Twitter was used substantially during Obama’s presidential campaign, but now his administration will be taking over the official @TheWhiteHouse Twitter account.  According to Mashable, the Bush Administration updated the @TheWhiteHouse account over 1,500 times with links to the President’s weekly radio address and text of executive orders made during Bush’s final days as President.  @TheWhiteHouse Twitter account will now feature updates, a new avatar, and links to the text of the inaugural address.  The @TheWhiteHouse Twitter account will link to blog posts on the new White House blog.

The account is following 7 other Twitter accounts and has over 13,000 followers.  A few Twitter users whined that Barack Obama did not update his personal Twitter account much after he became President so at least they have something to look forward to now.

Twitter was recently attacked by several hackers, who took over the accounts for FOX News, Britney Spears, Barack Obama, Rick Sanchez, etc.  With accounts like TheWhiteHouse becoming more active, it is time for Twitter to step up their security.

[via Mashable]

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) will be ending their Print Ads service.  Google launched the Prints Ads service through Google AdWords in November 2006.  Google launched this program with 50 newspaper partners on board.  Spencer Spinnell, Director of Print Ads for Google announced in a blog post that the program will officially halt on February 2008.  Campaigns that are already booked will run up until March 31.

About 800 newspaper companies including The New York Times, Hearst, and Scripps joined the program since they started it.

“While we hoped that Print Ads would create a new revenue stream for newspapers and produce more relevant advertising for consumers, the product has not created the impact that we — or our partners — wanted,” wrote Spinnell on the Google Traditional Media blog.

Spinnell mentioned that Google will try to help newspaper companies as best as they can.  However several newspaper companies have accused Google for copyright infringement by listing snippets of content on Google News without permission.

This is one of many services that Google has decided to fold recently.  Google Video stopped supporting uploads. And Jaiku, Mashup Editor, Dodgeball, Catalog Search, and Google Notebook will all be shutting down.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are exploring the 10-K reports for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to ensure that investors weren’t misled according to a source for Bloomberg.  The SEC review does not mean that there is evidence of any wrongdoing.

Software giant Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has sold off their shares in Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) according to a document that was filed with the SEC.  The document was filed last week.  Microsoft divested the remaining stake it had in the Internet service provider company.  The number of shares that Microsoft owned in Comcast amounted to 150 million overall.

The total investment Microsoft made in Comcast was $1 billion in 1997.  Microsoft saw this as a way to help the company build high-speed Internet connections.

“Our vision for connecting the world of PCs and TVs has long included advanced broadband capabilities to deliver video, data, and interactivity to the home,” stated Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and co-founder, regarding the transaction. “Comcast’s integrated approach to cable distribution, programming, and telecommunications complements that vision of linking PCs and TVs.”

It is unclear why Microsoft has decided to pull on their investment.  InformationWeek speculates that it may be regarding the controversy around capping download speeds for P2P services or that Microsoft needs to raise cash for an impending acquisition.

Supposedly Jeff Bewkes (CEO/Chairman of Time Warner), Roy Bostock (Chairman of Yahoo!), and Steve Ballmer (CEO of Microsoft) met at some point last week.

The Interior Minister of Uruguay Daisy Tourné put up a picture of herself up on Facebook… in the shower.   Tourné told the Montevideo’s El Pais newspaper that “There’s nothing more natural than a woman in the shower.”  Fortunately Tourné exposed only her face and arms.  But that didn’t stop people from complaining about her sharing her morning rituals with her Facebook friends.

“I think it’s in very bad taste that she exposes herself so intimately,” stated former Vice President of Uruguay, Hierro López.  Hierro served under Jorge Batlle when he was president of the South American country.  “Ministers have to be more austere, modest, above all the minister of the interior, who commands the police force.”

Personally I don’t see what the big deal is.  I think everyone in the world is entitled to express themselves, but should anticipate the consequences when making incriminating pictures public on a social network for others to spread.  The guy that skipped work to dress up as a fairy for Halloween should have seen it coming.  Paris Hilton should have known that the tape would leak.  Professional douchebag Aleksey Vayner should have known anticipated that his “Impossible is Nothing” tape would have leaked on Wall Street and that Michael Cera would make fun of him for it.

The below picture is no exception.  Now I’ll give you a few moments to regurgitate whatever it was that you were eating a few moments ago, but do remember to keep a few Tums handy.

[image credit: hln.be and Cadenaser]

Coupons.com Inc., one of the leading sites for finding coupons on groceries and other goods, has announced today that they have hired Steve Horowitz as their Chief Technology Officer.  Horowitz led the engineering team that built the Android mobile operating system for Google Inc.  Horowitz will oversee worldwide engineering, product management, and technology efforts.

“Our business is experiencing unprecedented growth, and as we extend our digital promotions platform to in-store, in-appliance and mobile phones, this is the ideal time for Steve to bring his deep experience to our team,” stated Coupons, Inc. CEO and founder Steven R. Boal.  “Steve is a business-minded, consumer-focused and battle-tested technology leader, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that he is joining our team.”

Consumers saved $300 million by using Coupons.com in 2008.  This came out to be a 140% increase from the year before.  Coupons.com wants to see to it that consumers save $1 billion in 2009.

Horowitz has tremendous experience in technology companies.  Aside from working as Engineering Director of Google for 3 years, he was at Microsoft for close to 9 years with leadership roles in IPTV, Windows Media Center Edition, UltimateTV, Dishplayer, and WebTV.  While Horowitz was attending The University of Michigan, he created the first extensible Macintosh Control Panel during an internship at Apple.  After graduating, Horowitz worked at Apple for 6 years on Mac products.

“Coupons.com has fast become one of the world’s leading online brands, so this is a very exciting opportunity,” stated Horowitz. ‘The company is at a pivotal point in its business, and I am eager to help further advance its development and deployment of new platforms and services for digital promotions.”

[Press release]

Yammer is an instant messaging tool that promotes short frequent answers to questions within companies.  Yammer serves as a central location for co-workers to exchange ideas, post news, share links, ask questions, etc.  Anyone in a company can start a Yammer network and invite other colleagues.  The company was founded by David Sacks and won the top-prize at the TechCrunch50 conference.

Yammer spun off from Geni.com, another company that Sacks founded.  Geni.com raised $5 million in Series C earlier this week.  The companies involved with Yammer’s $5 million Series A investment were Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures.  The Founders Fund are a group of investors where many partners are formerly of PayPal.  David Sacks was COO of PayPal at one point.

What puts Yammer at risk is Twitter’s ability to launch a groups feature.  If Twitter creates an enterprise version of their service, they could take on Yammer head-on.

[via TechCrunch]

There are many companies out there that believe they have created something revolutionary by building their own social search (i.e. aggregating content from various other searches).  Kosmix is a pretty good example of such a search engine.  But this is the first time I’ve seen someone build social search around Google through the use of a Firefox plugin.  Above is screenshot of the plugin being used.

OneRiot connects Google search results with WebMynd History, Delicious, Fluther, CNN, Google Books, TechCrunch, Dawdle Games, LinkedIn, Scribd, Reddit, Economist, Digg, Youlicit, Y! Shopping, Hacker News, Factiva, BackType, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, Amazon Products, and OneRiot Pulse.

WebMynd can also act as a “DVR for the web” by recording your activity and search browsing history.  To download the OneRiot Firefox Plugin, visit the download page here: http://www.webmynd.com/html/oneriot.html.