Archive for skype

Social Media Newsfeed: Glass to Facebook | Foursquare Windows 8 App

May 8, 2013 / Tim Sohn / No comments

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Glass to Facebook appFacebook (Unofficially) Lands on Google Glass (AllFacebook)
Although it’s only available to a super-select few, Facebook already has a home on Google Glass. It’s not the official Facebook application, but TechCrunch reports that recently launched photo-sharing app Glass to Facebook uploads photos taken with Google Glass to users’ Facebook accounts. TechCrunch The setup is similar to that of other third-party apps like GlassTweet but requires you to give Facebook permissions to post to your timeline. It only takes a few seconds to get going. Mashable It’s worth noting that there’s currently a security alert on TesseractMobile’s website — the creator of the app — associated with the site’s root certificate. So install at your own risk. SFGate/Business Insider Few people have worn or even seen Google Glass, but early reviews have made businesses and government officials wary. Already, Google Glass has already been banned by a Seattle dive bar and in some Las Vegas casinos.

Foursquare’s New Windows Phone 8 App is Slick, Clean and Exactly What Microsoft Needs (VentureBeat)
The latest update comes from Foursquare, which is updating its Windows 8 app. The app, which Foursquare says is optimized for Nokia’s Lumia phones, adds features like lock screen notifications, voice search and the ability to pin certain people or venues to the home screen. The Next Web The app’s design is also tailored to the Metro UI, with an emphasis on brightly colored squares, crisp text and a rectangular shape for almost every feature selection and tool set. The app is available for all Windows Phone 8 devices, although Foursquare has been shouting from the rooftops about its partnership with Nokia in a blog post. The Verge Interestingly, the partnership with Nokia is more than skin deep, with Foursquare for Windows Phone 8 optimized for the latest crop of Lumia hardware. “Some of the Lumia models even integrate Foursquare data into their augmented reality experience,” the post reads, giving owners of supported handsets a nice bit of immersive (and exclusive) functionality.

White House Steals Twitter’s Legal Director to be New Chief Privacy Officer (AllTwitter)
CNET shares that “President Obama has picked Nicole Wong, Twitter’s legal director, to be the White House’s first chief privacy officer.” Wong doesn’t only have Twitter to brag about; she was previously “a vice president and deputy general counsel at Google at its Mountain View headquarters …”

Syria’s Internet Access is Entirely Blacked Out (The Daily Dot)
Syria, already beset by civil war, Israeli airstrikes and accusations of using chemical weapons against civilians, appeared to be completely without internet access Tuesday. Multiple sources have indicated that the country is either bereft, or nearly so, of all public access.

WhatsApp Roars Through April, With Huge Downloading Success (SocialTimes)
WhatsApp Messenger dominated both major app stores in the number of downloads in April, according to data from Distimo. Made in Mountain View, Calif., WhatsApp Messager offers a cross-platform text messaging that does not rely on SMS technology, thus saving users money in their bills from carriers.

Yahoo’s Mayer Has Met with Hulu Execs in a Preliminary Look-See at Premium Video Unit (AllThingsD)
According to numerous sources close to the situation, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently met with top execs at Hulu, the premium video service whose media company owners have been considering selling it for some months. Sources said Yahoo is “in the process,” although the Silicon Valley internet giant has not made any kind of formal bid.

Samsung Acquires Movl to Bring Devices and Smart TVs Closer Together (LostRemote)
Atlanta startup Movl says it’s been acquired by Samsung Electronics for an undisclosed sum. Just two years old, Movl began by creating games that interacted with TV — like “We Draw,” which won Samsung’s top developer award in 2011. Then the startup created a platform for iOS and Android developers to seamlessly integrate their apps with smart TVs, starting with Samsung and Google TV — with more on the way.

Skype Beware, Viber Flies Past 200M Users, Lands on Desktop (CNET)
Add Viber to the list of insanely popular messaging services that have more than 200 million users. The two-year-old mobile messaging and VoIP service, developed by Viber Media, announced the new stat Tuesday, saying that it has 200 million members spread across 193 countries.

YouTube’s ‘Trends’ Page is an Unbelievable Time Suck (BetaBeat)
YouTube has just debuted an entertaining feature on its Trends page: a map where you can see which videos are the most popular by city and region. It is a K-hole without parallel.

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Category: facebook, Foursquare Windows Phone 8 app, Glass to Facebook, google, Hulu, Movl, Newsfeed, Nicole Wong, Nokia Lumia, samsung, skype, Social Media, Syria Internet access, Viber, Whatsapp, Yahoo, YouTube Trends Page /

Links to Pretty Pictures on Skype Actually Send Users’ Machines on Goose Chase for Digital Money

April 5, 2013 / Cameron Scott / No comments

malware, security, bitcoin, skype, hackersWith the all-digital currency bitcoin rising in value, hackers have redoubled their efforts to get at the money. Earlier this week, they hacked into a bitcoin bank. Today, Kaspersky Security reports that a malware scheme on Skype is taking over users’ machines to help them hunt for the currency online.

The currency releases additional value in a process not unlike Will Shortz puzzler competition on NPR. The central bank releases a really, really hard math problem that requires substantial computing power to solve. Of all the successful answers it gets, it chooses one by lottery and gives it a coin. (In the Shortz scenario, all the lucky solver gets is a chance to play on air with Shortz.) It’s complicated, but the math essentially assures fair play. (Link to Quora explanation requires login — don’t blame us.)

Did we mention that you need a lot of computing power to get the money? Computing power costs money — unless you illicitly take over someone else’s computer with malware. That’s exactly what some Skype hackers began doing today.

Why Skype? It has a lot of users and isn’t super-duper secure.

The malware sends users a link with a note saying it’s a great photo of them. This is social engineering: It plays on the user’s vanity to get them to click.

Once they do, the rest is nefarious computer genius. The website the link directs users to infects their computers with malicious code that commands some of their computing power (CPU) to work on the bitcoin math challenges. The hackers get a free ticket for the bitcoin lottery.

“Average clicking is also pretty high with more than [2,000] clicks per hour. Most of potential victims live in Italy then Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, Ukraine and others,” wrote security researcher Dmitry Bestuzhev.

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Category: bitcoin, hackers, kaspersky security, Malware, News, npr, Quora, security, skype, will shortz /

Social Media Newsfeed: April Fools Pranks | Facebook Timeline Trial

April 2, 2013 / Tim Sohn / No comments

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Google NoseGoogle, YouTube, Twitter Get into April Fools’ Action (USA Today)
Tired of all those vowels clogging up your tweets? Twitter announced a solution late Sunday night, saying it will shift to a two-tiered service, dubbing its basic, consonant-only plan “Twttr.” The April Fools’ Day joke kicked off with Twitter tweeting out, “Trd th nw Twttr yt? Mr tm fr mr twts! The New York Times YouTube’s central prank is a video. It reveals YouTube’s entire existence has been a contest to find the best video ever and that YouTube will shut down — the submission deadline will be over — and the winner will be announced. AP Google, having already debuted its wearable Google Glass, on Monday also showcased Google Nose to add scents to it search results. It urged visitors to lean in close and take a deep whiff for search results such as “unattended litter box.” SocialTimes It’s no secret that the Internet loves cats. Some of Monday’s cleverest pranks involve the furry creatures. Here’s a rundown of a few we thought were the cat’s meow. Mashable YouTube channel SourceFed managed to stop the hearts of an entire Internet nation Monday when they announced the death of Grumpy Cat. While it produced a pretty convincing news segment mourning the world’s most famous — and beloved — meme, we remained skeptical because the reporters weren’t weeping uncontrollably at the horrible news.

Judge Not Impressed with Facebook’s Argument in ‘Timeline’ Lawsuit (AllFacebook)
Facebook is battling a lawsuit from Timelines.com., and U.S. district judge John W. Darrah ruled recently that Facebook has not demonstrated that “timeline” is a generic enough term to own exclusively. Darrah wrote in a ruling Monday that Facebook hasn’t been able to prove that: “At this stage in the proceedings, it is not unreasonable to conclude that as to this group of users, ‘timeline(s)’ has acquired a specific meaning associated with plaintiff.” CNET The social network, which was first sued in September 2011 by Chicago company Timelines Inc. for infringement, now faces a jury trial, scheduled for April 22, over the mark. The company, which has 1,000 active users, is seeking damages equivalent to advertising revenue generated from Facebook’s Timeline, Timelines attorney Douglas Albritton told Bloomberg. Bloomberg Andrew Noyes, a spokesman for Facebook, said in an email that the company declined to comment on Darrah’s decision. “We’re happy with the ruling,” Albritton said in a phone interview.

Saudi Arabia to Track Twitter, Ban Skype (The Daily Dot)
Saudi Arabia, one of Reporters Without Borders’ “Enemies of the Internet,” has plans to track and monitor Twitter users and block Skype, according to a report from Reuters. The microblogging service has proven extremely popular among Saudi users, understandable in a country where free speech is blocked by custom, law and the influence of the fundamentalist clerical class.

Twitter Cooperates with Vladimir Putin to Block Access to Blacklisted Content In Russia (AllTwitter)
On the heels of the announcement that Twitter archives would now be available in Russian comes an announcement from Moscow that Twitter has cooperated with czar Vladimir Putin to block access to blacklisted content in his country. According to The Moscow Times, Twitter has “actively been engaged in cooperation” since early March with Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision in Telecommunications, Information Technology and Mass Communications.

Vizible for iOS Lets You View Photos Shared on Twitter Nearby (The Next Web)
In related news, APIs empower developers to build things they otherwise wouldn’t get a sniff at, such as Instalook, which we previously reported lets Instagram users discover photos by location. And now there’s Vizible, which surfaces photos shared on Twitter based on their proximity to you.

HBO ‘Game of Thrones’ Exhibition Honors Tumblr Fan Art (LostRemote)
The Game of Thrones exhibition opened last week in New York City to fans’ delight. In addition to amazing Iron Throne photo opportunities, a star-studded opening party and an interactive arrow shooting game, Tumblr art was one of the main parts of the exhibit.

Why Facebook Home is Potentially Brilliant (TechCrunch)
Facebook’s allegedly building a launcher. A launcher can, like the dozens of launchers already on the Google Play store, be installed on any Android phone once Facebook flips the switch.

Michael Arrington’s Ex-Girlfriend Alleges That He Physically Abused Her Via Public Facebook Post (BetaBeat)
Jenn Allen, a startup founder and ex-girlfriend of Michael Arrington revealed on Facebook that her relationship with the TechCrunch founder and investor was so wrought by physical and emotional abuse that she can’t get out of bed. Allen said that Arrington cheated on her several times during their eight-year-long relationship and threatened to murder her.

Barry Diller and Aereo Win Another Legal Battle (AllThingsD)
Another legal victory for Aereo, the Internet video startup that wants to upend the TV industry: A federal appeals court has rejected a request from broadcasters and TV station owners to halt Aereo’s TV-over-the-Web service. By a vote of two to one, the Second Circuit appeals court denied a preliminary injunction motion filed by big media companies including Disney, CBS and News Corp. (which also owns this website), upholding an original decision from last summer.

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Category: Aereo, Barry Diller, facebook, Facebook launcher, Facebook phone, Facebook Timeline, Game of Thrones, google, Google Nose, Google Play, HBO, Michael Arrington, Newsfeed, saudi arabia, skype, Social Media, tumblr, twitter, Vizible for iOS, Vladimir Putin, youtube /

Social Media Newsfeed: Google Reader | March Madness

March 18, 2013 / Tim Sohn / No comments

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Petition to Save Google Reader Reaches 100,000 Signatures (SocialTimes)
A petition on Change.org to save Google Reader, the RSS platform that Google plans to cancel, has reached more than 100,000 signatures. When asked if the company planned to respond to the petition and what the company’s next step would be, a Google spokesperson told us: “We’ve given an overview of our reasoning and plans on our blog posts on the Official Google Blog and the Google Reader blog, and we’ll be communicating directly with our users as we make these changes. We don’t have anything more to share than what was in the posts.” PC Magazine Dave Winer, creator of RSS 2.0, said the concept of having a “mailbox” for news never quite fit with him. “I won’t miss it. Never used the damn thing. Didn’t trust the idea of a big company like Google’s interests being so aligned with mine that I could trust them to get all my news,” he wrote. SocialTimes Brian Shih, a former Google Reader product manager, argues that Google repeatedly endeavored to pull technical staff from Reader and reassign the staffers to social products. Shih’s account suggests that Google saw Reader as competition for Google+. TechCrunch Google – especially under the leadership of Larry Page – simply decided that going after small markets wasn’t in its best interest, so Reader was left to die. For mainstream users, Flipboard, Zite, Pulse and all the other news-reading apps now represent a far superior solution (and they are all mobile-first, while Google Reader never got a chance to do something innovative on mobile at all). CNET Feedly is reaping the benefits of Google’s decision to ax Reader. The RSS app picked up more than 500,000 new users in the two days after the Web giant announced last week that it would retire its RSS app, the company said in a recent blog post.

March Madness: Where to Watch the 2013 NCAA Tournament Live Online (GigaOM)
March Madness is once again streaming each and every game live online. However, this time around, viewing live streams will require a cable subscription – unless the game airs on CBS.

Bud Light, Budweiser Top Quintly’s St. Patrick’s Day Look at Beer on Facebook (AllFacebook)
With many a St. Patrick’s Day celebration taking place this past weekend, social analytics provider Quintly had beer on the brain, compiling a brief snapshot of the beer industry on Facebook. Bud Light and Budweiser topped Quintly’s rankings, which were based on people talking about this and likes.

 

Dropbox Paid Upward of $50 Million for Mailbox (AllThingsD)
When Dropbox announced Friday that it is acquiring Mailbox, terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but it didn’t take long for them to leak out. GigaOM and TechCrunch both claim that Mailbox was acquired for a price “well over” $50 million, with a significant chunk of stock that pushes it closer to $100 million.

Twitter Challenges Facebook to a Music War (AllTwitter)
Facebook might be planning to hijack Twitter’s hashtag, but Twitter (always a step ahead) is going after something that’s actually useful – music. CNET reports that Twitter is planning to launch its own music app, thanks to its recent acquisition of music discovery service We Are Hunted.

Flickr Updates its iOS App Enabling Hashtags (The Next Web)
Flickr released an update on Saturday to its iOS application with hashtag support. Now, users are able to add a hashtag not only to a photo’s title or description, but they can run a search query to find all photos using that term.

 

BuzzFeed is Launching a Business Section (FishbowlNY)
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that BuzzFeed is adding a business section to its wide array of offerings. Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of the site, told The Journal that people love business content and are sharing it more than ever.

Line: We’re a Social Entertainment Platform, Not Just a Free Calls Messaging App (TechCrunch)
Line, an app made by South Korea’s Naver Corp., which has grown rapidly, amassing over 100 million users since its launch in summer 2011, is typically labelled as a messaging app – and compared to the likes of WhatsApp, Viber and Skype because it offers free calls and texts. But in reality Line’s feature set positions it closer to being a social network.

This Study Breaks Down Twitter’s Many, Many Cliques (The Daily Dot)
Twitter is exactly the same as high school, the office, or pretty much any other social confine: people jump into cliques and stick to them. That’s according to a recently published study by the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway and Princeton University.

 

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Category: Bud Light, Budweiser, BuzzFeed business section, dave winer, DropBox, facebook, feedly, Fickr hashtags, Flipboard, google reader, Line, mailbox, March Madness, Newsfeed, pulse, Quintly, skype, Social Media, St. Patrick's Day, twitter, Twitter cliques, Viber, We Are Hunted app, WhaptsApp, zite /

Skype To Let Users Send Each Other 3-Minute Video Messages

February 15, 2013 / Megan O'Neill / No comments

social networks, chat, VOIP, social media, skypeSkype has begun testing a new feature allowing users to send short video messages to contacts that aren’t available to chat.  According to Ina Fried of AllThingsD, the Microsoft-owned VoIP and chat service has already started allowing select users to send short video messages, up to three minutes in length.

Fried reports that, “Starting Friday, those with the latest version of Skype for either Mac, Android or iOS can send the messages (users of Skype on other platforms can still receive video messages).”  The feature is currently being tested out in a select number of countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

Skype hinted at the impending arrival of video messaging back in December when they added a paragraph to the end of their Terms and Conditions entitled “Skype Video Messaging,”  David Meyer of ZDNet reported.

The current T&C text, as of the writing of this post, is as follows:

“As a non-Skype Premium subscriber you can, subject to the Video Messaging Fair Use Policy (‘FUP’) below, send and receive an unlimited number of Video Messages and any Video Messages you send and/or receive shall have no expiry date.

“If you are not a Skype Premium subscriber, the number of Video Messages you can send are limited, however you can receive an unlimited number of Video Messages (again subject to the FUP below).  As a non-Skype Premium subscriber any Video Message you send or receive will expire within 90 days, except for Video Messages received from a Skype Premium subscriber or where you upgrade to a Skype Premium subscription before the 90 day expiry period ends, and in either case the Video Message shall cease to have an expiry date.”

Do you have the ability to send Skype Video Messages?  What do you think about this new feature?

Megan O’Neill is the resident web video expert here at Social Times.  Megan covers everything from the latest viral videos to online video news and tips, and has a passion for bizarre, original and revolutionary content and ideas.

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Category: messages, microsoft, News, skype, video, Video Messaging, Web Video /

Google+ Introduces Audio-Only Mode

February 7, 2013 / Cameron Scott / No comments

google+, social networks, social media, googleGoogle Hangouts, the video-chat app that originated within Google+, will begin allowing users to turn off the video feature and use audio only.

As in Skype, each user can select whether to blacken out a video feed of them. If they do so, their standard profile picture is displayed for others participating in the conversation.

Each user opts in or out of the video function independently.

Google packaged the feature as a benefit for users with low-bandwidth connectivity, but it could work equally well for those who are wearing their pajamas.

Google is also launching a bandwidth slider bar that will allow users to force the hangout to operate at a lower bandwidth.

“Both of these features are coming your way today but they’re rolling out separately so you may see one before you see the other. Very soon both features will be available to everyone,” wrote Tim Blasi on Google+.

social media, social networks, google plus, facebook, skype, twitter, pinterest

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Category: Emerging Social Networks, google plus, hangouts, News, skype /

Social Media Newsfeed: Happy Birthday, Facebook | Twitter Acquisition

February 5, 2013 / Tim Sohn / No comments

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Facebook Turns 9 (AllFacebook)
Facebook celebrated its ninth birthday Monday. The site that started in a Harvard University dorm room has now connected more than 1 billion users from all around the world. The Huffington Post An article about Facebook in the Harvard Crimson from February 2004 gives a few insights into just how far Facebook has come and how different it could have been. “At one point I thought about making the website so that you could upload a resume too, and for a fee companies could search for Harvard job applicants. But I don’t want to touch that,” Zuckerberg tells the Crimson. What if Facebook had been a glorified LinkedIn for Ivy Leaguers? Los Angeles Times Although Facebook is still the king of social networks, it’s far from perfect. So here are nine features we’d like to see added to big blue that could improve users’ experience. The Atlantic Wire Facebook has a retrospective of layouts from 2005 through 2009, which will quickly remind you just how the site went from ugly to, well, more ugly? Then in 2011 we got the Timeline, which made the site a little nicer to look at. And then came that big Graph Search bar this year (just take the tour already). BuzzFeed Meet the students who celebrated Facebook’s birth — and find out where they are now.

Report: Twitter Buys Social TV Analytics Company Bluefin Labs (CNET)
Twitter has reportedly acquired Bluefin Labs, which generates social TV analytics, in a deal which is said to be the social-networking giant’s biggest-ever. Business Insider Prior to Bluefin Labs, Twitter’s highest acquisition (as far as we can tell) was TweetDeck for $40 million in May 2011. Since Bluefin Labs has raised $20.5 million to date, we assume the price is between $50 and $100 million (or higher), a healthy return for its investors, Time Warner Investments, SoftBank Capital, Acadia Woods Partners, Bedrocket Media’s Brian Bedol, Jim Pallotta, Redpoint Ventures, Dan Gilbert, Lerer Ventures, Kepha Partners and the National Science Foundation. LostRemote If this is the case, Twitter is clearly making an even bigger bet to monetize around TV. Earlier this year, Twitter announced a deal with Nielsen — which had just acquired SocialGuide — to create a Twitter TV rating. The idea: to reinforce with TV advertisers that a Twitter media buy amplifies your TV buy.

How Skype is Helping Topple a Dictator in Syria (Mashable)
The toolbox of the average rebel fighting in Syria is full of things you have probably never touched: an AK-47, grenades, sniper rifle. But it also has something you might use every day: Microsoft Skype. Skype is the go-to social network for communication between rebels, anti-government activists, journalists and officials inside and outside of Syria.

Was Anyone Watching the Game? The Super Bowl Nearly Beat the Presidential Debates in Number of Tweets (SocialTimes)
The 2013 Super Bowl was the subject of 26,131,270 tweets, according to SocialGuide. The social TV measurement provider counted 5,280,048 unique users who tweeted about the game that night, with an average of 486 followers per person. The 2012 presidential debates, by comparison, received 27.63 million tweets for all three broadcasts combined.

Facebook is Said to Create Mobile Location-Tracking App (Bloomberg)
Facebook is developing a smartphone application that will track the location of users, two people with knowledge of the matter said, bolstering efforts to benefit from growing use of social media on mobile computers. The app, scheduled for release by mid-March, is designed to help users find nearby friends and would run even when the program isn’t open on a handset, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public.

Beware Fake Accounts Promising to ‘Verify’ You on Twitter (AllTwitter)
What you should not do is retweet something in hopes it will magically verify your account. It won’t. The Verge shares that 22,000 users were recently fooled by just one fake account (@PrivateVerified) promising verification in exchange for retweets. And here are some names on additional fake accounts they uncovered (all are now suspended).

Facebook to Tell Users They Are Being Tracked (The New York Times/Bits Blog)
Facebook has agreed to be transparent about, well, the obvious: You are being tracked so advertisers can better aim at you, and you can opt out if you make the effort. The announcement came Monday as part of the company’s agreement with the Council of Better Business Bureau.

Fashion Retailer Accused of Stealing Instagram Photo (The Daily Dot)
An Instagram user claims that fashion label Mango is using one of his images on a shirt without his permission. Tuana Aziz, a commercial photographer from Sweden, shared a screengrab Monday of a shirt being sold by Mango.

John McCain Calls Iranian President a ‘Monkey’ on Twitter (ars technica)
U.S. John McCain used his Twitter feed Monday to call Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “monkey.” With the U.S. government attempting diplomacy to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb, the former presidential nominee’s tweet was ill-timed at best.

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Category: Bluefin Labs, Council of Better Business Bureau, Face Twitter accounts, facebook, Facebook location-tracking app, Facebook's ninth birthday, Newsfeed, Senator John McCain, skype, Social Media, Super Bowl, Tuana Aziz, twitter /

Microsoft Must Be More Transparent About Skype Privacy, Say Rights Groups

January 25, 2013 / Cameron Scott / No comments

social networks, chat, VOIP, social media, skypeSeveral dozen rights groups have issued an open letter to Microsoft, asking the company to disclose how Skype user data is handled.

Among the groups are Electronic Frontier Foundation, Hermes Center for Digital Human Rights, Reporters Without Borders, the Guardian Project, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, DotConnectAfrica and the Tibetan Action Institute.

Many of Skype’s core users are international users, some of whom use its chat and Internet calling service to conduct legal business, advocacy and social science research. Such work relies on reasonable guarantees of privacy, but can be appealing for law enforcement agencies.

“It is unfortunate that these users, and those who advise them on best security practices, work in the face of persistently unclear and confusing statements about the confidentiality of Skype conversations, and in particular the access that governments and other third parties have to Skype user data and communications,” the letter says.

The letter’s chief request is that Microsoft issue a transparency report like those issued by Google, Twitter and others, documenting how many requests it gets for Skype user logs and how many it complies with.

The users  also ask that Microsoft offer clearer information on what types of user data it collects and how long it retains it and what, if any, data from Skype calls and chats third parties may be able to intercept.

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Category: microsoft, News, Privacy, skype, transparency /

High-Profile Googler Scolds Skype for Lax Response to Hacking

December 5, 2012 / Cameron Scott / No comments

google, web spam, securityIn mid-November, as reports emerged that Skype accounts could be hijacked by hackers armed with no more than the email address linked to the account, Google’s director of Web spam, Matt Cutts, was getting his account hacked, he learned today when he tried to log in again.

And, he said on Google+, he’s never heard from Skype about how to repossess his account despite the company’s claims in November that it would reach out to affected users.

“I’m doubly disappointed that Skype said that they’d reach out to users who were impacted, but they never reached out to me. Are there other Skype users who were hacked that Skype hasn’t notified or helped?” Cutts wrote on his Goolge+ page.

Skype has fixed the whole.

Cutts was lucky, because the person who hijacked his account was a security researcher confirming that he could do it. He subsequently sent Cutts the new password, so Cutts was able to get back into his account.

Nevertheless, the story, and Cutts’s decision to post it in Google+, shows that it’s important to handle security issues meticulously and respectfully, particularly when one of your users has a powerful Internet bullhorn.

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Category: google, matt cutts, News, security, skype /

Skype Poised to Roll Out Video Messaging

December 5, 2012 / Cameron Scott / No comments

skypeChanges to Skype’s terms of use indicate that the messaging and VoIP client will soon feature video messaging.

Users will apparently be able to record and send short video messages to other Skype users. Currently, video only works in real-time conversations.

Premium subscribers, who pay $9.99 a month or $59.88 a year, will be able to send and receive an unlimited number of video messages. The messages will never expire. For non-premium users, messages will be limited and will expire after 90 days.

All messages must comply with copyright and other laws. Skype may ban users who send illegal video messages, according to the updated terms of use policy.

SocialTimes has put in a request for more information. We will update this post if we get a response.

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Category: microsoft, News, skype /
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