Cyberculture roundup: Google Announces New Search Algorithm…

Google Announces New Search Algorithm

Pirate Bay Founder Hacking Sentence Slashed in Half on Appeal

In May 2013, Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm went on trial following allegations that the hacked into Logica, a Swedish IT company working with local tax authorities, and local bank Nordea.

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson: The age of software-defined communication and raging against ?the machine?

Last week, cloud telephony platform Twilio held its third-annual developer conference in San Francisco. And while there were certainly a few announcements made, there was one item that stood out. Among all of CEO Jeff Lawson?s points during his keynote speech, much of it was focused on the aspect of being a ?do?er? and how there?s a movement within companies towards something he calls software-defined communications.

The Secret Sauce Formula for Retaining Customers [INFOGRAPHIC]

While word of mouth is powerful, and is the principle upon which social media is built, many companies forget to make the next logical leap. And that?s the leap to fully comprehend that word of mouth is based on keeping your existing customers happy so that they not only return, but tell others about you.

eyes on the street or creepy surveillance?

This summer, with NSA scandal after NSA scandal, the public has (thankfully) started to wake up to issues of privacy, surveillance, and monitoring. We are living in a data world and there are serious questions to ask and contend with. But part of what makes this data world messy is that it?s not so easy as to say that all monitoring is always bad. Over the last week, I?ve been asked by a bunch of folks to comment on the report that a California school district hired an online monitoring firm to watch its students. This is a great example of a situation that is complicated.