Michael Jackson’s death last Thursday shocked the world. And despite the general consensus that Jackson is a has-been, his death proved that he has made an indelible mark on the world. In fact, the outpouring of sentiments on his death almost bogged down all of the social media sites.

Twitters from thousands of people reporting or giving their opinions on Jackson’s death slowed down the popular micro blogging service to a near crawl. It got so bad that Twitter had to temporarily disable its home page search field. Imagine seeing the number of tweets doubling per second! That could be a record of sorts.

But even non-social media sites were also affected. The web sites of Time Warner, Walt Disney, ABC, CBS and the Los Angeles Times, all experienced slowdowns.

So what is the significance of this? It puts into question how different networks — social media, blog networks, corporate sites — and its respective servers are addressing the growing number of internet users. Is there really a proper scaling strategy to account for the continued explosive growth of the internet, especially when we consider that social media sites are actually enticing more and more people to go online? Heck, even my wife’s 70 year old aunt just opened a Facebook account.

The people at Splashpress Media are undoubtedly such good guys that they’re implementing a very useful new service in one of their blogs.

The very popular Blog Herald recently got a new design revamp as preparation for the introduction of new resources, services and blog guides. And one of these services is now live.

Blog Herald will be putting up a Blog Conference Guide. To be compiled by Easton Ellsworth using Google Calendar. This handy service will give bloggers a quick and easy reference for all of the blog and blogger related events happening all over the world. This is not only a great help for bloggers but for organizers as well. The Blog Herald Team actually encourages people to contact them and contribute information.

Bloggers and site owners who have been relying on Performancing themes for their site’s graphical look will welcome the announcement that all of Performancing themes will now receive an update to make them all compatible with current Wordpress Versions.

The announcement was made by Splashpress Media after Performancing released its 19th free theme. The move to update all of the themes came as a result of observations made by the guys at Performancing that a majority of free themes, including those that were submitted at Performancing’s own Free Wordpress Themes site, do not support the theme for users post release with needed upgrades. The upgrade is a good case of foresight from the guys at Performancing because they don’t want to get into the same pitfall as the other sites that offer free themes.

As expected, the recent elections have sparked anger over the blatant disregard of personal freedom for supporters of the opposition leader Moussavi who say they have been cheated. As expected, the closed state tries to silence protests and other forms of civil disobedience by blocking or interrupting mobile phone services and of all internet-based services Twitter which has been one of the best sources of information, responsible for the organization of protests in the capital Tehran that has managed to go through the information blockade. The portability and effectivity of Twitter to bring instantaneous news out to the rest of the world has put supposedly elected President Ahmadinejad mad as hell at attempts of what he calls are Western powers who have been giving the Iranian political system a shaking it should not have been subjected to. read on

Over at the Gothamist, a new directive from the New York Housing Authority has caught its attention.

The new directive now bans pit bulls from any of the buildings the Authority manages. In addition to this, a new 25-pound weight restriction has been placed on all pets. This means pets should not weigh more than 25 pounds. The previous weight restriction was pegged at 40 pounds. Of course, because of the lower weight ceiling, 24 other breeds are now also included in the ban list. This includes popular breeds like Rottweillers, Dobermans and Retrievers. Residents who currently own pets in the ban list can still keep their pets as long as they have registered them. Some people praised the move saying that animals that big shouldn’t be confined to small spaces but other pet owners are furious. One owner said that a small beagle that’s overweight can easily tip the scales at 25 pounds or more.

No rules have been given for a more immediate problem — residents who keep too many pets in their residences.

The network discusses the growing rift between Steve Jobs and his former CFO regarding and issue that surfaces regarding Jobs landing in hot water with the SEC over some stock options that were seemingly over the edge. Stock options to major companies have always been part of corporate culture and the same is with Apple, one of the biggest earners in today’s technology driven world. The scandal has some millions of dollars in question regarding the value and amounts of shares the former colleagues used to share that some accuse the former CFO of blowing the whistle out on which led to his eviction from the board of directors in 2006. After all the finger pointing and accusations, Steve lands in the sights of the SEC read on

News that all major players in the electric car race have standardized their plugs for a combined effort is welcome news indeed. but is it really a question of feasibility and inter-cooperation? Nope, it’s about dominance in a rising green car market that rivals the likes of events in the IT industry where profits is a direct result of dominance of a budding market worth billions. From Europe to the US, these auto makers have seemingly agreed to take up read on

The post is a common occurrence in today’s world and may hold the key to explaining our insatiable desire for the latest and best gadgets as they come out of the production line. People as we all know (yes, you and me) have an insatiable appetite for anything that you can pop into a bag, pocket or purse that makes life a bit easier. Give me an example of an executive with less than read on

Years back when the industry was still in infancy and Microsoft has been ruling most of the IT industry in terms of profits or should we say overall dominance, Yahoo and Google came up with the bright idea of a system that would allow subscribers of their free web-based email service to do lots of nifty stuff with contacts and friends who also had accounts with the same email services. Microsoft has introduced the same functionality to their long standing HotMail web-based messaging service which many have been waiting decades for. Yahoo and Google read on

Well, it ain’t actually Twitter’s fault, for some teen who was bored just happens to get the bright idea to make a worm of a headache that has been plaguing the micro-network since Easter and has surfaced time and time again since. The worm is linked to the StalkDaily.com site that Twitter promptly warned their users to stay away from, for a visit would lock you out of your account. While Twitter tries to address or at least rid the Twitter world of the darned creepy crawly, they are advising people to stay away from their user profiles to prevent infection. read on