In a world where people can be sued by taking their Twitter account with them when they leave a company it is no surprise that people will also want to know how much their Twitter account might be, although for the 99% of us that will going running to “What’s My Twitter Account Worth” the pennies it ‘calculates’ it is worth won’t buy you a coffee.

Assuming though that it turns out that your Twitter account is actually worth something the question that then remains is how do you sell, and not to look a gift horse in the mouth who would want to buy it?

However just as with Google’s vanity searches this cutesy site is another way for you to massage your ego should it need massaging, and beside you can have some fun and see who actually is worth a lot of money (Lady Gaga: $9,501,240 – ya you read that right .. $9 Million) and how you compare against them.

For those that are curious my Twitter account is worth all of $220.00, any buyers?

via All Twitter

Ever wonder how much your Twitter account is worth? Now you can find out. is a post from: The Inquisitr

Hamza Kashgari, 23, was forced to flee his country this week after tweets he posted involving the Prophet Mohammed led to calls for his execution by radical Islamists.

The young Saudi Arabian man sent the following tweets addressed to Mohammed:

“I have loved the rebel in you, you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me.”

He then tweeted:

“I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you,” and “I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.”

Following his bold statements he received more than 30,000 responses, mostly negative against his public use of Mohammad as an equal.

While Kashgari managed to delete his Twitter account his home address was eventually posted online through the video streaming website YouTube and vigilantes looking to end the young man’s life began staking out his Mosque which led to fleeing the country.

In the meantime a leading cleric in the country has demanded that me be tried for apostasy which is punishable by death while the countries king issued a warrant for his arrest.

Speaking to local media Kashgari said:

“I’m afraid, and I don’t know where to go. “

Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan wrote that Kashgari “crossed the line” and “We’ve never had our own Salman Rushdie before.”

The location of Kashgari has not been revealed for his own protection and he will likely never be allowed back in his country without the threat of violence or quite possibly death.

Do you think calls of an execution against the Saudi Arabian man are ridiculous and a bit mid-evil?

Tweets About The Prophet Mohammad Lead To Execution Threats Against Twitter User is a post from: The Inquisitr

Following Super Bowl XLVI CNN commentator Roland Martin sent off some offensive homophobic tweets that have landed him in a suspended position with the cable news network.

Following the game Roland was tweeting about David Beckham’s underwear commercial when he wrote:

“If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!”

Roland then made a few more homophobic statements, here’s a screen grab of those comments as posted on the commentators personal Twitter account.

In their response to the incident CNN jumped into the conversation:

“Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive.  Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated.

We have been giving careful consideration to this matter, and Roland will not be appearing on our air for the time being.”

Here’s a screen capture of Roland’s tweets:

Following his messages Roland Martin released this apology:

Fam, let me address the issue that some in the LGBT community have raised regarding some of my Super Bowl tweets yesterday.

I made several cracks about soccer as I do all the time. I was not referring to sexuality directly or indirectly regarding the David Beckham ad, and I’m sorry folks took it otherwise.

It was meant to be a deliberately over the top and sarcastic crack about soccer; I do not advocate violence of any kind against anyone gay, or not. As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, anytime soccer comes up during football season it’s another chance for me to take a playful shot at soccer, nothing more.

The length and terms of his suspension have not been revealed.

Roland Martin Suspended By CNN Over Offensive Tweets is a post from: The Inquisitr

Everything these days seems to have to revolve around social media in one way or another and one would have though that the huge ad platform of the Super Bowl we would have seen much more of advertisers trying to connect using social media hooks.

Well it turns out that this isn’t the case as fresh analysis from the Altimeter Group shows that 32% of the 87 ads that were run during the Super Bowl stayed away from not only social media but also any online references of any kind.

As Drew Olanoff noted at The Next Web this showed that some companies are still “playing it safe” when it comes to including their online presence in their major advertising messages.

In what I’ll call “playing it safe”, it appears that most companies who did make reference to a presence on the Internet, chose to use their own URL rather than a hashtag or Facebook URL. Why is this? It has to do with controlling the message, obviously.

If I’m company and I’m spending a lot of money on the biggest television stage in the United States, there’s absolutely no way I’m going to ask millions of people to use a hashtag. There’s just no context to be had there and nothing to be gained. As we’ve seen with a recent McDonalds hashtag gaffe, it might actually cost you more money and brand integrity to defend something gone awry.

I have to agree with Drew on this and additionally I find it interesting that rather than push their company’s social media pages on places like Facebook they were opting to only show direct links to their own domain pages.

This hearkens back to a long held belief by many online people that companies and people should have direct control of their online identities and “Google juice” rather than farming it all out to social media data silos like Facebook and Twitter.

While Facebook and the like might be good for spot promotion type things I don’t believe that companies, or individuals who make their living from the web, should be putting all their eggs in the social network providers control.

image courtesy of The Next Web

In year of Social Media everything Super Bowl advertisers stayed away from it is a post from: The Inquisitr

It never fails that when any of the big boys of the web, like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or even Twitter, decide to make changes to any of their privacy policies the web erupts with various degrees of outrage and condemnation. You know – like how when Google announced the other week that it was going to unify all its various privacy policies into one homogeneous  policy.

The resulting furor over the news had the European Union calling for the to slow down and wait, The US Congress has voice concerns about the changes, and we are still in the early days of their move to unify everything.

Of course Google isn’t alone these days when attracting the eye of regulators from governments around the world as we have seen how every time Facebook make changes, even the smallest one, the uproar is immediate and forceful.

To help us try and gain some understanding what is behind all these privacy issues the folks at Frugal Dad has put together a well rounded infographic for you to look over and figure out what is going on. Be sure to let us know in the comments what you think about this whole mess.

via VentureBeat

About this whole web privacy thing – well, it’s difficult [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Or Reddit, which isn’t really a social network but please check out my ragecomic about a donut and upvote if you like it!

Social Networks Explained is a post from: The Inquisitr

As we head into the Super Bowl every company and their marketing teams are doing their very best to get their products in front of as many eyes as they possibly can and spinning everything they do with some sort of Super Bowl theme.

Even more so than previous years these companies and their marketing people are looking to all of the social media services to be their ace in the hole when it comes to getting their message out to “the people” but just as with previous years there are some companies that are falling all over themselves to show how badly they still don’t understand how social media works.

At the head of the list this year, so far anyway, is Toyota as they try to make their Camry brand of car model a hot trending topic on Twitter. The problem is that they are acting more as a mass spammer instead of a company looking to communicate with current and potential consumers; and as Drew Olanoff over at The Next Web points out they seem to be getting a helping hand from Twitter itself.

In what is probably the worst Twitter promotion I’ve seen on the platform since the company launched in 2006, Toyota has created a slew of accounts and is spamming people about what it is calling the “Camry Effect a Friend’ Giveaway!”. The worst part is that they’re all verified accounts, so while Twitter isn’t involved in the promotion, someone at the company definitely knows about it.

All the Toyota CamryEffects accounts seem to be concentrating replying on any message steaming through Twitter that even reference the Super Bowl or either of the teams. The replies by various of the Toyota CamryEffect verified accounts are not about creating a conversation but instead to steer people to their Win a Camry page.

In typical fashion the irritated Twitter users are reporting the Toyota accounts for spamming but nothing is being done by Twitter to reign this abuse by suspending the offending accounts, which is the company’s typical action when any other company or person is reported for spamming.

Toyota learning the hard way that Twitter isn’t a spamming service for its products is a post from: The Inquisitr

Quick, what’s the first thing you do in the morning? Have a smoke, get some coffee, or check your Facebook updates?

It would be seriously interesting to see how many smartphone users indeed wake up in bed and look at their Facebook walls through one barely-open eye. And it seems that while we were busy sharing George Takei’s photos and playing CastleVille, we’ve all developed a bit of a creeping addiction. A study may have actually confirmed that Facebook has addictive properties, not entirely unlike that of alcohol and tobacco.

The Guardian reports that researchers distributed more than 200 BlackBerry handsets to 18 to 25 year old users, and what’s more interesting, the young adults actually used the BlackBerrys to like, go on Facebook and check things. Participants were pinged over periods lasting 14 hours or seven days, and asked to respond about how strong their social media craving was at that particular time. More than 10,000 responses were logged, and more than 7,200 responses indicated a strong urge to update.

While sex and sleep often won out over posting an update or farming crops, alcohol and booze were less compelling- mainly perhaps because, researchers surmise, they carry more financial and other types of costs to indulge, while Facebooking is still free. (Provided you post this picture to your wall and say “we won’t pay for Facebook.” Kidding!)

Researchers noted:

“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs – long-term as well as monetary – and the opportunity may not always be the right one. So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time.”

Are you addicted to Facebook, Twitter or other forms of social media?

Facebook More Addictive Than Booze and Cigs? Study Says Perhaps is a post from: The Inquisitr

Anthony Weiner used contributions from his own campaign to hire private investigators to chase down his own lie regarding his now famous crotch-shot tweet.

According to reports Weiner paid T&M Protective Services $13,290 for “legal services” during the fourth quarter of 2011. That payment was then filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.

Speaking to the New York Daily News one source says T&M was hired to put a spin on the controversy but the plan backfired and Anthony Weiner eventually resigned from his post as a US Congressman.

Apparently Queens police were told that his Twitter account had been hacked however T&M did some digging of their own and confirmed that it was Anthony Weiner himself who tweeted the crotch shot.

Over time Weiner came out and apologized after admitting that he sent the tweet on his own.

Perhaps he can join the Mitt Romney campaign and together they can form an alliance to destroy or hide documentation using taxpayer money, that seems to be a popular thing to do these days.

Are you surprised that Anthony Weiner actually thought he could get away with his Twitter act by hiring a private investigation firm to look into his own act?

Anthony Weiner Used Campaign Money To Cover-Up Own Actions is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter is quite the social network. 140 character blasts that has revolutionized how we communicate and how we get our news. Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter and who used to own Feedburner which was then sold to Google, talked about politics, censorship, and the inevitable IPO.

Recently, they’ve come under fire after they announced they can now censor tweets on a country-by-country basis. This upset a lot of people and the timing was bad, really bad. The news came shortly after SOPA was pulled from Congress and the vote for PIPA was delayed. Because of the censorship news, people started the #TwitterBlackout hashtag as well as others, to protest their decision and were said to boycott the site for a whole day.

This was last Saturday and it’s still unsure how many actually participated in the boycott. Anyways, Facebook is said to be filing for their IPO this week. One question that is being asked is when will Twitter IPO or will they this year?

Via PCMag:

“Costolo hinted that Twitter will also likely need to go public at some point, but said he is not worrying about that right now. Asked directly whether there is going to be an IPO for Twitter in the future, Costolo went quiet for several seconds before saying “I choose not to answer that question.”

Fair enough. In regards to censorship, Dick had this to say:

“There has been no change in our stance or attitude or policy with respect to content on Twitter,” Costolo said. He added that Twitter believes “this is the most honest, transparent, and forward-looking way for a company to deal with the myriad of complex issues around the world that you experience when you have to operate in these countries.”

“Twitter needs to have such a policy to operate in certain countries, Costolo said. The move is not an attempt, however, to expand Twitter into China, where the social media site is currently blocked.”

What are you feelings about Twitter and the ability to censor tweets if required by law?

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Speaks Out On Censorship And IPO is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter who has over 200 Million users, 50 Million of which log in daily, has quite a few celebrities. With many celebrities who have Millions of followers, the money that can be made from advertising is very enticing.

Now, advertising on the social network is nothing new. There’s services that allow anyone to sign up and send out tweets that make them a flat fee or so much per click. Celebrities on the other hand, thanks to Ad.ly, can make a pretty nice fee from advertising products or services.

New York Magazine shared some details about how much certain celebrities make from advertising and even more details can be read in their latest issue.

Via New York Magazine:

Twitter Celebrities Can Make Upwards Of $50,000 Advertising is a post from: The Inquisitr

Courteney Cox jumped on the Twitter bandwagon this week to share her thoughts in 140 characters or less and it turns out those thoughts are geared directly towards her dog named Harley.

The Cougar Town star jumped on the social networking service last week and since she she has been showing off her cute little Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Following the picture above she tweeted on her first day of Twitter use “Somebody loves me.”

Cox has even been tweeting back and forth with fans and with ex-husband David Arquette when she wrote:

“Finally getting the hang of twittering,” and she thanked her 7-year-old daughter for helping her figure out the service by tweeting ”Thanks Coco”

Following along with her new love for Twitter and her already existing love for Harley she tweeted over the weekend:

“After a week of Cougar Town and tweeting.”

That tweeted followed a photo of a sleeping Courteney Cox with Harley curled up next to her head.

I’m all about following people on Twitter who’s work I follow but I’m not sure who Courtney Cox opened the Twitter account for, herself or her little doggy.

Do you like it when celebrities talk about the little details involving their live on social networking websites?

Courteney Cox Joins Twitter, Tweets Lots About Her Dog is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you plan to travel into the United States from another country you might want to think twice before you tweet jokes about destroying American. That’s the lesson that was learned this week by Leigh Van Bryan.

The 26-year-old Brit tweeted:

“Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America.”

After landing in Los Angeles Leigh was questioned by Homeland Security and explained that “destroy” is slang for partying but officials didn’t buy that explanation and sent them packing.

In another Tweet Van Bryan and his companion Emily Bunting were apparently going to find the body of Marilyn Monroe, in quoting a line from Family Guy he wrote:

“3 weeks today, we’re totally in LA p****** people off on Hollywood Blvd and diggin’ Marilyn Monroe up!”

In what was a direct joke from a cartoon officials still didn’t believe him and then searched through his luggage for shovels and spades while the Brits were handcuffed for five hours and interrogated.

After the interrogation they were supervised by guards for 12 hours before their passports were confiscated and they were sent back to Europe.

If they were deported from the United States for a family guy joke posted on Twitter I wonder how the cartoons creator Seth MacFarlane manages to travel anywhere in the world. Perhaps Homeland Security will deport him to a foreign country next.

Do you think Homeland Security went to far in the questioning and deportation of two British citizens who were obviously just telling a few Twitter jokes?

Two Brits Detained In US, Sent Home Over Twitter Jokes is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter has recently come under fire after announcing that they will now be censoring tweets on a country-by-country basis if required by law. With censorship still on many people’s minds, this has raised many suspicions and caused users to voice their opinions.

Now, the reality is that the social network wants to branch out into more and more countries Worldwide. Other governments are serious about censoring certain information and in order for them to be better accepted, they need to provide the ability to censor information if authorities require it.

People find this to be a violation of freedom of speech and, well, they’re protesting.

Via Los Angeles Times:

“Twitter faced a growing backlash on Friday, less than a day after it announced that it can now block specific tweets from being published in specific countries that legally require such censorship. On Friday, a day after the country-specific plan was announced, #TwitterBlackout and#TwitterCensored were trending topics on the hugely popular social network.”

“In the case of #TwitterBlackout, thousands of users from around the world threatened to boycott using the service on Jan. 28, with the hactivist group Anonymous among those calling on tweeters to skip the site for a day. The group Reporters Without Borders issued a letter on its website to Twitter’s executive chairman, Jack Dorsey, asking him to “reverse a policy that violates freedom of expression.”

We’ll see what happens over the weekend there’s sure to be details on how many participated in the boycott.

How do you feel about Twitter censoring information?

Twitter Users Threatening To Boycott After Censorship News is a post from: The Inquisitr

People probably won’t remember this but back during the 1990′s there was a big uproar amongst security folks about a major intel gather project that the FBI was investing a lot of money and energy into called Carnivore that was designed to  monitor email and electronic communications.

Then around 2005 it got replaced by another software package, and not it seems that they are going to replace it with something much better, cheaper, and easier to monitor.

I am of course referring to Facebook and Twitter.

For the pas couple of years I have not so jokingly said that why does the FBI, or any ‘secret’ agency for that matter, need to spend any money on so-called expensive special software to track what we are doing and saying when all they have to do is get access to the Twitter and Facebook firehose of data.

Well it seems that this is exactly what they are going to do if the post over at The Next Web by Harrison Weber is any indication. It seems that the FBI is on the hunt for a development team to create specialized apps that will scrape the social media data pipes and map all that data out in easy to digest formats.

For a semi-detailed look at what the FBI is looking for there is the following badly scanned official document that was posted to the Federal Biz Opps site

“SIOC intelligence staff need a tool to analyse social media focused on the situation in support of crisis operations that meets the intelligence objectives stated above”.

While there are some making light of this and having fun with the idea of agencies like the FBI using Twitter or Facebook as a tool for gathering questionable intelligence the fact is that more and more of our lives are being recorded in one fashion or another by these social networks and it is all searchable if you have the right access – which you can be assured the FBI will have.

Who needs Carnivore says FBI when we have Twitter and Facebook is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter who has over 200 Million users, announced on their blog today that if required by law, they can censor tweets and even on a country-by-country basis. Being that the word censor is involved, this is sure to spark some controversy and debate amongst the Internet community.

With SOPA and PIPA still on many people’s minds, censorship is a touchy subject. People want and require a free Internet and that means freedom of speech is an obvious right. And with the recent protests, people have shown they will fight for that. With that said, users of the social network shouldn’t be too worried about the whole situation.

Via Twitter:

“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.”

“Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it up in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.”

Sounds scary at first, but Marketing Land goes on to explain more.

“So far, Twitter tells me that virtually all of the tweets it has had to pull have been due to complaints filed through the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  That will continue to be the case going forward, and any request made under US laws to remove content will continue to pull that content from Twitter worldwide. However, now if Twitter gets a request to remove content under the laws of another country, it can react to remove that content just for people in those particular countries.”

They’ve been pulling piracy or copyright related content for a while now. This announcement simply means that they may begin disclosing DMCA takedowns, similar to what Google does in search. This new process could also be to help protect the social network if they are to expand in other countries.

“What’s new is that eventually, Twitter may expand to having staff based in other countries. That makes the company more liable to legal actions in those countries, so it needs a way to comply with those legal demands. The new “Country Withheld Content” change gives it a framework to do so.”

How do you feel about Twitter censoring content that the law requires? Good or bad?

Twitter Can Censor Tweets If Required By Law, But Users Shouldn’t Be Too Worried is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter, the popular social network with over 200 Million users, acquired a spam and malware protection company. Anyone who uses the site is often familiar with accounts getting hacked and the sometimes abundant spam that gets targeted at you.

They’ve managed to put a system in place over the years that helps crack down on that and accounts that just spam the daylights out of whoever, whenever, and they’ve done a pretty good job at it.

Now, with the help of a spam and malware protection service, the social network can further improve their efforts to crack down on these annoyances and provide a better experience for everyone.

Via Mashable:

“Gearing up for Twitter’s self-serve advertising launch — currently in beta stage with only a small selection of advertisers — the company announced its acquisition of spam and malware protection service Dasient on Monday.”

“Dasient will be integrated into Twitter’s “revenue engineering team because they have a deep understanding of advertising-platform security issues,” says Rachael Horwitz, a spokesperson for Twitter. The team will be very valuable as Twitter continues to expand its ad products.”

This is a smart move for the company as more advertisers equals more dollars. If too many have a bad experience with spam, normal, every day users as well, that negatively affects the service and could have them potentially go elsewhere.

“Protecting users from potential spam and malware attacks is important for the company’s image and reputation. Sites overrun with malware get blacklisted by search engines.”

Do you have a Twitter account?

Twitter Goes On The Defensive, Acquires Malware Protection Service is a post from: The Inquisitr

Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have been a bit upset over Google’s recent changes to their social search product. If you’re not familiar with the changes, basically it integrates Google Plus results into your normal, every day search.

Now, users can turn off the function, but you still get results from their social network such as people to circle and that kind of thing. It seems that Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace, have actually teamed up and created ‘Focus on the User’ which, using a bookmarklet, integrates Facebook and Twitter into the results.

Via eWeek:

“The output of Focus on the User is the Don’t Be Evil bookmarklet, which taps Google’s own ranking of its organic search results to determine what social content should appear in Google+ results–such as results from Facebook, Twitter and other sources–instead of just the Google+ posts, photos and brand pages that currently surface in Search, plus your world.”

“The tool only accesses data already indexed and ranked in Google.com (via Google’s rich snippets tool), challenging Google’s assertion that it required a deal with Facebook, Twitter and others to use their data in Search, plus your world. “

It’ll be interesting to see how Google takes this and what they will have to say in return. Frankly, it does bring some nice added functionality to the changes in search. Thing is though, Twitter decided to not renew their deal with the tech giant, and Facebook didn’t want anything to do with social search in the first place.

Don’t be evil? You can check out focus on the user here.

Do you think the social networks have a point here?

Social Networks Take On Google With ‘Focus On The User’ is a post from: The Inquisitr

And now it really is over. Katy Perry has unfollowed soon-to-be ex-husband Russell Brand on Twitter, a month after the British comedian filed for divorce from the pop star.

Brand remains a follower of Perry on the social media site, though is not a prolific tweeter – his last tweet came more than two weeks ago. According to a source close to Us Weekly, the pair are now only communicating via phone or email:

“She’s limiting those interactions. He’s being so atrocious that she feels like she never really knew him.”

Neither Brand or Perry have spoken about the split publicly yet, save for Brand telling a UK reporter who approached him in the street that he was “doing alright.”

Perry has remained trickier to find, canceling her appearance at the People’s Choice Awards earlier this month. On January 7th, she tweeted:

“Concerning the gossip, I want to be clear that NO ONE speaks for me. Not a blog, magazine, “close sources” or my family.”

The couple announced they were splitting after some blazing rows over the Christmas period. Perry is rumored to have suggested counseling, only to be knocked back by Brand, who told her the relationship was over. The pair had been married for 14 months.

Some gossip sources have suggested Brand may be writing a book about his marriage to Perry. Another Brand book was always likely after the big sales of his previous two memoirs, My Booky Wook and My Booky Wook 2. If a Booky Wook 3 is in the works, it’s difficult to understand how the marriage won’t get a very public airing.

Katy Perry Unfollows Russell Brand on Twitter is a post from: The Inquisitr

It feels some days that the only reason we use the Web any more is to do nothing but share mundane crap with people who probably couldn’t care less. Oh I am sure there are some gems passed around but one has to wonder just where are we sharing all this crap, and with whom.

Well this is an answer that the folks at Plasick Media and Voltier Media look to answer with an infographic that has gotten shared around the web today, which in itself is more than a little funny if you think about it.

What is interesting is so much the numbers when it comes to the amount of sharing being done but rather how little so called popular social network services are being used. For example 47% of accounts on Twitter are not active or that on 50% of Facebook users log in on a daily basis.

Anyway here’s the infographic for you to peruse.

via Bit Rebels

Sharing is all the rage but where are we sharing all that info? [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr