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For political parties in Dallas, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become valuable tools for communication and winning votes. The opportunities offered by these sites made a big difference in the 2008 elections, and many hope to capitalize on them again in November of 2010.

For Democrats, social networking connects to voters they need to target. "In 2008, we saw a whole new set of voters come in," according to Steve Tillery, executive director of the Dallas County Democratic Party. "A lot of local candidates had been using it, and there was lots of chatter there. We decided we needed to get in on this and build some excitement."

"It's helped in a few ways," Dallas County Republican Party chairman Jonathan Neerman said of social networking. "We've become more nimble in our communication tactics. When news breaks, you can quickly notify your entire mail list. It has also helped us reach out to different audiences."

The Democratic and Republican Parties both utilize Facebook, mostly to pass along political news of local interest and to promote their candidates. It has also been an effective fund-raising tool for Republicans. During a recent Dallas visit by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the county GOP used Facebook to promote a "money-bomb," a concentrated money-raising effort. Supporters were asked to contribute to the party in a "money-bomb" to counter Pelosi's local fund-raising efforts. All told, county Republicans raised over $10,000.

According to Tillery, the county Democratic party does not use social networking for fund-raising. "It just hasn't been successful for us," he said. What has worked for Democrats, he said, is using Facebook to organize volunteer efforts. During several recent neighborhood walks to "get out the vote," over 100 volunteers turned out, largely due to word on Facebook.

Some candidates also use social networking as a fund-raising tool. Stephen Broden, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in District 30 (Texas), uses Facebook and Twitter to communicate with supporters, even those outside his district. Many of them use links on his Facebook page to contribute to his campaign.

YouTube may be an entertainment source for most, but it has become a powerful political tool as well. The Dallas County Republican Party has used their official YouTube channel (dallascountygop) to post news stories, videos from rallies and speeches, and even original viral videos. When chairman Jonathan Neerman posted a video of his young daughter delivering yard signs, the response was instant. "We had people calling us wanting to have my daughter deliver signs to them," he said.

The Dallas County Democratic Party also has an official channel (dallascountydems2010) that shares videos of recent neighborhood walks in Dallas. The Dallas County Young Democrats posted a series of videos called "Meet the Democrats," featuring local candidates speaking from the heart about why they are running.

Twitter has been an especially effective tool used by candidates to keep in touch with supporters, and even make news. When Debra Medina was running for governor, she often made announcements via Twitter, ahead of traditional press releases.

As both parties look to make the most of their social networks, the big question is what comes next. "I want to know what is going to be the next big thing we will have to get into," Tillery said. "What is going to replace Facebook and Twitter?"

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Dallas Political Parties Use Social Networking to Reach Voters

CLEARWATER, Fla., May 8, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- GFI Software today released its VIPRE Report for April 2012, a collection of the 10 most prevalent threat detections encountered last month. In April, cybercriminals were seen exploiting users of major social networking sites including Facebook , Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest in order to spread malware and spam surveys.

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"In the same way that the popularity of social networking sites makes them a widely accepted tool for businesses to reach customers and elevate brand awareness, it also appeals to cybercriminals seeking a large pool of captive users to be targeted for malware and spam attacks," said Christopher Boyd, senior threat researcher at GFI Software. "Established sites like Facebook and Twitter have long been a breeding ground for new cyber-attacks, but now we are seeing scammers taking an interest in the popularity of newer sites like Pinterest in order to catch victims off guard and trick them into clicking on something they shouldn't."

Twitter users were the quarry of cybercriminals looking to distribute fake antivirus applications during a particularly vicious spam run which tweeted a link labeled "must-see" from numerous compromised accounts and spam-bots. Followers unlucky enough to click on the links were directed to a site infected with a fake antivirus program. Once installed, the program constantly alerted users that their machine was infected and requested payment to clean up the system. The next day, additional links used the Blackhole exploit kit to infect victims' machines with malware before automatically sending them to a site that was hosting another scareware program called "Windows Antivirus Patch."

Twitter was also used as a platform to take advantage of users on Pinterest, a social networking site which is rapidly gaining popularity. A spam campaign using the account "Pinterestdep" claimed to be offering Visa gift cards to users willing to provide their opinions about Pinterest. Instead of being directed to a user feedback form, victims were sent to a site which required them to complete up to 11 reward offers and to refer three friends to do so as well. Scammers also took advantage of Tumblr users who mistakenly entered "Tublr" into their web browser when attempting to access the popular micro-blogging site and redirected them to a message that claimed the victim had been selected as a "daily winner." Like the scam on Pinterest, the victim was then asked to fill out surveys or complete other offers in order to claim the prize.

In a rehash of a popular lure used previously on Facebook and MySpace, scammers tricked users into installing a fake application which promised to show them a list of people who had viewed their profile. The application did little more than tag the victim's friends in a spam image in order to spread the fake application among their network and serve them with surveys that generate affiliate cash for the scammer.

"With countless studies being released which point to the regularity with which users are visiting their favorite social networking sites, it should come as no surprise that cybercriminals see these sites as prime targets for their attacks as they look to reach as many people as possible," continued Boyd.

Top 10 Threat Detections for April GFI's top 10 threat detection list is compiled from collected scan data of tens of thousands of GFI VIPRE Antivirus customers who are part of GFI's ThreatNet automated threat tracking system. ThreatNet statistics revealed that Trojans remained the most used attack method in April 2012, taking four of the top 10 spots.

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GFI Labs Observes Cybercriminals Targeting Users of Major Social Networking Sites in April

By Callum Borchers, Globe Correspondent

President Obama expanded his social networking repertoire Tuesday by joining Pinterest, the scrapbook-style website where users can pin messages, photographs and videos to virtual boards.

So far, the president has eight boards, or categories of pins. One, called Just the facts, includes three pins promoting Obamas signature health care law, whose constitutionality was debated in oral arguments before the Supreme Court this week.

But most of Obamas new Pinterest boards, managed by his campaign staff, are devoted to lighter fare: Obama-inspired recipes and Pet Lovers for Obama.

A majority of Pinterest users are young and female, a demographic the Obama campaign began targeting more heavily this month. Four years ago, Obama earned 56 percent of the female vote.

During the 2008 election and since, Obama has embraced social media as a way to connect with voters. He has more than 13 million Twitter followers and almost 26 million Facebook likes. The Obama campaign used Twitter to announce that the president had joined Pinterest.

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, he had more than 7,000 followers.

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President Obama joins Pinterest, the social networking website popular among young women

Public release date: 9-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Anita Srikameswaran SrikamAV@upmc.edu 412-578-9193 University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences

PITTSBURGH, May 9 Four years after they discovered the viral roots of a rare skin cancer, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and the School of Medicine have now identified a molecule activated by this virus that, in animal studies, could be targeted to selectively kill the tumor cells. The treatment will soon be tested in patients.

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a skin cancer that is more common among seniors and those with weakened immune systems, could not be readily diagnosed at one time, and it still has a very poor prognosis, said Patrick S. Moore, M.D., M.P.H., and Yuan Chang, M.D., both of the Cancer Virology Program at UPCI and senior authors of a study that appears online today in Science Translational Medicine.

"This research effort shows the speed at which genomics can identify molecular causes for cancer and then point the way toward a rational and targeted treatment," Dr. Moore noted. "Since the inception of the 1971 U.S. National Cancer Act, researchers have strived to discover the underlying problems that trigger tumor development."

In 2008, the team first described the new Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCV) in Merkel cell carcinoma. Within a year, they showed it was responsible for tumor development in most cases of the disease. At least four out of five healthy adults world-wide are infected with MCV, which usually doesn't cause any symptoms.

"The virus remains in the skin cells, and in most cases, no damage is done," Dr. Chang said. "But when mutations occur to this virus, it can cause cancer. Most of the 1,500 new MCC cases per year in the U.S. are caused by MCV infection."

In quick succession, the team devised tests to identify virus-induced MCC, and began unraveling the biochemical pathways that encourage tumor formation. In their latest project, they "knocked out" a key viral protein called T antigen and found that MCV directly elevates a cellular protein called survivin.

Survivin prevents cells from dying and supports cell division, the researchers said. They found that a drug called YM155, which turns off the survivin gene again, was an extremely potent killer of MCC cells in test tubes and was able to suppress the growth of human tumors that had been established in experimental mice. In comparison, 1,360 other drugsincluding most of the common chemotherapy drugswere screened and failed to both kill MCC cells and prevent tumor growth at levels commonly achieved in patients. One of these drugs was able to kill tumor cells in culture dishes, but made no impact on the MCC tumors in mice. It remains a promising candidate drug since it may have better activity in people and is readily available.

A multicenter clinical trial of YM155, a still-experimental anti-cancer drug that is made by Deerfield, Ill.-based Astellas, is expected to begin in the next six months to determine its effectiveness in MCC patients. The trial will be led locally by Pitt School of Medicine assistant professor Hussein Tawbi, M.D., Ph.D., and professor John Kirkwood, M.D., who also is co-leader of the UPCI Melanoma Program, through the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, a multicenter cooperative group supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Pitt team uses genomics to identify a molecular-based treatment for a viral skin cancer

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -05/08/12)- Joomla, one of the world's most popular open source content management systems (CMS) used for everything from websites to blogs to Intranets, today announced students will contribute to the Joomla CMS core and platform this summer as part of the Google Summer of Code. In all, there are eight students that are working on eight separate projects that may eventually be used by Joomla. These assignments include creating Facebook, Google services and MediaWiki APIs, multi-language options for installation, and much more. The Google Summer of Code is a global program that runs until August 24, offering students 18 years and older stipends to write code for open source projects.

The students working on Joomla projects are from Brazil, France, Romania, Sri Lanka and the United States. One such student is Aaron Schmitz who at just 18 years old is finishing up his junior year at the University of Minnesota and was the top American finisher at the Google Code-in competition, an open source coding competition for 13 to 17 year-old students. "It's exciting to be able to contribute to code that may eventually be incorporated into the Joomla core code that is used by millions of people to manage content on more than a million websites," said Schmitz.

Some of the assignments the students will be working on include:

"We're excited to see what kind of code these students come up with, but we're equally as excited to have these students join the Joomla community," said Elin Waring of the Joomla Production Working Group who is co-administering the Google Summer of Code projects. "The end goal with Joomla developers is all about creating code that millions of people use, but it is the interaction and sharing of ideas in our community that makes Joomla tick."

Although the students' code won't all be immediately committed to the Joomla CMS core at the end of the summer, it will continue to be developed for the core and may be used by extension developers. Many of the Google Summer of Code projects are focused on the Joomla Platform which provides the infrastructure that future development in the Joomla CMS and other applications build on. The Joomla Platform enables developers to build multi-purpose, multi-device applications like mobile and cloud computing apps, and enterprise business systems that can run independent from the core CMS.

For the next three months, the eight students will be working on coding for their Joomla assignments. They will present their projects to the Joomla community in mid-August. On August 24, students will find out whether their code is acceptable. They have the potential to receive a $5000 stipend from Google for participating, to be paid out in installments. More information about Joomla's Google Summer of Code students and all of the projects they are working on, go to http://community.joomla.org/blogs/community/1571-were-off-to-the-races.html.

About Joomla! Joomla is one of the world's most popular open source content management systems (CMS). With 2.7 percent of the Web running on Joomla, it is used for everything from small personal websites and blogs to some of the largest enterprise, highest trafficked websites and Intranets including those operated by Citibank, eBay, General Electric, Harvard University, Ikea, McDonald's, Sony, many large nations and more. Due to its power and elegance, the most inexperienced user to the most seasoned web developer can use it. Since its inception in 2005, Joomla has been 100 percent community owned and operated. The Joomla community is a true collaboration of thousands of open source developers and millions of everyday users who account for its software being downloaded more than 31 million times to date. For more information, visit http://www.joomla.org.

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Students Contribute to Joomla! CMS Core and Platform During Google Summer of Code