What could have been a simple copyright infringement has become a full-blown circus after the internet got a hold of the tale of Monica ‘illadore’ Gaudio, who had an article published in Cooks Source magazine – without her knowledge any such magazine even existed. Upon contacting the publication, she was told she should be considered ‘lucky’, and that she should pay the magazine for running her story. Dear Cooks Source: What kind of learning disability do you have? This is the internet. We’re gonna find out. “I first phoned the magazine then sent a quick note to the ‘Contact Us’ information page,…

Jeff Bullas had a post up on his blog, Is Twitter About to Terminate Google Buzz, that discussed how Google Buzz is essentially dead. However, I don’t think Twitter killed Google Buzz. I think Google Buzz killed Google Buzz. I had high hopes for it. I really did. I didn’t see it as a Twitter killer or substitution for Twitter, but rather a more social version of the Google Reader Share with Note feature. I thought it might be a nice way to write a few lines about a blog post or news item you stumbled across. And with more blogs disabling comments, I thought it had potential to usher in a new era of blog commenting….

As much as I love Twitter, these issues over stability and scaling are really starting to get to me. For the past several days, the message “Loading Tweets seems to be taking awhile” has bombarded my screen. It’s not clear what the issue is, but Twitter obviously hasn’t yet fixed the leaky pipes. The worst thing of all is that I no longer get to see the Fail Whale, I merely see a pointless useless message telling me that the website is broken. No fun at all….

“People love hugging”, states designer Celina Alvarado. I dunno, Celina, that’s pretty broad. I mean, I like hugging – hugs are pretty fly. But to say I love hugging implies a level of commitment I’m unsure I’m ready for. …and with apprehension of that magnitude, it’s no wonder I’m not even close to married. Anyway, hugs. Alvarado is a fan of them. So much so, in fact, that she has gone to the trouble of developing a wearable device that not only logs the duration and intensity of hugs, but passes judgment on them – and tweets the results. Of course it tweets the results. Because I want to read the Twitter…

Ever wanted to know what Twitter looks like from someone else’s point of view? Wanna see what @the_real_shaq gazes upon when logging in? I, for one, couldn’t care less, but maybe you do – and apparently, so does investor Shervin Pishevar , who’s collaborated with iTunes Instant creator Stephen Ou over the past week to fart out TwtRoulette. I don’t think I’ve ever crammed that many links into a single sentence. Sorry to make a mess of your tabs. Anyway, Twt Roulette is, amazingly, not what you’d immediately think (assuming you’d think of a big button that randomly shows you a Twitter profile (which…

Hey, remember yesterday’s Twitter worm? Wasn’t that fun? Oh, don’t get all frowny, it was a blast. Apparently, it was kicked off by Pearce Delphin, a 17-year-old Australian who honestly had no idea of the chaos that would ensue. “I did it merely to see if it could be done,” Delphin told AFP. “At the time of posting the tweet, I had no idea it was going to take off how it did. I just hadn’t even considered it.” The worm, which allowed JavaScript to be executed within a tweet, required only that a link was hovered over, not even clicked, to perform whatever instructions the tweet provided. Effects ranged…

Twitter’s new look has been a massive hit with users, until this morning when an exploit was discovered that allows javascript to be executed when the user simply hovers over a link. Some are taking advantage of the loophole to Rick Roll friends, but there are some who have been hit with malware. Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah Brown unknowingly sent a link to more than a million followers, many of whom became victims even without clicking any links. The exploit is limited to those using the new Twitter web interface – users not yet seeing the update or those on third party clients…

Twitterphiles hither and yon, gather and bear witness to the new Twitter.com. At a special event yesterday, Twitter unveiled a new iteration of its website, one with a focus on providing a more robust Twitter experience, among other things. The first thing you’ll notice, in this screenshot provided by TheNextWeb, is the absolutely-goddamned-monstrous side pane, which… by the looks of it, doesn’t immediately provide any info that wasn’t already largely useless. I still still still don’t understand Trending Topics, and I’m a complete whore for Twitter. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. But either…

I wish it wasn’t true. Hell, you wish it wasn’t true, too. But alas – according to website designer Dustin Curtis, who’s been rapping with the folks at Twitter ’bout some metrics, the Canadian eunich sensation Justin Bieber accounts for 3% of Twitter’s entire infrastructure. “Racks of servers are dedicated to him,” an employee informed Curtis. As a non-Bieberite (I’m sure the prepubescent hordes who follow him have their own cute little word), this is sort of depressing. So, somewhere in the US, there is a room full of machines dedicated around-the-clock to pushing word of the goings-on of an…

After my outrage at iTunes 10, you may think of me as a nitpicker. Well, you know what, guilty as charged. And while we’re picking nits, I’ve got some frowning to do about Twitter. That sidebar is getting more brutally ugly and obtrusive by the day; multiple links to who I’m following, a search bar that goes largely unused, a yet-more-unused Lists pane, and… who with an IQ over 70 actually follows the trending topics? I mean, Twitter is still pretty simple stacked up against, say, Facebook, but hey, Biz, can you tone it down? Just a bit? Y’know, streamline that experience? You’re probably ready to…