Now, a new website called ShadyURL.com is generating a few laughs for its service that claims to “make your Twitter followers a little more uneasy.” The web service shortens web addresses into “suspicious and frightening” links that would anyone think hard before clicking on.

For example:
Facebook.com became http://5z8.info/56-DEPLOY-TROJAN-287.mw9—-_i6f3e__init_download
Twitter.com turned into http://5z8.info/trojan_j7r7z_inject_worm

Read the rest of my post for Discover Magazine here.

It’s either “Wow, what a great day,” or a link to some goobaliciously nonsensical crap that they find interesting.

Dude, take a hint! We don’t want yet another update of your “unawesome ” life or twitpic of some random city you went to for a conference. Dunder Mifflin alert!

Anyhoo–now if you hate someone’s tweet–you can poop on it. Not literally, of course–that would be a wonder of science–but through the new iPhone app called “Bird Turd.”

The idea is similar to Facebook’s “Like” option, except this is the “Unlike” version for Twitter.

The app’s description reads: Bird Turd makes Twitter a game. In Bird Turd, YOU are the bird. And when you see a tweet you don’t like, YOU CAN POOP RIGHT ON IT.

The developers explained to Huffington Post: ‘Just tap the screen and the bird will furrow his brow and squeeze out an enormous turd!’ the developers explain. The app’s developer plans to keep track of the ‘most-pooped-on tweets,’ with the worst receiving a bronze, silver or gold ‘turd’ as an ‘anti-prize.’

Wow, an “anti-prize!” I am most amused. Now, go play, while I Bird Turd your tweets.

You might also like:
Twitter Goes To The Dogs, Literally
4 Ways to Attract Followers on Twitter
How Twitter Can Make You Look Like A TWIT

A new product by toy giant Mattel called “Puppy Tweets” lets the whole universe get a peek into your dog’s daily activities. The colorful little device hangs from your dog’s collar, and when it detects movement or barking it sends a message via wi-fi to your computer. The messages are translated into pre-programmed tweets and get broadcast directly via Twitter. Your pet’s twitter followers can stay up to date with the latest as he wakes, poops, and woofs.

Read the rest of my post for Discover Magazine -here.

Haagen Dazs’ ridiculous snafu of having an “offer” at their debut outlet at the Mumbai airport, that claimed to serve only foreign customers infuriated most readers.  For those of you who missed the whole kerfuffle, here’s what happened.

Haagen Dazs outlet shoos away Indian customers

Tiger Woods. Need we say more? Garden variety skanks, cocktail waitresses, and aging porn stars. Tiger got it on with possibly everything that moved. So did no one know about Tiger’s roving eye? What about sports journalists that followed the golfing superstar through his tournaments? Did they see Tiger’s philandering ways? And if they did, were they obliged to write about it?

Tiger in the rough: Should sports journalists care?

For many students in Queens, NYC, overcrowded schools are a constant reality. Each day they jostle and push through crammed hallways, squeezing into classrooms designed for fewer occupants. Some students in Jackson Heights, however, may soon be granted a reprieve.

New school to open in Jackson Heights

Another story from Queens makes the list. This time, holiday fever grips all – as shoppers in New York, look to stay local and shop global.

Queens Holiday Shopping: Stay local, shop global

My mind took a while coming around to this video. Only because I am a crotchety old person that types with one finger- r.e.a.l. s.l.o.w. But here is an amazing presentation by a guy called Pranav Mistry. Ho Hum, so what’s new you say? Well, this guy is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables interactions between the real world and the world of data.

This will blow your mind, make you lose 30 pounds, and help you win ten thousand dollars cash

And this list cannot be complete to a shout-out to all the bigots in the world. Let’s start with America – and our biggest ranter – Glenn Beck. When he is not spouting fake tears on TV – he is busy making nonsensical talk about the health care system in India.  Here he is, comparing the name of the sacred river Ganges to a disease. (Message from India, Glenn: We love you too.)

Lessons from Glenn Beck – How to be a bigot 101

Ask not what you can do for Radiohead, ask what Radiohead can do for you?

Tuning in to Radiohead was one of indiejourno’s big smash hits.

Ben Bernanke says the recession is over, the DOW swaggers to the top of 10,000 and Obama assures us the worst is behind us. Job numbers released this Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics back them up showing a net job loss for November of just 11,000. Here’s our exclusive interview with Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit adjusts to the “New Normal”

You are on Twitter – now what? You are not Ashton Kutcher, so you don’t automatically get a gazillion followers. You are not the New York Times, so still no crazy fan following. You are plain ‘ol you – like me. Here’s how regular folk like you and me can maximize Twitter’s potential.

4 ways to attract followers on Twitter

And with one year slipping into another, let’s not forget that two wars still rage on. As suicide bombings mount and U.S army members combat insurgents, hostile locals and trauma on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan – they also struggle with issues within their own camps. Our story on one soldier’s fight againt sexual harassement within the U.S army drew a lot of sympathy from our readers.

U.S Army Rapes – The Hidden War

Attract new followers and release your inner twit, a la Ashton Kutcher!

You are on Twitter – now what?

You are not Ashton Kutcher, so you don’t automatically get a gazillion followers.

You are not the New York Times, so still no crazy fan following. You are plain ‘ol you – like me.

Here’s how regular folk like you and me can maximize Twitter’s potential.

Max Chafkin writes on Inc.com of the four ways to gain followers:

Get Listed: Create a list, follow a list, whatever. Get listed, get noticed

Follow Others: Follow a bunch of other people – they might be kind enough to reciprocate it. But Chafkin suggests on not going overboard – then that’s the stalker alert.

Talk to people: Instead of being the douche with the constant updates (my words, not Chafkin’s), the author says it helps to retweet – or talk back.  How to do this gracefully? Look for users with common interests and then send them a message. And if someone tries to talk to you, talk back.

Re-tweet: Have nothing interesting to say? Chafkin says “re-tweet” – Find one, copy the message, and send it to your followers with a reference to the original author. (Do this by typing RT and then the @ symbol followed directly by the person’s username.) The author will often pay you back with a reply. And your retweet might just get retweeted — which is confusing, but good.

And if this is all old hat to you, but still feel like you aren’t attracting enough followers – here’s why.

Go forth with this knowledge into the Cyber-universe, attract followers and release your inner Twit. Be the  Twittus Maximus.

The idea, as all ideas do, started off as a great one. Take a billboard with an ad for a local TV station, and have the channel’s latest tweets up on it -like news updates or crawlers, we are used to having our brains bombarded with. But then this happened…and it was too funny to not snigger about.

The electronic billboard for Alabama’s WPMI-TV shows a picture of anchors Greg Peterson, Kym Thurman and Chief Meteorologist Derek Beasly alonside the headline “3 accused of gang rape in Monroeville.”

The headline was under the header “Right Now On Twitter” – ostensibly to show off the station’s “new media mindset” and prove that it has the social media skills to survive in a cut throat market. Hah! But who knew a random tweet can make you look like a large TWIT!

A reporter talks on her cell phone outside the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower on November 27, 2008, hours after the terrorists struck. By Arko Datta/Reuters/Landov.

November 26th would mark the one year anniversary of the carnage in Mumbai, when armed gunmen from Pakistan rampaged through the city by the sea indiscriminately shooting innocent people and taking two five-star hotels hostage.

There was so much that was gruesome about that attack. The sheer brazenness, for one. The fact that someone could just hop off  a boat and start shooting into the crowds.

Then, there was the media coverage – with the Western outlets focusing on the attack as targeting Americans and Britishers and the Indian media falling all over each other, trying to outscoop each other; revealing sensitive information and hampering rescue efforts as they dragged on over 60 hours.

In the end, 117 people were killed in the attacks. Died before their time, because some doped-up, impoverished extremist from a remote valley believed that this would, in some way, be tantamount to achieving whatever it is that he set out to accomplish.

PBS is due to broadcast Secrets of the dead: Mumbai Massacre – a documentary based on the testimonies of those who survived the attacks. It is due to air November 25th.  Check your local listings.  If you don’t live in the United States, you can always catch the documentary a day after its broadcast on the PBS website.

“This film offers an unprecedented, inside view into the attacks,” says Jared Lipworth, executive producer of Secrets of the Dead. “It not only reveals how the victims and terrorists acted during the massacre, it highlights how consumer technologies and social media gave the victims a chance to survive, while also putting them directly into the line-of-fire of the terrorists who were hunting them down.”

The film, made by Australian Elizabeth Pitt, is heart wrenching.

Watching it made me relive the anger and horror I experienced as I watched hour after hour of the non-stop TV coverage of the attacks. I remember being glued to the TV set, ranting on Facebook, G-chatting with friends back home, and checking Twitter for updates. It’s also amazing to note technology’s role in this attacks. From the Perpetrator’s side – there was the use of cell phones, satellite phones, GPS systems and on the Victim’s side – it was text messages from cell phones, blackberries, and I-phones. Nowhere before, have the predators and prey been so wired. It’s chilling to think of how information was used as a weapon and as a means of escape in this incident.

I am not sure what lessons India learned after this attack. But a hat tip to the crazy chaotic nation for not going to war with Pakistan, despite its security being blatantly breached by its rogue neighbor.

For more, read Marie Brenner’s “Anatomy of a Siege” in Vanity Fair (a piece that focussed only on the Taj and its survivors, prompting  author Mira Kamdar to quip “It’s almost as if Ratan Tata commisioned this piece.)

For the last one year, the news has been “Twitter this, Twitter that!”

And now, everybody please adjust your “new media mindset” to welcome a gadget that solely tweets, retweets and lets you view the fabulous jugs of Meghan McCain via Twitpic.

Called TwitterPeek , the handheld device sells for $99.99 (which includes six months of service, and then $7.95 per month after) or $199.99 (with a lifetime service plan). It’s being sold exclusively on Amazon.com.

CNET News.com’s Don Reisinger has some details:

The gadget lets (users) tweet, reply, retweet, send direct messages, and download followers. It supports one (Twitter) account at a time. Users can also view TwitPics by clicking the “view content” option from the TwitterPeek menu.

Ugh. More Twitterers! If you thought having people constantly work on their I-phones or Blackberries wasn’t annoying enough..now with this TwitterPeek thing, there won’t be a chance in hell, that anyone would pay ANY attention to what anyone says! Go Figure! The easiest way to kill communication between real humans is to prop these gadgets in their paws!

Plus, if Twitter was already full of pointless updates like “Oh, my crab cake was delicious” – no, seriously, why would I CARE ABOUT YOUR FRAKKIN CRABCAKE? TwitterPeek is just going to make things worse. “Oh, It’s another beautiful day!” – UGH!

Maybe I am biased. Whatever! Go Play.

Google yourself regularly to map and tweak your online image

When my best friend was visiting, I got her a t-shirt that read “Sometimes when I am alone, I google myself.” In the early days of the search engine, that seemed like a really funny joke.

But these days, googling yourself  is not a mere vanity, it’s almost essential, especially if you’re looking for a job.

Most employers will agree that once the stork delivers your resume into their hands, the first thing they do is check your online presence. So, Bam! Google!

And if the only thing that pops up in their search are racy pictures from your Spring break or incriminating, nasty posts about your co-workers, then that could potentially be a red light for your employers.

So, here is a list of Top Online Turnoffs I came across in Richmond magazine.

Profanity: If you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandmother or on national television, don’t post it online. It may actually end up in front of your grandmother or on national television, or — just as bad ­­— a recruiter.

Inconsistency: When you put online resumes and bios on LinkedIn, Facebook or your blog, make sure they match what you have in print. If you tweak anything, tweak it consistently.

All Play and No Work: Fool around all you want on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. But be sure to mix in some online business — join some industry organizations, actively participate and tweet positive things about your work.

The magazine says it doesn’t help to be totally paranoid and log off Facebook forever. In fact, some recruiters get dissapointed when they look for you online and can’t find your Facebook page. “

“Recruiters want to see pictures of you interacting with others,” says one recruiter in the piece, “they want to see that you are a team player.”

So get going, Google yourself and mend that online image.