The Pirate Bay (TPB) has been acquired by Global Gaming Factory X, a gaming company that provides cyber cafe management software that targets advertising to its users, for a reported $8 million.  Their plan for TPB is to monetize the site with advertising and pay content providers.

This move seems similar to the purchase of Napster, the original file sharing site. Napster had its moment in the sun with the highly publicized feud with Metallica. Napster has since been bought and sold and its customer usage can only be described as dismal at best.

TPB being bought, by basically an advertising agency, has users worried of what is to become of the site. Charging users would negate the premise behind why the site started, freedom of information and openness of the net, essentially changing The Pirate Bay to The Banker Bay.

From TPB blog:

A lot of people are worried. We’re not and you shouldn’t be either!

If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And – you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of us.

The recent lawsuits and court trials have taken a toll on TPB. Perhaps TPB, run by Gottfrid Svartholm (anakata) and Fredrik Neij (TiAMO), believe they cannot take the site any further and believe they can fight their cause in a better way.

The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don’t worry – be happy!

If The Pirate Bay turns into the now Napster I will be sad to see it go. I have never downloaded any illegal torrents myself *wink wink*, but I feel for all the people out there that do use the site.

TPB blog
Press Release

Facebook recently allowed users and page owners to register their own URL addresses such as http://www.facebook.com/rotilda to make it easier for people to share and find profiles and pages.  All normal user profiles were able to switch their URL addresses immediately but fan pages had restrictions.  Pages had to have at least 1000 fans in order to pick their unique URLs.  Facebook has significantly lowered the restriction to a minimum of 25 fans starting tonight at 11.59pm EDT.

The Facebook help section reads:

Your Facebook Page must meet two requirements: it must have been live on Facebook prior to the May 31, 2009 cut-off date and have had a minimum 1,000 fans at that time.

This limitation is temporary. All Pages created after May 31, 2009 or that had less than 1,000 fans on that day will be eligible to claim usernames on Sunday, June 28, 2009 if they have more than 25 fans.

Ten Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers:

1. Your bio is one of the first things people see. Your bio is displayed on most suggested Twitter user sites and people will pass you right over if you don’t have an interesting account of yourself.  Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much if they just pass right over your profile.

2. Retweet interesting tweets and explain to your followers what retweeting is. Most new users are not hip to the shorthand of Twitter such as RT, D, and # hastags.  If you help them understand they are all the more likely to retweet your tweets.  The more your @username gets out into the “Twitterverse” the more clicks back to your profile you will receive.  Keep track of your Twitter stats with a site like Twitteranalyzer.com

3. Link to your profile. Create linkbacks to your profile everywhere.  Link it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, your blog, other blogs, anywhere it can be seen by someone.  Make sure you put your @username in all of your signatures.  Again, the more people that see your @username, the more hits on your profile you will get.

4. Use #hashtags. Tweet about interesting things in your life and make sure that people see them by using #hashtags.  #hashtags allow users a way to find tweets that interest them on Twitter.  Many people search Twitter trends for interesting tweets and if your tweets are included you have a better chance they will find you.

5. Ask people about Twitter. When you meet new people, ask them if they Twitter.  Ask for their @username and give them yours in return.  If they don’t know about Twitter, teach them.  Put your @username on your business cards and give them out so people don’t forget your name.

6. Share pictures. People love looking at pictures from around the world.  Pictures are one of the most retweeted items on Twitter.  Use apps for your camera phone to tweet and upload to sites like TwitPic and yfrog.

7. Interact with your followers. NYT tech columnnist David Pogue, @pogue, often asks off the wall questions that are fun to answer with witty responses such as, “I need a cure for hiccups… RIGHT NOW! Help?”  Instantly he receives replies such as, “check your 401K. That should scare the hiccups right out of ya!”  This always starts a plethora of conversation.

8. Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences.

9. Reply to/get involved in #hash tag memes. search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. Look for the #hash topics and jump in on the conversation (see #4 for links to #hash instructions).

10. Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.

I hope this helps you in your Twitter experience.  If you find this interesting please follow me @Rotilda

Symantec is reporting a confirmed mass mailing worm being spread by fake Twitter invite emails.  The fake emails appear to come from a Twitter account inviting you to join, but unlike real Twitter invites, the fake ones do not include a legitimate invitation URL in the body.  Instead, the user will see an attachment in the form of a .zip called “Invitation.zip”.  Contained in this file is the W32.Ackantta.B@mm worm which gathers email addresses and infects the computer, removable drives, and shared folders.

The fake emails are reportedly coming from invitations@twitter.com with the subject line, “Your friend invited you to Twitter!”.  If you receive one of these emails, delete it immediately.

Here is an example of what the emails look like:

Symantec

Bing’s cashback program is pretty nice for anything that you are looking to buy, ironically, even an iPhone 3G S.  The Bing cashback program gives consumers a percentage back from any purchase made through their sponsored links.  Basically, instead of collecting ad profits from these links and sticking the cash in their pockets, they are giving them right back to you after you make a purchase from the sponsor.

To get a 35% discount on an iPhone 3G S you can do the following:

Visit Bing.com and search for “AT&T wireless”

Click the link at the top of the page for AT&T with a bing cashback logo next to it

At the prompt, fill in your email address and click “Shop and get cashback”

Then, order yourself a brand new iPhone 3G

It should be as simple as that, but let us know if you have any problems.

UPDATE: It may take up to 60 days to receive your cashback, but hey, 60 day money is still $$$.

Gizmodo

The “Search Wars” have spurned new ideas as to how answers are provided.  Unlike the way a Google search uses keywords to provide relevant links to information that may answer your question, a new site, Hunch, plans to answer your questions by asking you more questions.

Caterina Fake (yes Fake is her real last name) made her mark in the online world as co-founder of Flickr.  After Fake sold Flickr to Yahoo in 2005, she helped Yahoo develop Yahoo Answers, a site that allows users to post questions on any subject; fellow users that might know the answer then are able to reply to questions hopefully finding a solution.  Her work at Yahoo gave her the idea to start Hunch which allows you to ask a questions such as, “What shoes should I buy?” or “What magazine should I subscribe to?”, Hunch then asks you a series of 5-10 questions in order to narrow the results to ultimately give an answer to your question.

On your first visit to Hunch, its tag line writes, “Hunch helps you make decisions and gets smarter the more you use it.”  It then asks you some opening questions in order to teach Hunch more about you.  Some of the questions are normal like, “Where do you live?” and “Male or Female?”, but I personally found, “Are alien abductions real or fake?”, very amusing.  After answering all of the opening questions, I began a search for, “What new car should I buy?”  I had to answer a series of questions pertaining to my needs and taste, then it gave me the answer of “Volkswagen Golf”  It also provides information about your answer seemingly pulled from Wikipedia.  My answer was pretty interesting because I have been interested in the new VW cars lately.

My first impressions are favorable keeping in mind that Hunch just went live to the public today. It definitely needs to be refined a bit both visually and in functionality. My question is, “How are they going to make money?” Fake’s answer to this is, “At the end of your search you will be provided links to sponsoring vendors such as Amazon.”, but at the end of my search there was no such link.  Perhaps this is something going to be rolled out later; keep in mind it just launched today.  Compared to the current trend of instant gratification on the net, I find this a bit lengthy to find my answer but it is an interesting idea.   At one point, I had the image in my head of that annoying guy at the mall that wants you to fill out a survey.  I’m not sure this is the new way, or old way revamped, that search will move, but I’ve been wrong before.

Hunch

BusinessWeek

The recent news that current iPhone 3G owners will not be able to upgrade to the 3GS at the subsidized pricing has customers in an uproar all over the US and UK.  A twitition (Twitter Petition)  has been created for both AT&T and O2 in order to sway the respecting companies to revisit their policy.  I myself would like to see a change to the current pricing but I do not think they will.

According to the contract that all iPhone 3G customers had to agree to, you are not eligble for a upgraded subsidized phone until 18 months into your 2 year agreement.  AT&T’s stand on this is that this policy is no different then any other subsidized phone contract they sell.  They say that they will not treat the iPhone differently then any other device in their lineup.  Wait, you won’t treat the iPhone any different?  Why then do we pay premium prices for text and data when you can get the same service on many other phones they sell for a much lower price?  I call BS on this excuse.  If you want to treat the iPhone no different, then do exactly that.  Offer the same rate plans availble to other phones so that iPhone owners are not taking it in the front as well as the rear.

Check out the twititions and sign if you feel the need.

AT&T twitition

O2 twitition