Kim Kardashian is the most searched celebrity online

If you are wondering who is the most searched personality in Internet for the year 2012 it has ben revealed that Reality star Kim Kardashian has topped bing.com's list of most searched celebrities online, beating last year's winner, singer Justin Bieber.

Kim Kardashian

Bieber has come down to number two, while others who have made it to the top 10 include Rihanna, Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift, reports contactmusic.com.
Also receiving special mentions were Beyonce and Jay Z - their baby's arrival was crowned the most-searched celebrity event of the year - followed by the birth of Jessica Simpson's daughter Maxwell, and Whitney Houston's death.

The US presidential election, the London Summer Olympic Games, and South Korean rapper Psy's Gangnam Style music video all made the list in the category of most popular news stories

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How Social Media helps in boosting search engine rankings of your Blog?

The search engine ranking of your website plays an important role in attracting more visitors to the site, and helping your brand gain more visibility online. One way of making your website more search-engine friendly, is by ensuring that the website content is SEO optimized.

A new infographic by TastyPlacement, however, points out that ranking high on Google, is not just about SEO, it’s about social media too.

TastyPlacement created six websites in six similarly-sized UScities, to conduct a study to analyze the relationship between a certain social media activity and the organic search engine rankings.

The study involved carrying a particular social media marketing activity and measuring the average change in the search engine ranking position, for five of the sites, after a period of one month. The sixth site was left as-is for a control test.

From the study results, social media marketing was found to help boost the search engine rankings in the following ways:

When a target website was promoted via social media connections, and 100 followers were secured to a linked Google+ business page, the website’s search engine position rose by 14.63

When a target website was promoted via social media connections, and 300 Google +1 votes were secured to that target website, its search engine position rose by 9.44

When a target website was promoted via social media connections, and 70 Facebook shares were secured for the target website, and Facebook “likes” to a linked Facebook business pagewere increased by 50, the search engine position of the target website rose by 6.9.

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Twitter blocked in Pakistan over contentious material

Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter on Sunday because it refused to remove material considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country’s top telecommunications officials.

The material was promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication’s Authority. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.

Yaseen said Facebook agreed to address Pakistan’s concerns about the competition, but officials have failed to get Twitter to do the same.

”We have been negotiating with them until last night, but they did not agree to remove the stuff, so we had to block it,” said Yaseen.

Instructions to block the site came from Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology, said Yaseen.

”The ministry officials are still trying to make them (Twitter) agree, and once they remove that stuff, the site will be unblocked,” said Yaseen.
Officials from Twitter and Facebook were not immediately available for comment.

A top court in Pakistanordered a ban on Facebook in 2010 amid anger over a similar competition. The ban was lifted about two weeks later, after Facebook blocked the particular page in Pakistan.

The Pakistani government said at the time that it would continue to monitor other major websites for anti-Islamic links and content.

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Mark Zuckerberg Tie knot with Priscilla Chan

Facebook owner and the world nineteenth richest man Mark Zuckerberg married his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan at his Palo Alto, Calif., home on Saturday.
The Facebook CEO, whose company went public on Friday, has also updated his status to “married.”

Mark Zuckerberg with his Wife

The fewer than 100 celebrants that gathered in Zuckerberg’s backyard believed it was a party for Chan, who graduated from the Universityof California, San Francisco’s medical school on Monday.
Instead, they were surprised to find it was a wedding for the couple who met at Harvard and have been together for more than nine years.
A Facebook spokeswoman said Zuckerberg designed the ring himself, and that it featured “a very simple ruby.”

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Twitter's new email digest feature to summarise top stories, tweets for users

Micro blogging site Twitter has planned to roll out a new 'email digest' that would summarise top stories and tweets in users' networks. According to Othman Laraki, Twitter's growth and international director, the new weekly summary feature, which was announced on the company's blog Monday, is already available to some users.
 "This summary features the most relevant tweets and stories shared by the people you're connected to on Twitter," Laraki said in the blog post.
According to The Los Angeles Times, the new feature is described as being similar to Twitter's 'Discover' tab, which the social network redesigned earlier this month.
 The feature comes just four months after Twitter acquired Canadian start-up Summify, which is a service that sends users emails summarizing the top stories from their Twitter and Facebook networks as well as other services, such as Google Reader.

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WikiLeaks trailer goes live

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has finished shooting 12 episodes of "The World Tomorrow," a TV talk show slated to debut this week on Russia's RT news network.



According to the whistle-blowing organization, "The World Tomorrow" will create a safe space for individuals who would otherwise be sidelined by the mainstream media. 







"Julian Assange has been under house arrest for nearly 500 days. In that time he has been host to a series of clandestine conversations with some of the world's most controversial people, now due to broadcast worldwide," read an official WikiLeaks statement posted on YouTube.  


"The most anticipated news program of the year, 'The World Tomorrow', is a collection of twelve 'frank and irreverent' interviews with an eclectic range of politicians, revolutionaries, intellectuals, artists and visionaries."



The first episode of "The World Tomorrow" will air on RT (and online) this Tuesday at 12:30 GMT, with other networks to follow.

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Finally, Poonam Pandey strips for Team India

Internet sensation Poonam Pandey has partially done what she had committed last year- strip to nude! Though the lady has not gone full monty, she has posed topless for her fans.

The model had started a countdown on Twitter asking her fans if they would like to see “Poonam Padey Without Bikini” and on public demand posted a topless picture of hers’.

Sharing the picture with her fans, Poonam tweeted, “Finally on Public demand Sharing a pic #PoonamPandeyWithoutBikini Tweethearts!! Thanx for Loving me so Much .. Luv u all .. lot more to come in future its just a Trailor “Picture Abhi Baaki hey Mere Tweethearts”(sic).” And it seems as if she has a surprise in store for her fans.

The girl also warned people below the age of 18 not to take a look at the pic.

“WARNING 18 & under should not try looking up the pic. that said i do not take responsibility for anyone under age #PoonamPandeyWithoutBikini(sic),” Poonam tweeted.

Apparently, Poonam’s pic seems to be a gift to team India. The Indian Cricket team pulled off a stunner in Tuesday’s ODI against Sri Lanka and now stand a fair chance to make to the finals of the ongoing Tri-Series in Australia.

The girl also thanked her fans for showering her with love and said that her pic sans bikini is on its way.

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Pirate Bay faces UK blockade

The PirateBay could be blocked in the UK following a court ruling that it illegally encourages users to infringe music copyright. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) - which represents labels including Sony, EMI, Universal and and Warner - succeeded yesterday in persuading High Court Justice Arnold that the site was breaching copyright on a massive scale.

The decision also criminalizes users of The Pirate Bay.

"In my judgment, the operators of TPB do authorise its users' infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting. On any view, they 'sanction, approve and countenance' the infringements of copyright committed by its users," reads the judge's statement.

pirate bay logo

"But in my view they also purport to grant users the right to do the acts complained of. It is no defence that they openly defy the rights of the copyright owners."

ISPs BT, BSB, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, Telefonica and Virgin Media are all named as defendants.

The High Court will rule in June on whether they should be forced to block the site, as the BPI is asking.

But the decision follows a ruling by the same judge last summer that the country's biggest ISP, BT, should be forced to block pirate website Newzbin 2.

The judge said he found the Pirate Baycase 'virtually indistingushable' from that one: indeed, he added, "If anything, it is a stronger case."

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Kim Dotcom granted bail in extradition fight

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has been granted bail in New Zealand, after a judge overturned two previous rulings and concluded that he wasn't a flight risk. The US government is seeking Dotcom's extradition, and had been pushing for him to remain behind bars. It claims the site's generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds, and caused more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners.

kim dotcom

Dotcom was prised from a special safe room at his Aucklandmansion last month and arrested, with numerous vehicles and computers seized, and bank accounts frozen. He was denied bail at two previous hearings.

But District Court Judge NR Dawson this morning ruled that he wasn't a flight risk, pointing out that he had a wife and three children with another on the way.

Kim dotcom having fun before arrest

And his finances aren't quite so mega now, the judge pointed out, commenting that "the US government has not shown since Dotcom's arrest that he has access to any money".

He's no been bailed to a house in the grounds of his mansion - although he's not allowed to set foot in the house itself. He's been denied access to the internet - and to helicopters - and must wear an electronic tag on his ankle.

There's still no date for the extradition hearing, but it's likely to start this summer and take about three weeks.

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Microsoft redesigns Windows logo

Microsoft Friday announced that it was redesigning the logo of Windows software, making a fundamental change to the iconic four-colour Windows logo users have been used to for 20 years.

Meshing with the Metro design of Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8, the new logo is a slightly-angled blue block with a thin white cross in the middle, making it look like a window instead of the four-colour wavy flag in the past, reported Xinhua.

"The Windows logo is a strong and widely recognized mark but when we stepped back and analyzed it, we realized an evolution of our logo would better reflect our Metro style design principles and we also felt there was an opportunity to reconnect with some of the powerful characteristics of previous incarnations," said Microsoft in a blog post.

"We did less of a re-design and more to return it to its original meaning and bringing Windows back to its roots -- reimagining the Windows logo as just that -- a window," the company said.

The new logo is designed by Paula Scher from the Pentagram Design Agency, whose notable works include the Citibank logo.

The first Windows logo debuted in November 1985. Since then, the logo has gone through several redesigns, which were all based on the design of a four-color wavy flag.

 

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Facebook CEO speaks out against SOPA, PIPA

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he's against a pair of proposed anti-piracy bills that sparked a blackout of several websites in protests, adding the social network "will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet."

Mark Zuckerberg

In a status update posted to his public profile, Zuckerberg spoke out against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, saying the bills would hamper the growth of the Web.

"The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development," Zuckerberg says in his post. "Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet."

Facebook Logo

Here's more from Zuckberg's response:

"The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet."

The comments arrive as several websites, including Wikipedia, Google and Reddit, have staged protests against the bills aimed at websites selling pirated goods or violating copyrights.

Google has a simple black box covering its home page logo, which links to more details on its protest. Wikipedia and Reddit have joined other websites in an all-day blackout.

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