By Kelly Faircloth 5/20 8:06am

Linkages

She's laughing at you, fandom. LAUGHING AT YOU.

Booting Up: Tumblr Users Are Freaking Out So Hard Right Now, You Guys

“The inevitable next step is for Kim Kardashian to sit on the board of a tech start-up, host a global-poverty-awareness event and write a book on behavioral neuroscience.” [New York Times]

The tax man’s hanging round Apple’s door, and now Tim Cook is due to appear before Congress on the matter. [Telegraph]

For her science fair project, this teenaged girl invented a supercapacitor that could maybe, with further development, charge your electronics lightening fast. Everyone’s now feeling pretty bad about their baking soda volcano, huh? [Jezebel]

Matt Mullenweg says that talk of Yahoo buying Tumblr sent WordPress imports from Tumblr skyrocketing, from 400-600 posts per hour to 72,000 on Sunday. Of course, that could’ve just been one really dedicated porn reblogger. [AllThingsD]

Tumblr users are having a collective meltdown to rival The China Syndrome (only onetime Yahoo users are old enough to get that joke). [Buzzfeed]

By Patrick Clark 1/31 8:17am

Linkages

zuck original

Booting Up: Looks Like Notorious Club Kid Mark Zuckerberg Was at a Rave

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg raved about his company, declaring the social media giant a “mobile company” during a conference call discuss quarterly earnings. [Betabeat]

More importantly, is that a picture of the Zuckster at a rave? According to the DJ shown in the image at left, the photo was taken three years ago. [Gawker]

Note to BlackBerry: Next time you launch a big new product, maybe better to firm up your release date before you hire Alicia Keys to sing your praises. [Bloomberg]

Sometimes matching a business model to a celebrity founder is like picking out the right pair of shoes to go with a pair of new pants. ShoeDazzle, the online shoe-seller cofounded by Kim Kardashian, dropped its subscription model a year ago. Now the subscription package is back. [AllThingsD]

A man was shot dead in Georgia after a GPS error lead him to the wrong house. [Gizmodo]

By Jessica Roy 12/18/12 10:59am

TOS It

Kim K, queen of the selfies. (Photo: Instagram)

Will Instagram’s New Advertising Policy Yield an Exodus of Celebs?

Much ink has already been spilled over Instagram’s new updated terms of service, which specifically states that it can use your photos for “advertising and promotions.” Twitter users erupted in outrage over the news, with many techies claiming they would soon be quitting the service. Wired wrote a helpful how-to on how to download your photos and delete your account. Photographer Clayton Cubitt, who is not at all hyperbolic, called it Instagram’s suicide note. Gizmodo called everyone whiny babies and offered a counterpoint: “shut up.” Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 10/17/12 4:00pm

Visiting Dignitaries

Person of interest. (Photo: David Shankbone, via Flickr Creative Commons

The Most Popular Celebrity on That New Search Engine for Porn? Kim Kardashian, Of Kourse

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Internet got what it’s so clearly needed all along: an, ahem, portal to the universe of smut. Launched September 27, Search.xxx is meant to provide a secure alternative to just Googling your most secret fetish, so you won’t get outed the next time someone borrows your laptop.

ICM Registry, the company behind the site, reached out to Betabeat to share a few statistics. Search.xxx received a whopping billion impressions within its first week, as grateful porn connoisseurs and teens stuck using the family computer flocked to the site. Read More

By Foster Kamer 12/01/11 4:44pm

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

And to think: You've already done so much for us.

Kim Kardashian Finally Loses. To The iPhone.

When human civilization as we know it is excavated in a few thousand years by aliens or Transformers or hyper-evolved talking cookies or whatever, they’re going to eventually find proof of Kim Kardashian, and ask themselves what will eventually manifest itself as the question crucial to understanding the core of our time in this universe: “Really?” Until then, she’s here, and she’s always winning. She’s beating us all. Anybody so painfully, utterly talentless who can continually produce massive profits off of a legal, seamless exploitation of society’s worst impulses is winning. If she IPO’d, I’d put my life’s savings on margin to invest in KIMK. This is just how it is.

Thankfully, December has brought us a bright spot in the otherwise murky cesspool of Western Society that involves her: Read More