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Jessica Roy

McAfee Speaks

(Screenshot: YouTube)

Bath Salts, Babes and Bills: John McAfee Returns With Bizarre YouTube Sketch

Just yesterday, Betabeat was considering the brief, bizarre rein of McAfee Antivirus founder and bath salts enthusiast John McAfee. How brightly he shone in those brilliant months last winter when he was on the run in South America for allegedly murdering someone in Belize. There was the tampon disguise and the one that probably made him look like a murderer; and of course, that time Vice magazine called us all suckers before accidentally revealing Mr. McAfee’s secret location through iPhone photo metadata. Read More

Off the Media

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Facebook Is Almost a Decade Old and Still Doesn’t Get the Advertising Game

Advertising is a simple business.

A publisher creates inventory, whether it’s in a newspaper, over the airwaves, by the side of the road or online. They sell part of that inventory to companies who want to get their products and brand names in front of an audience.

Though it seems like a simple equation, there are a lot of ways it could go wrong, especially in the dizzying world of online ads.

Read More

Facebook Faceoff

(Photo: Wikipedia)

No, Facebook Is Not Deliberately Blocking Logins from TOR

A post on the blog Arabcrunch.com went viral this morning, hitting the front pages of both Reddit and Hacker News. The post stated that Facebook had begun blocking logins from users attempting to access it from the anonymized browser TOR. For activists and political dissidents who use the Internet to communicate with the outside world in countries where doing so is a crime, being unable to login to Facebook using TOR posed a huge problem. Read More

XXX in Tech

(Photo: Road to VR)

Finally, a Way to Make Straight Gamer Guys ‘Genuinely Horny’

It’s almost impossible to get a straight dude who plays video games horny these days. Walk by him in a short skirt that’s practically begging to be creepshotted and he’ll politely avert his gaze. Use your girl voice to talk to him on Xbox Live and he’ll compliment you on your impressive gameplay skills and immediately want to engage you in a conversation about the latest issue of Bust magazine. Luckily, developers of Wicked Paradise, an adult virtual reality game for the Oculus Rift headset, are working to solve this important problem. Read More

Good Job Internet

Not this Tweet. (Photo: celebslists.com)

Oxford English Dictionary Deigns to Allow Twitter’s Definition of ‘Tweet’ Into Its Hallowed Tome

After the Oxford American Dictionary deemed “GIF” the 2012 word of the year and officially adopted friendzone into its ranks, you’d be forgiven for feeling like they’re starting to cater to the Internet savvy among us. That sneaky suspicion about pandering will probably only get worse with the news that the Oxford English Dictionary has officially amended the definition of the word “tweet” to incorporate its web meaning. Read More

Parker Parade

(Photo: Mobypicture.com, John Perry Barlow)

Doomed to Forever Be Confused With Justin Timberlake, Sean Parker Laments Backlash to His Lavish Forest Wedding

Poor handsome, successful millionaire Sean Parker. Not only is he doomed to forever be confused with Justin Timberlake’s obnoxiously bro-ish portrayal of him in The Social Network, but he’s also been forced to cancel his honeymoon following the deafening backlash caused by his fantasy forest wedding. Can’t a super rich guy catch a break around here? Read More