nothing like COD on an HDTV with the surround sound cranked!

Source: CBC

iPhone/iPod Touch Owners Rickrolled By ikee Worm

A self-propagating program believed to be the first iPhone worm, that changes an iPhone's (or iPod Touch's) wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley with the message "ikee is never going to give you up", has been unleashed in Australia. Known as "ikee" the worm only affects devices that have been jail-broken, have had SSH installed (a program that allows users to make changes to the phone's file system), and who's owners have not changed the default root password after installing SSH.

"What's clear is that if you have jail-broken your iPhone or iPod Touch, and installed SSH, then you must always change your root user password to something different than the default, 'alpine'," wrote Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos.

"In fact, it would be a good idea if you didn't use a dictionary word at all."

Source: BBC