Popular Elsewhere
15:53 UK time, Friday, 3 June 2011
A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.
Forbes' most popular article looks at the . It takes the case of Shay Butler whose family's reality TV videos have been downloaded almost half a billion times.
He has a video blog about his family. The article describes it as a clean version of the Osbournes. The show even has a theme tune: "When your beard is awesome and your kids are awesome and your wife is hotter than expected and awesome". Mr Butler tells Forbes that at the age of 27 he didn't even own a computer and his wife was unsure what they would use one for. But he soon discovered YouTube, uploaded a video and "got hooked on the instant gratification".
"I would film some random thought I had about hand sanitizer or gas prices or me dancing in my wife's old uni-tard and I would upload it and people were instantly there to tell me if they thought it was funny or not."
A few years on, he is making a living from the advertising revenue around the videos.
According to a popular Daily Mail article . The article explains she had Scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine which sometimes results in a lump on the patient's back. It goes on to say that she was 12 when she had the operation, and her conditions was only spotted "after she had a massage, stepping in to fill an appointment booked by her mother".
"Vote for me, I'm rich - and I've done jihad" is an unusual sounding election slogan picked out by the Wall Street Journal's most popular article. The story explains the words are those of artist Aman Mojadidi, not a real contender. He's been picked out by the Wall Street Journal as the "". The article goes on to say he has caused controversy and confusion in Afghanistan - controversy when his photographs were published in a magazine only to be cut out (with scissors) from 9,000 copies. The confusion came from another piece of performance art where he set up a fake police check point and gave people "reverse bribes".
A popular Telegraph article claims. The article says the accusation was posted on an anonymous blog by someone who claims to be a Sony Music executive. It alleged the favourite to win the competition - 12-year-old singer Ronan Parke - has been known to Simon Cowell's firm for two years. The Telegraph says Parke could be the UK's Justin Bieber. The blogger's account of Ronan's alleged "development", which has been widely viewed on the internet, claims that the boy's hairstyle, clothing and mannerisms have all been choreographed. The telegraph reports "Syco" categorically denied the claims.
Warnings about are proving popular with New York Times readers. It explains so-called spear phishing involves "messages that seem to be from co-workers, friends or family members, customized to trick you into letting your guard down online". The article says the fraud is a "far cry from more standard phishing attempts, which involve spraying the internet with millions of e-mails". Instead it is highly targeted. "The most common targets" it goes on to say "were government agencies and senior managers and executives".
