File-sharing services, also referred to as digital lockers, enable users to easily upload, store and share large files on a server in the internet cloud. This includes movies, music, gaming applications, software tools, multimedia presentations and the like.

But digital locker companies  have not come up with a good way to consistently stop copyright infringement and as the result, they are often used as the platform to download copyright infringing materials, from the latest software to the latest Hollywood blockbusters.

With the federal shutdown of Megaupload, these other digital locker companies are scrambling to cut back on sharing content that could get them into legal trouble. Also gone is the affiliate rewards program many of these sites offer. This reward program pays its users a fee for getting other people to download the files that you upload to the site.

A check on some of these popular filesharing sites reveal their current statuses as of today:

MegaUpload Closed.

FileServe Multiple files have been deleted. Affiliate rewards program have been discontinued. Can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

FileSonic Can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

4shared Multiple files have been deleted. Affiliate rewards program have been discontinued.

FileJungle Multiple files have been deleted. Affiliate rewards program have been discontinued. Can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally. Currently testing out blocking some USA IP addresses.

UploadStation Multiple files have been deleted. Affiliate rewards program have been discontinued. Can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally. Currently testing out blocking some USA IP addresses.

VideoBB Affiliate rewards program have been discontinued.

Uploaded.to All U.S. IP addresses have been blocked, essentially blocking all U.S. users from visiting or using the site.

FilePost Started suspending accounts with infringing material. Can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.
Affiliate rewards program have been discontinued.

VideoZer Affiliate rewards program have been discontinued.

UploadBox Will be closing down, all files will be deleted on January 30th.

x7.to Have closed down.

There is a high probability that these other digital locker companies will share a similar fate to Megaupload if they are unable to prove that they are legitimately trying to combat piracy. The fact that the companies listed above have ceased the sharing functionality on their sites just goes to show that they probably haven’t done enough in the past.

File-sharing Sites Cut Back on Sharing in the Aftermath of Crackdown on Megaupload originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 27, 2012.

Michael Flanagan, the chief technology officer at Arieso noted that “I use the iPhone 4 myself and when I first heard of the iPhone 4S features I was not compelled to rush out and get one. However, the data usage numbers I am seeing make me wonder what I am missing.”

The report, which was covered by Reuters, indicate that this doubling in data usage may be due to increasing use of online services like the virtual personal assistant Siri, which was bundled with the iPhone 4S.

This is not necessarily a good thing though. Arieso warns that the capacity issues plaguing mobile operators around the world will worsen in 2012.

According to Flanagan, “The introduction of increasingly sophisticated devices, coupled with growing consumer demand, is creating unrelenting pressure on mobile networks”. Because of this, he suggests that the mobile industry needs new investment and new approaches to boost network performance and manage the customer experience.

iPhone 4S Users are the “Hungriest” Data Consumers: Study originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 9, 2012.

MAS launched its MHBuddy app in February 2011, which allows its customers to book tickets, select seats, access travel itinerary and also, flight check-ins. The app taps into users’ social graph i.e. share travel plans and experiences with family and friends on Facebook, identifying who might be sharing the same flight, among others. The app was developed for MAS by SITA Lab.

MAS is one of the prominent users of social media in Malaysia. To date, its Facebook Page has over 400,000 Likes and in the top 20 of the Most Popular Facebook Pages in Malaysia list. The MHBuddy Facebook app offers a unique convenience and effective means to engage meaningfully with its customers on Facebook.

Said MAS senior vice-president (Corporate Marketing and Loyalty Programme), Raja Datuk Nordiana Zainal Shah:

Some 80 per cent of MHbuddy users are Enrich members, and therefore this is a great opportunity for us to recognise our loyal members online with such rewards.

Malaysia Airlines Rewards Customers for Flight Bookings on Facebook originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 6, 2012.

It took iPad users took nearly a year and a half to reach the 3 billion downloads mark; iPhone users took as long as two years before being able to reach that level. In comparison, Android tablets only have around 440 million downloads thus far.

According to the report, Android still trails greatly behind the iPad mainly because Android tablets in the market are still using older versions of OS, which disadvantages users from enjoying the better effects of apps produced from more advanced software development kits.

Additionally, Apple’s iPad apps are generally considered to be of a better quality compared to Android tablet-specific apps. In Quarter 3 2011 alone, there were 120,000 apps specifically developed for the iPad.

However, ABI Research expects an impending shift in future, as more manufacturers are adopting the more advanced Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, and their concerted efforts to narrow specifications gap between their tablets and the iPad.

3 Billion iPad Apps Downloads Leave Android In The Dust originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 6, 2012.

According to NRD director-general Datuk Jariah Mohd Said, the new MyKad adheres to international standards and does not easily damage, which would overcome the quality and durability issue raised by certain quarters.

She added that although it is not compulsory, the public are encouraged to change their MyKad to the new ones.

New MyKad security features curbs forgery originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 3, 2012.

However, its quarterly growth has been sliding steadily in 2011, from 17% in Quarter 1 to 8% in Quarter 4. In Quarter 4 2010, it was growing at 21%.

2010 was the year when Facebook went on hyper-drive growth on users acquisition front in Asia. However, 2011 was the year when Facebook downshifted a gear or two. The decline is expected to continue as many Asian nations are reaching saturation level.

Total Facebook users in Asia increased from 168 million on October 1 2011 to 181 million on December 31 2011, a quarterly growth rate of 8%.

Indonesia continues to be the top Asian country on Facebook with 42 million users. But India will dethrone Indonesia soon. [UPDATE: India has surpassed Indonesia to become Facebook's biggest country in Asia.]

Facebook users in India has been growing by the double digits throughout 2011. On January 1 2011, India has 17 million Facebook users. By the end of the year, the country has 41 million users!

Other than India, eight other countries registered double digits growth throughout 2011, namely Thailand, Japan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Mongolia, Afghanistan, and Laos (see Table 3). However, only three countries are growing at rates higher in Quarter 4 compared to Quarter 3, namely Japan, South Korea and Mongolia. And South Korea registered the highest single quarter growth of 82% in Quarter 1 2011.

How accurate are these estimations? Read here.

Facebook in Asia: A Growth Story (2011) originally appeared on GreyReview.com on January 1, 2012.

There are now over 12 million Facebook users and possibly, hundreds of thousands of Twitter users in Malaysia. Social tools are becoming more pervasive. In 2011, the tools are a force to be reckon with.

Malaysians (and elsewhere) used social media tools to amplify their dissatisfaction about various issues – from election reform to proposed Bill to government initiatives. Not only protests though. In 2011, we also saw a high-profile Malaysian CEO posting his unvarnished thoughts/opinions on social media, a record breaking tweetup, and a marriage proposal that went massively viral worldwide!

These days, whatever happens offline, the news get propagated across social networks. Whatever happens in social media space gets attention in the physical world.

In the past 365 days, there were many interesting things happening in the Malaysian social media scene. Here are some of the most notable, memorable ones.

MALAYSIAN EMAIL PROJECT The national Email project aims to provide unique email ID to every Malaysian citizens who are 18 years and above. The total investment of the project is RM50 million by 2020. It will be spearheaded by Tricubes Bhd, in collaboration with Microsoft.

After the project was announced by the Prime Minister, a public uproar ensued. It was ridiculed by many on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites.

100 APOLOGY TWEETS Back in January 2011, Fahmi Fadzil had tweeted that an acquaintance had been poorly treated by Blu Inc Media. He later apologized but Blu Inc Media demanded compensation for defamation and an apology in newspaper. Both parties however settled the case with Fahmi agreeing to apologize 100 times with 100 tweets, over three days (starting June 2, 2011).

This is probably the first time a legal settlement with Twitter in starring role.

#OPMALAYSIA End of May 2011, the Malaysian Commission of Multimedia and Communications issued a directive to all ISPs to block 10 file sharing sites. This prompted outrage not only Internet users but also Anonymous Group. The hackers group issued a warning about impending attacks on Malaysian websites. On June 16, the group launched Distributed Denial of Service attacks on 200 Malaysian websites (60% are Government’s websites).

RM1.4 MILLION NATIONAL PRICE CHECKER, HACKED On June 7, 2011, the Malaysian Ministry of Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism launched the 1Malaysia Pengguna Bijak portal which allows users to check the prices of consumer goods sold at 1,255 retail outlets across Malaysia.

Three days later, hackers exposed security vulnerabilities of the RM1.4 million portal and posted details of 2,000 accounts online.

TOURISM MALAYSIA’S RM1.8 MILLION FACEBOOK SPENDING In June 2011, a spokesman for the Tourism Ministry revealed that a whopping RM1,758,432 was spent on developing six social media campaigns to promote Malaysian tourism, drawing criticism from several quarters for flagrant overspending. On the same day the Tourism Ministry made the announcement, Malaysian netizens created a Facebook page called ‘Curi-Curi Wang Malaysia’ – a play on the Tourism Ministry’s ‘Cuti-Cuti 1Malaysia’ campaign, loosely translated as “stealing Malaysia’s money”.

In just 2.5 days, the Page got over 80,000 Likes. In less than a week, it garnered more than 122,000 fans, about three times that of the Cuti-Cuti 1Malaysia Facebook page then. The message on its homepage said: “We can prove to the government that we do not need to spend 1.8 million ringgit for a successful fan page. We want our mismanaged money back!”

The official Tourism Malaysia Facebook Page has since surpassed its target of 120,000 Likes by December 2011. The Page now has over 300k Likes.

BERSIH 2.0 RALLY #BERSIH2 The Bersih 2.0 rally was a demonstration aimed at ensuring ensure free and fair elections in Malaysia held on 9 July 2011 as a follow-up to the 2007 Bersih rally. The rally, organised by the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), was supported by Pakatan Rakyat, the coalition of the three largest opposition parties in Malaysia, but was deemed illegal by the government. The police vowed to stop any rallies from taking place on the planned date on the grounds that all public gatherings without police permits are illegal. Estimates of the turnout ranged between 10,000 to over 20,000.

In the days preceding and following the rally, both supporters and opposers alike turned to social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as platforms to share information in a continuous virtual conversation. The combination of these three was a powerful tool to garner support for as well as to vehemently criticise Bersih.

PURE, UNADULTERATED TONY FERNANDES ON TWITTER In early December 2011, Fernades, the head honcho of low cost airline, Air Asia, traded barbs with the Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad in the press and on social media networks, with each blaming the other for new budget terminal KLIA 2’s bloated cost – from an initial cost of RM2 billion to now RM3.9 billion.

Tony Fernandes used his Twitter and Facebook to express his opinions about the bloated cost issue. He also responded to various questions raised by his followers. Of course, this is nothing new from Mr Fernandes. The AirAsia CEO is an ardent social media user for several years now and post updates regularly on his social media accounts.

8TV RAMADHAN ADS TV station 8TV posted a Ramadhan public service announcement video on August 1, 2011. The video immediately attracted criticism and complaints. It was reshared tens of thousands of time on Facebook and Twitter.

Image credit

At first, the Ahmad Izham Omar, COO of Media Prima Bhd (parent company of 8TV) shrugged off the negative reactions by the online community. Within 48 hours, the ads was pull off air.

#OCTTWTUP, THE WORLD’S LARGEST TWEETUP On October 22, 2011, telco DiGi held an OctTwtFest at their Shah Alam headquarters, and in just a short span of nine hours, the OctTwtFest managed to reach one of its main purposes – to break the previous Guinness World Record for the biggest tweetup of 1,935 participants in Boston – as more than 2,000 Twitter users made their way to the telecommunication provider’s headquarters.

COMPUTING PROFESSIONALS BILL 2011 #CPB2011 Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation is drafting a bill, called Computing Professionals Bill 2011, which registration and certification of IT workers before they can work on projects related to the “Critical National Information Infrastructure.”

Local tech community go to social networks to express their dislikes of the proposed Act. Vague and confusing details in the draft led to misinformation and misinterpretation. The Ministry issued a press release the following day and held an Open Review Day. This didn’t seem to convince the community about the need of the Act.

This prompted reactions from Malaysians – tech workers and politicians alike.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA KUNG-FU OF “YOK MAN” The Rice of Yok Man, part of a social media campaign by a Bak Kwa (dried meat) supplier Wing Heong Food Industries, is a big hit on social networks.

To date, the video has garnered more than half a million views with over 215,000 Likes and over 125,000 Shares on Facebook. It got more than 250 mentions on Twitter, more than 550 mentions on Google+. The video also received positive comments from many on Facebook and Twitter.

A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL CRAFTED USING INTERNET MEMES In what is truly a heartwarming love story, a man performed an intricate proposal to his girlfriend using of all things, Internet memes. Malaysian Timothy Tiah, co-founder of Nuffnang.com, wanted to come up with a creative way to propose to his longtime love, Audrey Ooi, so while she was dining with friends at Neroteca, a restaurant in Malaysia, he came to the restaurant window performed an intricate proposal using a series of Internet memes. To do this, Timothy displayed posters with messages using popular internet memes such as the Socially Awkward Penguin, Y U NO Guy, Victory Baby and Impossibru.

The video went massively viral across the globe. It was mentioned on many media sites like Gizmodo, Mashable, The Next Web, and also made it on “Most Viewed Today” list on YouTube.

What a lovely way to end 2011!

Here’s wishing everyone a Happy New Year 2012!

Image credit side mirror.

Review 2011: Most Notable Moments in Malaysian Social Media Scene originally appeared on GreyReview.com on December 30, 2011.

Hence the need for the country to produce its own cyber information security software.

Dr Ramlan added that at the moment, there is no software capable of checking the source code of software to ensure the software used is confirmed safe, which could lead to covert inflitration by such foreign software.

“The country needs to acquire ‘technical knowhow’ in information security and expertise in various fields such as computer science, mathematics and engineering,” he said. Dr Ramlan equated cyber security to national security as it involves many operational aspects such as prevention, defence, detecting, intelligence and attack. As such, he formulated, the government needs to play a major role to set up a strong system of cyber defence as it needs financial commitment, expertise, legislation and continuous monitoring.

Read more here.

Cyber Security = National Security originally appeared on GreyReview.com on December 30, 2011.

These days, everybody loves Path. Tech connoisseurs and casual users alike have given the latest Path mostly positive reviews. Path 2 is definitely one of the most beautiful apps of 2011!

A little more than a year ago, Path was quite a different app. Path, which is founded by Dave Morin, ex-Facebook executive (co-inventor of Platform and Connect on Facebook) and Shawn Fanning (creator of Napster), differentiated itself from the prevailing conception of social networks by being ultra private. Today, Path is a marvelously designed app encapsulating the symbiosis of personal-public (with personal being the default). Path is one of the first high-profile apps that address privacy within the social networking context. Now, let’s look at some of the key moments of Path product evolution.

A Personal Network

Path 1.0 was launched on November 15, 2010. At its core, Path is a social photo sharing app. However, the app positioned itself as a personal network. You don’t follow or add friends on Path. Instead, you share moments (photos/videos) with your friend. If she accepts it, your moments will appear on her Path stream.

It is designed for users to share stuff with a small circle of friends. User can only add up to 50 friends. Why 50? Path explained:

We chose 50 based on the research of Oxford Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar, who has long suggested that 150 is the maximum number of social relationships that the human brain can sustain at any given time. Dunbar’s research also shows that personal relationships tend to expand in factors of roughly 3. So while we may have 5 people whom we consider to be our closest friends, and 20 whom we maintain regular contact with, 50 is roughly the outer boundary of our personal networks. These are the people we trust, whom we are building trust with, and whom we consider to be the most important and valued people in our lives.

Path 1.0 was already good. The tap photo to expand vertically was an especially graceful feature. Posting photo on Path was pleasantly fast and easy. However, I disliked the idea of rigidly categorizing each posting to People, Place or Thing. And the use of relative dates (i.e. 23 days ago) rather than absolute dates (i.e. Dec 21 2010) on each photo made it hard to quickly recall when exactly the photo was taken. Then, many disliked Path including Om Malik of GigaOM.

Path 1.0 version features include:

• Capture and share “moments” (or photos) with up to 50 close friends and family.
• Tag each moment as people, place, or thing.
• Explore your friends’ moments on a map.
• See who has viewed the photos.
• Tap to horizontally expand photos.

Moments in the Stream

Share a Moment in Places

Video of Path 1.0

On Becoming More Social Friendly

In the ensuing months, Path introduced various enhancements and features on its app. Notably, in Path version 1.5, released on April 15, 2011, users can finally share photos and videos on Facebook Wall. Previously, photos can only be shared to friends and family on Path. Path 1.5 also introduced lenses for users to stylized photos and videos. Activity function was introduced to enhance greater visibility of friends’ reactions to your shared moments.

Path 1.5 version features include:

• Activity: Seeing how your friends respond to you.
• FriendRank: Guessing your top friends by analyzing your Facebook interactions.
• Lenses: Free and premium lenses to style photos and videos in real time.
• Share: Able to post photos and videos on Facebook Wall.

Private / Public Share Switch

Style your Moments with Lenses

Disruptive Path

After version 1.5 release and unimpressive uptake, the Path team went back to the drawing board and asked “Okay, what are people really using Path to do?” For the next six months, the team re-imagined Path.

On November 29, 2011, Path 2.0 was unveiled. The latest iteration is a total makeover of Path. It is now a smart journal. The app now comes with an expanded sharing capability. Users can now share status updates on popular social networks namely, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr.

Path has evolved from a personal network for photo / video sharing to become a social diary. You can now log your social activities and thoughts, in the forms of photo, video, text, song, and location check-ins on Path. Friends’ list also expanded from 50 to 150 (150 is the commonly used value of Dunbar’s number). Despite the makeover, privacy remains the bedrock of Path.

The Swiss-Army Knife of Your Online Social Life

Path launched With app in June 07 2011, which enables users to share who they are with, what they doing on Twitter. The With feature is now embedded into Path 2.

Other “old” features like photo-taking, lenses, weather (appearing on status updates, and awake-sleep postings) and Activity are still available on Path 2.0.

Path 2.0 is a successful release. Users are now sharing an average of 12 moments per second and Path is “seeing 30x the number of daily active users, going from 10K to 300K in two and a half weeks.” (Source: TechCrunch)

Path 2.0 version features include:

• Design: A totally transformed user interface.
• Share Path stories on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
• Post Check-ins on Path and also, Foursquare.
• Tell your friends what are you listening to right now.
• Post status updates.
• Increased friends count from 50 to 150.
• Photos: All photos are now in full-view mode (no longer tap-to-reveal-all).

Profile Cover on Path

An Entry in Path Journal

Status Updates Pop-up

Video on Path 2.0

Evolutionary Path from a Personal Network to a Smart Journal originally appeared on GreyReview.com on December 28, 2011.

With a total Internet users of 17.5 million, the Facebook penetration in Malaysia is just a whisker shy of 70%.

From January 2011 to December 2011, the Facebook user base has been growing at an average rate of 26%. The growth rate is markedly reduced compared to the last year’s rate of 87% (March 2010 – December 2010). The growth rate is expected to decline further in 2012, with the increasing level of Facebook penetration in this country, continuing privacy concerns, onset of Facebook lethargy, and onslaught of emerging new online time sucks.

Source: Facebook

Image credits: Facebook logo, Kuala Lumpur skyline

Facebook in Malaysia Hits 12 Million Users, 70% Penetration Rate originally appeared on GreyReview.com on December 20, 2011.

According to the letter, both Acts threaten to “give the US Government the power to censor the web using techniques similar to those used by China, Malaysia and Iran.”

The signatories of the Open Letter include Sergey Brin (co-founder of Google), Jack Dorsey / Evan Williams / Biz Stone (co-founders of Twitter), Elon Musk (co-founder of PayPal), Chad Hurley (co-founder of YouTube), Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn), Jerry Yang (co-founder of Yahoo!), and Pierre Omidyar (founder of e-Bay).

Sergey Brin posted on his Google+ page on why he supports the Open Letter:

In just two decades, the world wide web has transformed and democratized access to information all around the world. I am proud of the role Google has played alongside many others such as Yahoo, Wikipedia, and Twitter. Whether you are a student in an internet cafe in the developing world or a head of state of a wealthy nation, the knowledge of the world is at your fingertips.

Of course, offering these services has come with its challenges. Multiple countries have sought to suppress the flow of information to serve their own political goals. At various times notable Google websites have been blocked in China, Iran, Libya (prior to their revolution), Tunisia (also prior to revolution), and others. For our own websites and for the internet as a whole we have worked tirelessly to combat internet censorship around the world alongside governments and NGO promoting free speech.

Thus, imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress — SOPA and PIPA — give the US government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial). While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don’t believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world.

It seems Sergey Brin considers Malaysia, China, and Iran as the most oppressive nations in the world!

In June 2011, Malaysian government directed Malaysian ISPs to block 10 file sharing sites. This prompted hacker group Anonymous to hack attacks on Malaysian websites on June 15 2011.

Open Letter to Washington – SOPA and PIPA

Image credit

Sergey Brin, Jack Dorsey, Chad Hurley, Jimmy Wales, et al. to U.S. Government: DO NOT Emulate These Oppressive Nations – Malaysia, China, Iran originally appeared on GreyReview.com on December 15, 2011.