140Char

Stolen Twitter accounts appear to be commanding a premium amongst hackers sharing details on forums.

Data stealing software is a risk to your details for any site, but according to Kaspersky researcher Dmitry Bestuzhev, he’s seen  a Twitter account with just 320 followers offered for as much as $1000. In this case, the three-letter username may have influenced the price.

That compares with Gmail accounts for $82, Rapidshare accounts for $5 per month, and other sites including Skype and Facebook. Bestuzhev also went on to say Kaspersky had detected 70,000 data stealing programmes in 2009, which is twice as many as in 2008.

Twitter is likely to be a preferred route to spread malware as links can spread in near real-time to hundreds or thousands of followers – each of whom can quickly and easily repeat a malware message to their own network.

Malware messages are also hidden by shortened urls, and with the amount of links spread via Twitter, there’s a good chance people are less suspicious than seeing the same links in an email or IM message.

It’s a reminder to make sure you use a unique password which is a mix of alphanumeric characters, and to change it regularly. Be careful of sharing it with third party sites and tools which aren’t using Twitter’s OAuth protocol, and be careful with links being posted by others – even including people you trust.

(Via Computerworld)

In the past, tweets have been produced on behalf of astronauts, but they were actually posted by someone on the ground…

Now though, that’s changed…

The first tweet to have been constructed and posted from space

So 8.13am on January 22nd, 2010 marked one small tweet for man, and one giant leap for microblogging kind…

I wish I’d been online at the weekend and spotted the following story first, because it’s probably my favourite example of national newspapers completely screwing up reporting on Twitter.

In summary, the Express published a story (since removed from their site), which claimed the BBC was publishing Twitter accounts with 0 or 2 followers. Malcolm Coles was quick point out that the two Express writers had managed to use the figures for the number accounts were Following instead of being Followed by.

Meanwhile No Rock And Roll Fun has a great detailed write-up of the complete article.

Even though the story has been removed from the site, the Google cached copy is currently still available.

The truly sad thing is that many people were pointing out the problems with articles this bad years ago. In December 2008, I wrote about ‘Probably the worst article on Twitter in the world’.

I’m beginning to suspect some kind of journalistic conspiracy – possibly due to the fact @ashtonkutcher has more followers than the UK newspaper industry. Either that or stories about websites are still seen as a bit of quick filler to be rushed through and stuck somewhere to fill a gap. Either way, is it really that hard to find a journalist, writer or blogger who actually uses and understands Twitter?

UK Journalists on Twitter.

Journalists on Twitter – MuckRack.

If you were one of the people shocked and appalled when it was revealed that President Barack Obama never actually used his Twitter account to chat to his 2 million + followers, then you’ll be happy to know he’s now a published Twitter user.

President Obama ‘pushed the button’ on a message on the @redcross account “President Obama and the First Lady are here visiting our disaster operation center right now.” I’d guess the reason it’s in the third person is that it was probably written by someone else, rather than any bizarre third-person view the President has of himself. The next tweet confirmed the historic event: “President Obama pushed the button on the last tweet. It was his first ever tweet!”

It’s interesting that someone persuaded him to tweet on behalf of the Red Cross and perhaps raise a little more awareness and support for their work dealing with the Haiti disaster – it’s got 50,000 followers as opposed to ‘his’ own account @barackobama with over two million, which surely would have raised more funds?

And before anyone starts getting their hopes up that they’ll be exchanging @ replies and DMs with the President himself from now on – I suspect there are still a number of reasons why we won’t see him regularly tweeting – not least the potential security risk of disclosing his location. Which I guess also rules out Foursquare…

Should Twitter let you post more than 140 characters, include more metadata in tweets, or include embedded images?

Two prominent internet voices, Dave Winer and Robert Scoble have both recently posted their views on how Twitter should improve it’s core product. Dave Winer proposes that using the basis of SMS as a reason for not expanding the core capabilities of the service is wrong, and that Twitter is really SMS 2.0.

Meanwhile Robert Scoble uses the claim Twitter’s web traffic is flat to suggest 14 ways for the service to become more engaging. Number 1 is to remove the 140 character limit and to allow photos and videos in line to ‘communicate something more than the metaphorical equivalent of a grunt.’

The question is whether either of them is right – from a more technical standpoint, I think there’s a valid viewpoint that Twitter could expand the data accompanying a tweet in some way to give more value when it’s referenced by other services.

But I think it’s an incredibly bad idea for Twitter to lose the 140 character limit, and allow inline photos and videos.

For starters, a service already exists for that, called Facebook. Scoble references it as a more entertaining service for that reason, but I wouldn’t agree. Twitter is fun and engaging in creating conversations and quick observations – for both work and pleasure, whereas Facebook is a way to catch up on all the intimate details of your close family and friends.

It also ignores the myriad of ways that people interact with Twitter already – if I want the basic web service on PC or mobile it’s available. If I want greater adaptability, there’s Tweetdeck, Seesmic or many of the other clients. A huge number of clients are available to cater to almost every need – therefore removing the problem of Twitter attempting to do it. Every change made by a major social network is analysed endlessly, and attempting to please everyone results in something which pleases noone.

Increasing the scope of Twitter also infringes on the Twitter ecosystem of third party businesses – embedding images instantly removes the need for the likes of Twitpic, and suddenly increases storage costs for Twitter.

And suddenly you lose a unique network, and instead you have a Facebook also-ran.

So now – I don’t think we should lose the 140 character limit just yet.

Sky News is installing Twitter client Tweetdeck as default software across journalists computers to encourage and integrate social media for newsgathering and reporting, as revealed by Journalism.co.uk.

It will be on all staff computers within a month, and as part of the move, Sky’s ‘Twitter Correspondant’ Ruth Barnett will move to Sky’s Westminster bureau. Since her appointment, around 90 staff have their own Twitter accounts, and the idea is to no longer ‘ghettoise’ it as the role of one person.

Sky already publish a feed from Sky News @SkyNews, and @SkyNewsBreak, which reveals breaking news before it’s even made it onto the main website.
“There aren’t so many users as Facebook, but they are deeply engaged and it can be applied in so many ways,” Executive Producer Julian March told Journalism.co.uk.

What’s interesting is that this is an official announcement and policy for all staff – many organisations are already using Tweetdeck or similar tools on an unofficial basis – usually requested on an individual basis. Certainly many of my colleagues at Absolute Radio have been using Tweetdeck for ages, while I currently use Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop together for two different purposes to avoid mistakenly cross-tweeting. Still others I’ve spoken to are using web-based solutions such as Splitweet, removing the need for downloads and installation.

The announcement is also good timing for Tweetdeck, which has just rolled out a new version of its iPhone app, countering some of the publicity around the acquisition of Ping.fm by Seesmic. Official corporate adoption is going to be just one of the measures in the popularity and success of Twitter clients as we enter a period of serious consolidation by the main players.

British hypnotist Chris Hughes is intending to set a record for the largest online hypnosis session via webcast on Monday, January 4th, at 8.30pm GMT.

Apparently he’ll test those that signed up in a 30 minute session for susceptibility to hypnosis, and then ‘Socialtrance‘ will begin.  Epileptics, pregnant women and those under the influence of drugs and alcohol shouldn’t take part, and the aim is to apparently put people in a good place for 2010 as well as introducing them to hypnosis.

And interestingly, although the webcast itself will be done via audio, so all you need is a net connection, comfy chair and headphones, you need to sign up via your Twitter or Facebook account. Which obviously then sends out a message on your behalf to say you’ve signed up. (Examples)

‘Just registered for #socialtrance, the online hypnosis world record attempt with Chris Hughes. Get involved! http://bit.ly/socialtrance‘

It’s been reported in several places that he’s planning to hypnotis people via Twitter, which obviously isn’t true – but it ties into Twitter hype far better than ‘Hypnotist markets online hypnosis session via Twtter’!

Either way, it seems to be working, with just under 5000 people signed up to attend with a little under 48 hours to go – especially considering he originally aimed for around 2000. Whether or not people will turn up, or indeed fall under hypnosis is another matter, but it’s definitely further proof that unusual events and concepts can market themselves pretty well simply by building in connectivity to Twitter and Facebook – which can then lead to media coverage – which then builds on the Twitter and Facebook marketing.