Twitter Starts Suspending Accounts of Torrent Sites

Twitter has suspended the accounts of at least two torrent sites and removed all of their followers. No reason for the suspension has been given other than that the sites in question “abused” Twitter’s service. Both sites were updating their accounts with newly published torrents daily.

Although it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the sites have been suspended for copyright related issues, another plausible explanation is that the mass tweets of links to torrent files were seen as a violation of Twitter’s terms of service.

“If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates,” say Twitter, your account could be suspended for spamming. Since both sites were doing just this, this mass posting might have triggered the suspension. If this is indeed the case, other accounts including nearly all popular news feeds are at risk as well.

Chavez Hires 200 People to Manage His Twitter Account

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, who only recently signed up to Twitter,  has hired hundreds of staff to reply to tweets.

Chavez  has, at the time of this writing 239,999 followers and enjoys inclusion on 7,539 lists.

With “Verified Account” status on the service, Chavez follows just five others, but it’s unlikely the majority in Venezuela follow him — recent estimates put the percentage of the population that boast internet access at just 31%, although this figure has risen under Chavez’s rule.

However, it seems public engagement with the president’s new online presence has been high with over 50,000 messages reported in the two weeks since he’s been tweeting. So how does Chavez find time to tweet to the people? A newly appointed team of 200 Twitter aides will help to lighten that load, reports the AP. Chavez said of the new hires, “I’m creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances”.

Chavez has also changed his tune on Twitter since he joined and rose to become the number one user in Venezuela. He now calls the service “a weapon that also needs to be used by the revolution.”

Over 6 Billion Tweets Predicted for Twitter

Over 6 billion tweets are predicted for Twitter by 2011.  Pingdom predicts that if tweets grow at the rate of 16% each month, then by January 2011 we should be seeing over 6 billion tweets.  While this number appears high, it will likely be a reality with the popularity of Twitter continuing to grow.

6 Billion Twitter Tweets

Perhaps we’ll see over 10 billion tweets by 2012 if Twitters popularity continues to grow.  With growth like this, you really need to start paying attention to this whole Twitter thing.  Like with any viral application, getting in early will pay huge dividends.

Chavez Invites Fidel Castro to Join Twitter

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said that he would like to invite Bolivian President Evo Morales and Cuban political leader Fidel Castro to join him on Twitter.  Now wouldn’t that be nice, presidents twittering each other about such things as political tactics and world domination. 

Chavez joined Twitter on Tuesday, taking the username @chavezcandaga. His arrival on Twitter was a surprise, partly because only 30% of his country has Internet access (though that figure is far higher than it was before he took office) and partly because he called Twitter a potential “tool of terror” just two months ago.

Chavez — who describes himself as a Bolivarian soldier, a socialist and an anti-Imperialist — said he would use the site to spread Bolivarian revolution. Castro and Morales are two of his strongest allies in anti-American sentiment.

Chavez has acquired more than 100,000 followers since signing up. “This has been an explosion,” he said. Of Twitter in general, he said, “The potential this has … it’s not capitalist, it’s not socialist, it depends on how it is used.”

So sit tight and you might soon see the South and Central American political leaders retweeting one another.  Maybe they will even start a MySpace page or Facebook account!

Big Changes Coming To Twitter

In 9 weeks, 3 days and some change, Twitter will turn off basic authentication for apps, making OAuth the only way to connect to Twitter applications. The Twitter API team has even launched a countdown to what it calls “OAuthcalypse.”

Currently, there are two ways to connect to apps: basic authentication, where you provide your username and password to a third party, and OAuth, which allows you to connect to apps without giving away your account information. As part of a move to make Twitter more secure and stable, basic authentication will be removed on June 30th. Apps will no longer be allowed to ask for your username and password.

Twitter revealed the news and the countdown clock in an announcement on the Twitter API Google group:

“you’re going to be hearing a lot from me over the next 9 weeks. our plan is to turn off basic authorization on the API by june 30, 2010 — developers will have to switch over to OAuth by that time. between now and then, there will be a *lot* of information coming along with tips on how to use OAuth Echo, xAuth, etc. we really want to make this transition as easy as we can for everybody.”

It’s important to note that there is an exception to the new policy: the streaming API, which helps apps gain near-realtime access to certain sets of Twitter data, will still support basic authentication.

The change in policy and the launch of the OAuthcalypse countdown clock are good moves by the rapidly-growing company: it makes the entire Twitter ecosystem more secure while giving developers plenty of time and notice to switch over their apps to OAuth.

Twitter Developing Tools to Rival Facebook Connect

Twitter developers are coming up with new functionality that will rival the recently popular Facebook Connect.  Twitter is preparing to launch a new set of tools that will let third party websites easily integrate Twitter features directly into their web sites and services, multiple sources have confirmed.

Facebook Connect became generally available later in 2008, and it hasn’t looked back since. Today, Facebook says 80,000 websites have added Facebook Connect, and 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook connect on these third party websites each month. For many sites, like our own CrunchBase, it’s the only way to create an account and log in.

Facebook Connect is attractive to a lot of smaller sites simply because it’s so easy to implement. They’ve created a number of widgets that bring Facebook features directly to third party sites, and integration is easy. You can find some of these here on TechCrunch.

Last year Twitter released simply buttons to let users on third party sites sign in to Twitter and identify themselves (we use it in our commenting system).

The new Twitter product will allow sites to authenticate users, pull data and then publish back to Twitter, we’ve heard. All of these features exist today via the Twitter API, but the slick Facebook Connect-like packaging and easy-to-use widgets don’t exist yet.

Twitter is also taking an open, standards based approach. They use OAuth, for example, for authentication and data sharing. Facebook uses proprietary protocols for Facebook Connect.

Stay tuned to Twitter Traffic Stats as we follow how Twitter releases its new tool.

Lindsay Lohan’s Relationship with her Father Hits Rock Bottom As She Tweets Details on Twitter

Lindsay Lohan’s relationship with her father hit rock bottom as she called the man a pathological liar on the website Twitter following his attempt to stage an intervention in her life.

The 23-year-old actress called Michael Lohan her ex-dad and denied his allegations that she is addicted to prescription drugs, reported New York Daily News.

On Thursday, Lohan and her estranged dad, had a chaotic showdown outside her LA apartment. It ended with him threatening to seek a Britney Spears-style conservatorship over worries she’s in a downward spiral of late-night partying and prescription drugs.

He then arrived back at her home with sheriff’s deputies to conduct a”welfare check” on his younger daughter, 16-year-old daughter Ali, who too was at the apartment.

The’Mean Girls’ star then took to Twitter to vent her anger. pathological liar – a person who lies to the point of it being considered a disease or condition, an abnormally habitual liar = MY FATHER.(sic)”Lohan tweeted.

New Phishing Scam Hits Twitter

Twitter issued a warning about phishing e-mails that tell users they have unread messages on the micro-blogging site.  The warning was published on Friday, April 23, 2010.

The e-mails, coming from a support@twitter.com e-mail address, tell members that they have unread, delayed, or undelivered messages on Twitter, and ask them to click a link in the e-mail to view the mystery messages.  These e-mails are indeed spam, but they are difficult to identify for most Twitter users because of the apparent source of the e-mail.

Twitter denied sending out the e-mails.

“Twitter does not send any messages of this type; support@twitter.com does not send notifications in general,” the company wrote on its status blog.

The e-mail itself does not appear to contain malware, Twitter said. The link in the e-mail actually takes users to a pharmaceutical site, though to get to that site, users are re-routed through several other sites, which could contain malware.

“We’re actively pursuing measures to get these sites shut down; in the meantime, we recommend that you not click on the link and instead just delete any such e-mails you receive,” Twitter said.

If you identify any of these e-mails, please delete them immediately to protect your account.

Twitgift for Twitter, another amazing idea to keep you twittering

Twitgift for Twitter, another amazing idea to keep you twittering.  We’ve looked at a number of services that make it easy to give gifts online via text message. Twitgift brings the same functionality to Twitter, but it has some features that make it kind of special.

What we like about Twitgift is that it offers more than just gift cards. The service is only shipping in the U.S. right now and its selection of items is limited, but you can send cookies, a necklace or an Android phone case to people, just using Twitter.

You don’t need to know the mailing address of your recipient — they’ll enter that in when they claim their gift. It’s a pretty nice idea that makes online gifting a little more personal.

We would like to see Twitgift expand its offerings. And while we appreciate the handmade touch, we do wonder about how well an operation like this can scale. That said, this is one of those services that makes us smile.

Tweetomatic Profiteer Combines ClickBank and Twitter Together For Online Cash Earnings

If you’re struggling to make money online, Tweetomatic Profiteer is exactly what you need to explode your online cash earnings.

Tweetomatic Profiteer Combines ClickBank and Twitter Together For Online Cash Earnings that makes marketers an extreme autopilot income.

Take a Look at Just Some of the Benefits!

No Time – set it up with five clicks and get started instantly – instant automated traffic that you can profit from on day 1.

No Cost – it’s completely free to get started and generates its own free traffic on 100% autopilot.

No Hassles – push button tool with no techy knowledge or of affiliate marketing needed.

Visit Tweetomatic Profiteer Online for the entire story.

You’re about to find out how a guy who, 3 years ago, didn’t even know what a web browser was, together with a friend who was stuck in his miserable corporate job, created a simple $13k a month system…and now they’re handing you the exact same blueprint…

Unless you get really lucky, you could spend years – and a ton of cash – before you find anything mediocre, let alone brilliant.

And that’s assuming you haven’t given up or run out of money before then. It’s by no means a sure thing.

Each week seems to herald the arrival of a new guru or a new product from the same old names.

Now, tell me if I’m wrong, but most of what we see is the same old stuff. It’s just being churned out with a new name.

Sure, there are a few decent products out there. But how do you go about finding them?

If you’re in a full-time job with a family to look after, how do you go about separating the good from the bad, and the downright ugly? And without burning a hole in your pocket?

Let’s say you come across something exciting. A new product from one of those so-called “gurus”. It’s the “next big thing” and is going to make you filthy rich in no time at all.

A week later, suddenly the system’s not quite as simple as they made out. Or the techniques don’t work quite as the track record claimed.

Then your first attempt loses money. You panic.

You try again and again, and then once more. But all you get are failures. Now, you don’t know where to turn, or what to do. You end up nursing a huge loss and yet more frustration.

All you want is something that works.

Some of you may have spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars already on get rich quick products. By the end of this year you’ll probably have wasted another couple of hundred dollars on useless ebooks.

And you already know that you probably won’t make a single cent back.

We know what that feels like.

We’ve been there and we’ve seen it all. We’ve tried it all: Pay Per Click, SEO, MLM, Blogging, Adwords, Ezine Ads, Free Ads, Ebay…

You get the picture. Those were crushing times.

Sadly we still see people making the same mistakes.

I’m not going to tell you that our method’s some kind of lottery ticket. Believe me when I say there’s no such thing as instant, effortless online profit. We’ve been around long enough to know that.

Visit Tweetomatic Profiteer Online for the entire story.

But here’s what you need to understand:

You CAN succeed in making a good living online. You can kiss the day-job and the alarm clock goodbye further down the line.

It’s not as hard as you think. You just need the right knowledge and the right tools.

There were so many times when I was close to giving it all up and going back to my mind-numbing day job.
And then “it” happened. A breakthrough which I’d been yearning for, for years. I discovered something radically different.

Something to this day that is new and insanely effective.

What I’m talking about is Twitter. I became addicted to it instantly. A couple of months later, through a mutual friend, I met Imran. He’s also a Twitter nut and like me a full-time affiliate marketer.

If there’s even one person watching this video who hasn’t heard of Twitter I’d be shocked.

With a growth rate of over 1,300%, you’d have to be living in a cave.

If you’ve heard of it but not tried it before, let me quickly fill you in.

Twitter’s a free service that allows its users to send and read messages known as “tweets”. A tweet has to be short – no more than 140 characters – and you can send them to people who choose to follow your updates.

Twitter’s known as a “social networking service” but we prefer to call it an “information network”.

If you have interesting info, people are going to want to subscribe to your updates and find out more.

The most important thing to take on board is that Twitter is FREE and sending a Tweet is EASY And INSTANT.

So you can fire out a free message to thousands of people who can read it instantly.

For years, we’ve racked up costs on Google Adwords, Google Adsense and websites. We fell for that old saying: you’ve gotta spend money to make money.

It’s simply not true.

If you’ve used any of these methods, you’ve probably noticed that they’re getting more and more expensive.

Actually, any paid advertising method is getting expensive, even Yahoo and MSN.

Those marketers who continue to use them are frittering away their hard earned cash in seconds. It’s a dog-eat-dog environment, and it’s so saturated that it’s hard to make anything at all, anymore.

I’m sorry if you use these methods but you need to understand this: costs are high. The market is saturated. The only pockets you’re lining are those of the corporate fat cats.

Visit Tweetomatic Profiteer Online for the entire story.

With Twitter we’ve found ways to get HUGE volumes of 100% free and targeted traffic.

By “traffic”, I mean anyone who’s browsing the net. We then use that massive traffic for the purposes of affiliate marketing.

Pretty much every company on the planet, from Sony to Sanyo, from Microsoft to Motorola has an affiliate program of some kind.

Affiliate marketing is so profitable because of the sheer level of commission you can make on each sale.

You can often make an amazing 75% of the product price, even when the product is sold for thousands of dollars.

One of the biggest online marketplaces out there is ClickBank. In case you didn’t know, more than 12,000 vendors sell digital products on ClickBank.

Over 100,000 affiliate marketers are registered with them.

In fact, on ClickBank an affiliate makes a sale somewhere in the world every 3 seconds!

So where is this going?
Well, ClickBank and Twitter are two of the hottest trends out there, as far as making online profit goes.

We focused on combining the amazing potential of both.

Here are a few things you don’t need to use Tweetomatic Profiteer:

You don’t need to know a thing about affiliate marketing or business to profit from this. Even an 8 year old could use this software and make a profit.

You don’t need a website or any great techie knowledge. If you can watch this video, send and receive emails and use a simple application like Microsoft Word, you’ve already got the skills.

You don’t need stacks of money. In fact you don’t need a dime, because our software locaets free traffic. All you need is an internet connection, an account with Twitter and one with Clickbank – and they’re completely free.

Here’s what you can do with our software:

You can get started within 30 minutes. Our methods work for anyone. We’ll walk you through our push-button software, so there’s no excuse not to profit. Even from your first campaign. And you can set up as many campaigns as you like.

You can profit part-time, working only a few minutes each day. Once you’re up to speed, the entire process can take as little as 20 minutes. So you can still get on with your life.

You can relax. The software automates so many of the processes. Building your Twitter following, scheduling tweets, searching ClickBank for the best products, generating the affiliate links to tweet…the list is endless.

Visit Tweetomatic Profiteer Online for the entire story.

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