Foreign sex blogger in China a hoax

An anonymous blog allegedly by a British man that sparked outrage in Shanghai by claiming a long list of sexual conquests among local women may actually be a hoax.

The Sex and Shanghai website, which was not immediately accessible Monday, chronicled in racy language the exploits of the author who claimed to be an English teacher at a local university.

Using the pseudonym "Chinabounder," the blog also took the occasional swipe at Chinese men's sexual prowess as well as a critical view on the ruling communist party government.

Anger over the blog came to a head last week when a Shanghai professor launched an Internet campaign calling on Chinese men to hunt down the author and expel him from China.

"If you are a Chinese man with guts and if you respect Chinese women, please join this Internet hunt for the immoral foreigner! Let us act together!" wrote Zhang Jiehai, a psychology professor at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

"We must find this foreign trash and kick him out of China."

In response to an e-mail querying the Chinabounder site, a message on the website said the content written had been fabricated, the Financial Times reported. AFP on Monday could not verify the accuracy of this claim.

Since Zhang's angry blog last week, Internet sites and blogs have been full of vitriolic messages mainly supporting Zhang and calling for the "castration" and removal of the "foreign filth".

Others urged Chinabounder's exposure so that "we make other foreigners restrain their behavior".

When contacted by AFP, Zhang refused to comment pointing only to his own latest findings about the writer on his own blog, which said the writer was no longer believed to be British and had likely already left China.

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse.

Microsoft and Facebook in Web ad deal

(Reuters) Facebook and Microsoft Corp on Wednesday said the world's largest software maker will become the exclusive provider of banner advertising and sponsored links on the social networking Web site as part of a strategic alliance.

The two companies began talks last week and expect the new ads to appear in early fall. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"We believe that the combination of Microsoft and Facebook strengths will be incredibly attractive to advertisers as they forge more meaningful connections with one of the largest, most engaged audiences on the Internet," Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft, said in a statement.

Closely-held Facebook, founded in February 2004, has more than 9 million registered users and ranks as the seventh-most trafficked site in the United States.

Microsoft's deal with Facebook comes on the heels of a similar agreement between social networking site MySpace.com and search engine Google Inc.

On August 7, News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media and Google signed a multi-year search and advertising deal covering Fox's MySpace.com and other properties.

As part of the deal, Google is expected to pay Fox at least $900 million in revenue share payments based on certain traffic and other commitments promised by Fox.

Et vous avez pens� que VOTRE ex �tait mauvais ?

Fantasy site 2nd Life exposes user data

Second Life, the fast-growing online site where hundreds of thousands of people play out fantasy lives online, has suffered a computer security breach that exposed the real-world personal data of its users.

Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based company behind the Second Life site, said in a letter to its 650,000 users this weekend that its customer database, including names, addresses, passwords and some credit card data, had been compromised.

All users -- or residents in Second Life parlance -- are being required to request a new password. Some 286,000 residents have used the site in the past 60 days, according to a count on the home page at http://www.secondlife.com/.

"While we realize this is an inconvenience for residents, we believe it's the safest course of action," Cory Ondrejka, the chief technology officer of Linden Lab said in the message to Second Life customers released late on Friday.

Second Life is a three-dimensional software world on the Web inhabited by animated characters that users design for themselves to interact with other participants. Users buy and sell virtual land and build businesses with currency called "Linden Dollars," which can be exchanged for real currency.

Blurring the line between a multiplayer game and an online business, the popularity of the site has spurred Fortune 500 corporations such as Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., along with architects, authors, and musicians to erect virtual outposts of their organisations or personas.

Retailer American Apparel has created a business to sell clothing for the Second Life avatars users create to represent themselves inside the online world. Musicians such as Duran Duran and Suzanne Vega have held concerts inside Second Life.

The database breach potentially exposed customer data including the unencrypted names and addresses, and the encrypted passwords and encrypted payment information of all Second Life users, Linden Lab said in the message to users. Unencrypted credit card information, which is stored on a separate database, was not compromised, it said.

The breach was discovered on September 6. The company launched an investigation that revealed an intruder was able to access the Second Life databases utilising a "Zero-Day Exploit" through commercial software used on Second Life servers.

"Due to the nature of the attack, the company cannot determine which individual data were exposed," Linden Lab's statement said. A technical probe is ongoing, it said.

Reuters

10 Free Resources To Consider When You Are Looking For A Profitable AdSense Niche.

I did not rank these resources in any particular order, so don't think that number 1 is the best resource and number 10 is the worse. These are all great resources, and they are FREE!

1. Google's official AdSense blog. Occasionally it profiles a successful website and provides daily or monthly revenue figure. Since copycat strategy works very well in just about any business, AdSense should be no different.
2. NicheGeek. NicheGeek.Com tells you what niches currently generate anywhere from $0.30 to $1.20 per AVERAGE click with AdSense. Unlike "top paying keywords" industry, this information is free and far more accurate.
3. Symbiotic. Symbiotic.Com is like an Overture Bid Tool but it provides current bids for AdWords advertisers, which is relevant to AdSense.
4. Aojon. Aojon.Com is an affiliate blog with an interesting feature. About once a week the blog features 25 new affiliate niche ideas. While it's not universally true, hot affiliate niche often make a good niche for AdSense.
5. WebmasterWorld. WebmasterWorld.Com has a very nice AdSense subsection where a lot of ideas are shared. The forum is free, but requires registration. In my experience, this forums is the best AdSense forum currently available.
6. Digital Point AdSense Sandbox Tool. This tool lets you plug in any URL and displays the ads that Google AdSense robot will show on a particular site. The tool shows 20 ads and you can click all of them (don't worry, Google does not register them as valid clicks and doesn't charge advertisers) in order to investigate the quality of ads for a particular niche. If a niche is infested with MFA or traffic arbitrage sites (meaning lower earnings for you), you will immediately notice that by looking at the ads.
7. Amazon. Amazon.Com is the largest bookstore in the world. By looking at different fiction and non-fiction books, you can discover niches that nobody know about. Another idea is to create a site based on a particular book or an author and monetize it through AdSense.
8. WebmasterRadio. WebmasterRadio.FM has a variety of podcasts on SEO, affiliate marketing, contextual advertisement, domains and other topics. Very often, you'll hear a guest talk about an unusual website or a niche, and you can take this information and take it to AdSense.
9. eBay. The idea with eBay is much like Amazon. See what sells on eBay, what niches there are, and see if you can monetize it through AdSense.
10. Offline world. Read newspapers and magazines, read them every day. You'll be amazed by how many ideas you can get by looking through a newspaper or a magazine.

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