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StockTwits co-founder, Howard Lindzon

StockTwits Wants to Make Money Without Advertising or Premium Memberships

There comes a time in every start-up’s life when they have to move beyond, “If we build it, they will come,” and start focusing on guap. For StockTwits co-founder and investor Howard Lindzon, that time is nigh. But rather than the typical advertising or premium membership route, Lindzon’s New York- and San Diego-based Twitter-based financial network for traders and investors has opted to disrupt the staid field of corporate investor relations. Betabeat talked to StockTwits investor and executive editor Phil Pearlman today to find out why. Read More

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Conservative Twitter Group #BornFreeCrew Warned Young Women Away From Weiner

Andrew Breitbart might have been the one to expose Anthony Weiner’s weiner to the world, but a certain swath of social media also saw it coming. A group of self-described conservatives who dubbed themselves the #bornfreecrew took up the cause of warning young women away from the Congressman’s Twitter followers. In public tweets, they contacted women they believed to be “school girls,” like 21-year-old Washington State college student Gennette Cordova, and urged them to keep their distance from Rep. Weiner. In fact, user @patriotusa76, whom we identified last week as Weiner-troll for following both Ms. Cordova and Rep. Weiner (and tweeting at the representative 287 times), is part of the group. @patriotusa76, who identified himself as Dan Wolfe online before deleting his Twitter account due to intensive media scrutiny, was the one who discovered the photograph. He retweeted it, shared it with his fellow #bornfreecrew patriots and their honorary mascot, Mr. Breitbart, who leaked it publicly the next day. Thereby unleashing the Weiner sex scandal they predicted. Read More

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Bill Keller

Bill Keller Worried We’re Outsourcing Our Brains

First he was grumbling about aggregation, taking potshots at Arianna Huffington, and now New York Times executive editor Bill Keller does his stick in the mud routine with social media.

The Twitter trap, as Keller calls it, is an ever present distraction. “Unlike the virtual fireplace or that nesting pair of red-tailed hawks we have been live-streaming on nytimes.com, Twitter is not just an ambient presence. It demands attention and response. It is the enemy of contemplation. Every time my TweetDeck shoots a new tweet to my desktop, I experience a little dopamine spritz that takes me away from . . . from . . . wait, what was I saying?” Read More