Facebook Spamming Practices Revealed

Now here is an accusation that Zuckerberg just cannot ignore:

‘Dennis Yu, the CEO of BlitzLocal, was a guest yesterday on TechCrunch, and he shared his thoughts and knowledge about Facebook spamming and advertising.

‘BlitzLocal is an advertising agency that – by Yu’s own admission – used to be “in the business of spam”. Although they have stopped spamming, they use the knowledge acquired through it and previously built platform to do legal Facebook advertising.

‘Yu talks about the beginnings of Facebook and how Zuckerberg ran casino ads on it before he managed to get venture capital. He goes on to say that he made a sizable fortune with ads (posing as messages from Facebook) that used user’s personal information to raise the click-through rate.’
-Net-security.org

Flowers Created to Absorb Pollution

‘Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere. The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota’s Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan…’ -Richard Blackburn, drive.com.au

‘The Wire’ series into Ivy League

Is The Wire TV series in the Guinness records? Two colleges have already offered courses on it:

‘The Wire is about to get an Ivy League makeover. Harvard plans to offer a course on the HBO series about life in Baltimore’s ghettos, the New York Post reports.
‘The show “has done more to enhance our understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality, more than any other media event or scholarly publication,” said William J. Wilson, the well-known African-American history professor—and huge fan of The Wire—who will teach the class.
‘But the move isn’t quite as ground-breaking as the show, notes the Post: Duke and Middlebury have also offered courses on the series.’ -NY Post

Washington Post Newsroom Brawl

The current state of journalism is finally pushing journalists over the edge:

‘An editorial dispute in the Washington Post newsroom devolved into fisticuffs last week. The item was for the Style section, a department long known for taking an anything-goes attitude toward its reporters. When the story crossed the desk of veteran editor Henry Allen—grumpy about his part-time work and the current state of journalism—he didn’t like what he saw, Washingtonian gossip guru Harry Jaffe reports.
‘“This is total crap,” Allen reportedly said, bringing a young writer to tears. “It’s the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years.” Another reporter on the story, veteran Manuel Roig-Franzia, took umbrage. “Oh, Henry,” witnesses say he told Allen, “don’t be such a cocksucker.”
‘That apparently pushed the 70-year-old Vietnam vet over the edge, and he tackled Roig-Franzia. Executive editor Marcus Brauchli separated the two and had a talk with Allen, whose contract is up in a month. Writes Jaffe: “Few Style writers expect to see him again.”‘
-Washingtonian

New Facebook e-mail Scam

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell
Facebook might not be as malware-ridden as Twitter but here’s a skeleton:

‘Last weekend I wrote about how the big social gaming companies are making hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on Facebook and MySpace through games like Farmville and Mobsters. Major media can’t stop applauding the companies long enough to understand what’s really going on with these games. The real story isn’t the business success of these startups. It’s the completely unethical way that they are going about achieving that success…’ -Michael Arrington TechCrunch

‘If you are a Facebook user and you receive an email that the password on your Facebook account has been reset and your new password is attached, do not fall for the old trick of opening the attachment. This email is a form of spam email with a zip file attachment that contains an executable; that, when launched (clicked on), will infect your PC with malware (trojan).’ -whatsonmypc