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Rapper Soulja Boy fell foul of cyber criminals on Monday (18Mar13) after a slew of his social networking accounts were hacked into.

The Crank That (Soulja Boy) hitmaker, real name DeAndre Way, was shocked to discover all of his music videos from YouTube.com had been deleted, while assailants had also compromised the security of his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram blogs too.

After changing the password for his Twitter page, he reached out to fans online to ask for help in rectifying the Internet issue.

He wrote, "If any of my followers know anyone from Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube/Google let me know because all of my accounts are hacked. Thanks".

However, Soulja Boy refused to let the hack attack get him down and instead vowed to bounce back from the incident.

He tweeted, "This is only going to make me go harder, they deleted all my YouTube videos that's some real hater s**t right there".

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Soulja Boy's Social Networking Accounts Hacked

Social media wasn't a part of day-to-day life a decade ago.

People communicated through phone calls and letters sent via postal service. Photos were put into albums for later viewing and frames so they could be displayed. Classmates had to attend reunions to catch up on what everyone was doing.

Today, you can look up almost anyone on Facebook with just a few clicks. For many people, logging onto Twitter or posting a photo to Instagram is as common an activity as making a phone call or watching television. The number of social media outlets is growing exponentially as more people delve into social networking.

The key to not being overwhelmed by it all is finding the website or application that best suits your needs. Photography buffs may stick to Flickr and shy away from Twitter. A parent may only want to join a social networking site to keep an eye on the kids. These days, even Grandma is on Facebook, which makes sense because it's the most popular social media site with more than 1 billion users.

"Facebook is still king," says Scott Monty, global head of social media for Ford Motor Co.

"It's clearly the mainstream of social networking," he says. "Facebook has made it easy for us to share the things that matter to us and to connect with people around us. The reason grandmothers are on there largely stemmed from wanting to be part of their grandkids' lives because that's where they were."

While Facebook has a broad appeal, other social media sites cater to different personalities. Pinterest is for artistic and creative types who prefer images over text, while Twitter may attract folks who want to be the first to hear the latest news about celebrities, politics, sports, etc.

Karen McDevitt, new media instructor at Wayne State University's Department of Communications, says people flock to sites like these because they're easy to use.

"It doesn't take much effort," she says. "It lends itself to quick quips without much hassle."

Of Facebook, McDevitt adds it has "become a visual representation of our identity. It's who we are and how we see each other."

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Social media expands communication through words, pictures and videos

Keynote Systems, the expert in Internet and mobile cloud monitoring, monitors the top 10 UK social networking sites on a monthly basis and analyses how these sites perform compared to their competitors. By Robert Castley.

In February, two sites were added to the social media index; Google+ a multilingual social networking and identity service, and Pinterest a pin-board style photo sharing website. These additions had a positive impact on the performance of the social media index as a whole, with the average load time decreasing from 3.53 seconds in January to 3.44 seconds in February. Furthermore, availability the chances of a website loading correctly when visited shot up from 98.69 percent in January to 99.51 percent in February.

A simple login page, with very few objects to load, has allowed Google+ to deliver exceptional speed and reliability from its site, making a great first impression on visitors. It featured at the top of the table for both load time, with an impressive 0.6 seconds, and availability, with a 99.93 percent successful load rate. Pinterest found itself positioned in the centre of the table, although performed better than the average the homepage had a load time of 2.33 seconds and a success rate of 99.71 percent for February.

Although all of the sites fell at least one place in the February rankings, due to the introduction of Google+ and Pinterest, collectively the sites performed well. Six out of the eleven sites loaded in under two seconds, and nine out of the eleven sites had a successful load rate of over 99 percent.

It was great to see these newer sites, which have gained more traction in recent months, positioning so highly in the rankings. Even Pinterest, which landed in seventh place, performed impressively considering the entire site is made up of images, which are often more complex to load. The updated index also shows how social media sites are becoming increasingly competitive in terms of load time and availability, something that can be particularly challenging when a site is in its early growth stages and the level of traffic is unpredictable. All in all, Google+ and Pinterest seem to be a well performing addition to the social media landscape!

About the author

Robert Castley has been a solutions consultant at internet testing and monitoring specialist Keynote, for over three years. Prior to working at Keynote, Robert worked as a Professional Services Consultant at a document management company, Macro 4, where he worked on developing custom web interfaces. He regularly engages with customers and has an in-depth technical knowledge in web development. One of his proudest achievements is developing one of the worlds most popular Open Source Content Management Systems to the masses Mambo, which now lives on as Joomla!

Robert is an authoritative spokesperson on web performance and regularly participates in industry events on the topic. Robert is passionate about the need to provide the optimum experience for internet users, irrelevant of the device they are using. He advocates a three screen approach that provides a consistent experience whether a website is being accessed via mobile, tablet or desktop computer.

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Performance of social networking sites – Index from Keynote Systems for February 2013

Shaq: I #39;m Not Familiar With Twitter #39;s Vine
March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Former NBA Player Shaquille O #39;Neal discusses his interest in the tech world and social networking. He spoke with Jon Erlichman on Blo...

By: Bloomberg

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Shaq: I'm Not Familiar With Twitter's Vine - Video

Mumbai, March 17 -- The Mumbai police, in a unique initiative to understand citizens and connect with the youth, has started a social media laboratory. The lab, which has been started in association with Reliance Foundation and NASSCOM, will see police officers active on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and others. A team of 20 specially trained officers will operate the lab.

Police commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh, however, made it very clear that the initiative would not interfere in any manner with the privacy of people active on social networking sites.

"This step is not going to affect people's privacy. Through this medium, we are trying to understand the mindset of people which will help in better policing," Singh said. The initiative has been chalked out seeing the rise in popularity of social networking sites among city youth.

Actor Abhishek Bachchan joined as a guest for the inauguration of the Social Media Lab. Abhishek, who is active on Twitter along with his father, Amitabh Bachchan, said, "The Mumbai police are trying to connect with the masses through this and we should support them. Social networking sites are a platform for people to write their views and the police are not going to interfere with that."

"There are 1.2 crore tweets on Twitter from Mumbai alone. It's not possible for us to follow everybody. But, if we will find objectionable comments on the site then we will inform the cyber cell of the Mumbai police to look into it," Singh said.

The lab will also be keeping tabs on terror groups which at times post their messages on social networking sites. Singh had also started a cyber lab when he was joint commissioner of police, crime in 2003 which was the first such lab in the country.

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.

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Mumbai police get active on networking sites