By Gilbert Falso :: 3:32 PM
After a string of embarrassing, high-profile account takeovers in recent months (Jeep, Burger King, and the Associated Press, to name a few), Twitter has finally installed a way to help account owners safeguard their logins.
Today, the social media platform announced a featured it is calling Login Verification. It is a form of two-factor authentication. When users sign into Twitter’s web interface at twitter.com, a second check is performed by sending an SMS text to a cell phone number that the account holder has on file with Twitter. The SMS will contain a six digit code that must be entered at the twitter.com login screen for access to the account.
Any existing applications that have been approved to work with a user’s Twitter account, like HootSuite, Klout, TweetDeck, etc., will still function normally with Login Verification enabled.
Twitter has released a video (below) outlining how the new feature will work.
By Paul Thomson :: 1:08 PM
When fire broke out on Sunday afternoon on a railroad bridge that spanned the Lower Colorado River between San Saba and Lometa, Texas, local officials had no choice but to let the structure burn to the ground.
The intense heat of the creosote-soaked structure kept volunteer firefighters a good distance away. The fire started about 4:00 PM, and the entire trestle was engulfed within 20 minutes.
Video below, taken by one of the first responders, shows the domino-like collapse of the bridge.
“Within 25 seconds, it was just gone,” said Jack Blossman, captain of the volunteer fire company that was at the scene. “And then it just turned into a giant fireball, because of all of the creosote in the cross-ties.”
Early estimates show that the total losses from the destruction could be as high as $10 million. It is unknown what caused the fire to start, although there was some construction taking place at one of the ends of the bridge.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 1:02 PM
It’s the end of an era for tech blog Mashable. Today, the venerable new media site replaced the iconic image of its founder, Pete Cashmore, on its Twitter account.
Cashmore had long been the “face” for Tweets from the official Mashable Twitter account, @mashable. When he started the Twitter account for the site in 2007, he used an image of himself as the Twitter avatar, and things have stayed the same since then.
Now, on the heels of a sitewide redesign, Cashmore addressed the issue of his mug on the Twitter account.
“When I go to conferences, a lot of people tell me that they read my tweets,” Cashmore wrote in a post on Mashable a few minutes ago. “And while I’m thrilled that people follow the account, and flattered that people think that I’m so prolific, I can no longer take credit. We have a talented Community team that has built our social strategy and engages our community across all of our social channels.”
Although Cashmore’s face will no longer grace Tweets from the Mashable accounts, he does maintain a personal Twitter account, and will continue to post from there, using his own likeness.
By Gilbert Falso :: 12:09 PM
A series of horrific storms descended on the state of Oklahoma yesterday, leaving a swath of death and destruction in their wake. Several tornadoes formed and touched down, with the most severe damage coming to the community of Moore, located on the outskirts of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
The massive storm was, at times, up to a mile wide, and packed winds estimated to be at least 200 mph. Entire neighborhoods were flattened, and an elementary school was destroyed, including several student fatalities.
Oklahoma officials with the state’s medical examiner’s office have so far confirmed 24 people dead.
Below, a video captured by Charles Cook, shows the formation of the deadly Moore tornado. It was taken in Newcastle, a town about ten miles southwest of Moore. This tornado picked up strength and speed before plowing in to Moore several minutes later.
By Paul Thomson :: 4:29 PM
With the Yahoo acquisition of blogging service Tumblr yesterday, competing blog host, WordPress.com reported an uptick in the number of blogs imported into its system.
Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, posted on his blog yesterday that imports of Tumblr content into WordPress.com-managed blogs peaked at 72,000 posts per hour after the news of the acquisition was made public. Normally, Tumblr users import between 400 to 600 posts an hour into WordPress on any given Sunday.
Such a large influx of content from Tumblr is not surprising. Many users with blogs on Tumblr are unsure of what Yahoo will do with the service once it takes over, despite Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s assurances that things will stay the same, and that Yahoo “won’t screw it up” with the Tumblr purchase.
While Mayer may have promised not to screw anything up – she certainly didn’t promise to monetize the platform. During a call with Yahoo’s investors this morning, Mayer explained the mechanics of Tumblr and its dashboard feature. Tumblr currently features some ads on user dashboards, but Mayer told the board that Yahoo, “would like to look at them and understand how we could introduce ads, in a very light ad load, where the impact is really created, because the ads really fit the users’ expectations and follow the form and function of the dashboard.â€
Yahoo’s head of finance, Ken Goldman, also mirrored Mayer’s outlook for Tumblr, saying that Yahoo hopes Tumblr will have an impact on overall revenue as soon as next year.
Times will likely change for Tumblr users soon, and change fast.