Viral Facebook Scam of bin Laden

Following President Obama’s announcement of the death of Former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden this week, a scam emerged on Facebook claiming to be a picture of the terrorist prior to being buried at sea, as well as a video of his shooting. As you can imagine, the photograph and video were not only false, but suspected to be potential malware attacks for those Facebook users who clicked on the links.

News of bin Laden’s Death

Last week, eZanga.com reported that users commented on the Royal Wedding on Facebook in large numbers (somewhere between 75 and 100 status updates about the wedding every second). This week, however, many were shocked to see the numbers on social media that came out of the news of bin Laden’s death. More than 50% of internet users said to have received the news of  bin Laden’s death through social media websites. On top of those astonishing numbers, we learned that 30% got the news from Twitter, 20% from Facebook, and only 17.4% from TV.

Facebook Pays YOU!

Zuckerberg puts his money where his mouth is! Facebook announced on Thursday that it will now offer a new program that pays its users to watch advertisements online. The new program acts as an incentive by enticing viewers with Facebook Credits that can be cashed in on its (other) new program, Facebook Deals, which acts similarly to Groupon. It was reported that each ad viewing will be worth one credit, which is the equivalent of 10 cents.

Facebook Buying Skype?

While no official announcement has been made, there are “credible” sources going around saying that Facebook and Google are in talks with Skype about joining forces. After Skype’s delay of its initial public offering, people began speculating that Mark Zuckerberg has been considering purchasing the web video conferencing service for $3 billion to $4 billion.

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