Ben Barren - Confessions of a Mad Man » so twitter got hacked + no1 is responsible 4 the real time swine flu.

Michael Arrington seems prescient in his writing about the Real Time Web recently in his aptly titled : “FriendFeed, Syphilis And The Perfection Of Online Mobs” of which the central contention was services like Twitter, Friendfeed, Disqus, Facebook Connect lead to “the evolution of online services towards ever more efficient and real time communication platforms that facilitate mob creation and growth like never before.” The irony is just as the Techcrunch blog comments section was symptom riddled with it’s MBA page rank seeking chearleaders versus it’s textbook emohacksters - it’s now Techcrunch that is sharing around the Real Time Web swine flu like e_syphilis which must have the South Park higher digital stratosphere player feeling like it has “pustules often covered the body from the head to the knees, cause flesh to fall off people’s faces, and led to the death within a few months.”

The documents Techcrunch is leaking came to them via just another stealing “tortious” source AKA Hacker Croll who procured using a pyramid of guessing password retrieval questions to various gmail / godaddy / amazon / paypal / google docs cloud services : Croll procured passwords, grabbed the documents, opened gmail, composed a mail / attached X 20 docs / send to : techcrunch kingpin/ and off they arrive @ CrunchHQ - a batch of security codes, TwitterTV pitches + financial forecasts such as the following : “As of February, Twitter expected their first revenue to come in Q3 2009 (which is now). A modest $400,000 was expected, followed by a more robust $4 million in Q4.

Techcrunch : “The document also shows Twitter’s projected user growth (25 million by the end of 2009), which it has absolutely blown through already. By the end of 2010, Twitter expected to be at a $140 million revenue run rate. As of February the company had $45 million in the bank (they’d raised $55 million at that time). And they expected the cost of each Twitter user to the company to be just over $1/year. We’re including just the projections through 2010, the data for the following three years is too pie-in-the-sky to be useful. But here are the numbers they were targeting for the end of 2013: 1 billion users, $1.54 billion in revenue, 5,200 employees and $1.1 billion in net earnings. So what’s the product that they believe will bring in $400k in revenue this quarter? That’s something we’ll discuss in our next post.”

Some of the techmeme sources are positioning the story as the downfall of google cloud services (while Om is saying their new Android n Blackberry friendly Voice services could make them a Telco 2.0 middle man. Junior techcrunchers are making it as simple as Twitter being bad at choosing passwords - like “password” hehe) But really Hacker Croll was making this less about Twitter; altho I’m sure burning biz, ev + beautiful partners, staff, profile investors was a happy bonus… he probably tried facebook but u can imagine zuckerberg has a FSB ex KGB #spooks fortress protecting the Russian investor backed, $65M settlement of an idea copied from Harvard pal- but Hacker Croll, like the classic horror/double kidnapping movie plot where u can choose to save (only 1 of) your life or that of a friend... this is about the Poster Child of Web 2.0 Entrepreneurial Evangelism having to slit the throat of its most successful progeny. Or not exactly slit, as it appears as if we will have a series of posts; “Apparently just as myxomatosis. those syphilis spirochetes that evolved so as to keep their victims alive for longer were thereby able to transmit their spirochete offspring into more victims.”

I, like I’m sure millions of other unique users, will happily spend 4 minutes at lunchtime reading a Slideshare preso of a stolen confidential TwitterTV pitch, or check the seemingly very bubbly assumptions for the post-Odeo play. Ex-Techcruncher Duncan Riley wrote (can I use the word “prescient” twice in a post?) a relevant insight a couple months back about how PopTweetCrunch as he dubbed Techcrunch, repositioned itself around the heading overground Twitter : “PoptweetCrunch is a name used by some observers privately to describe the change at TechCrunch starting in late March, but fully taking hold in April. Sensing a trend in the market, Arrington smartly called that posts about Twitter, sometimes mixed in with celebrities was a great way to build traffic. He hired the very capable MG Siegler, who had gotten a name for himself as a consumer oriented tech writer at VentureBeat, and gave him the primary task of writing about Twitter. Siegler does do other posts (his critics may not agree), but he’s the chief Twitter correspondent for lack of a better term. With Siegler on board, TechCrunch has thrived.”

Get the PDF : Australia's Digital Economy :what about cheaper fn internet Mr Conroy ? Breakup Telstra, and make wholesale internet the real deal.. mandate consumers cant be ripped off or held to unreasonable ISP contracts for starters, not sure why we need to spend $43 BILLION when we can fix alot of the problems today.. like turn 60 gig contracts into 200 gig ones like United States and drop price by 75%.. and allow monthly switching between carriers that would be a start!

Reckon a Banana Republic Mad Men Styled suit which they will be selling thru Season 3 is a pretty damn smart idea, as is there pre-launch viral campaign to win a walk on role if ur Mad Men-Ette dress style. So any Joan or Dons : go over to AMC-TV site... I dont see an equivalent All Saints fashion retrorspective line with Myer anytime soon thx gawd.. well maybe a moccasin uggboot low cut line...

As Bigger than the Rest possibly more significant than Twitter Lady Gaga YouTubes to 5.5m views :

we are the crowd
we’re c-coming out
got my flash on, it’s true
need that picture of you
it’s so magical
we’d be so fantastico
leather and jeans
garage glamorous
not sure what it means
but this photo of us
it don’t have a price
ready for those flashing lights
’cause you know that baby, I

I’m your biggest fan
I’ll follow you until you love me
papa-paparazzi
baby there’s no other superstar
you know that I’ll be your
papa-paparazzi
promise I’ll be kind
but I won’t stop until that boy is mine
baby you’ll be famous
chase you down until you love me
papa-paparazzi

I’ll be your girl
backstage at your show
velvet ropes and guitars
yeah ’cause you’re my rock star
in between the sets
eyeliner and cigarettes
shadow is burnt
yellow dance and we turn
my lashes are dry
purple teardrops I cry
it don’t have a price
loving you is cherry pie
’cause you know that baby, I

I’m your biggest fan
I’ll follow you until you love me
papa-paparazzi
baby there’s no other superstar
you know that I’ll be your

papa-paparazzi
promise I’ll be kind
but I won’t stop until that boy is mine
baby you’ll be famous
chase you down until you love me
papa-paparazzi

real good
we dance in the studio
snap, snap
to that shit on the radio
don’t stop for anyone
we’re plastic but we’ll still have fun

How to get Shot by The Sartorialist over at Refinery 29 Pipeline, very schmarty pants definitely. OK gotta do an email + cawfee thang so I leave you with some Polyvore action of the Supra Thunder Grey Greco / Kzo jacket / Asics Runovation / Bear jacket + Hood / Comme Des Garcon Collab / Some of those kewl brogues / Visvim leather hoodie / Japanese Black Raw denim by RJB and so on, kind!