Larissa Riquelme, a lingerie model from Paraguay, has a lot to thank for the wonders of social networks, especially Twitter.

She catapulted to fame after a guy posted a Twitpic of her dressed scantily with an iPhone nestled against her bosom in the first match against Italy.

That picture apparently went viral. Now Larissa Riquelme is on the front pages of leading sports websites and she is tagged as Paraguay’s number one fan.

Larissa Riquelme recently teased football fans with a promise that she will strip naked and run on the streets in body paint if Paraguay reach the semi finals or finals of World Cup 2010.

Well, when you put Twitter, iPhone and a fame hungry voluptuous babe together, the result is a potent mix, especially when you position the iPhone strategically.

Larissa Riquelme’s popularity (and she is not even in South Africa) proves again the immense power of Twitter in getting your name or face out there in the shortest possible time.

According to New York Times, Twitter will be unveiling their monetization plans today.

The new revenue generating program “Promoted Tweets” aim to be unintrusive to the user. Basically, paid tweets will show up when Twitter members search for keywords that advertisers have bought for their ads. This is closely similar to Google AdSense which tracks keywords and displays relevant ads.

So far, Twitter has been free to use ever since its launch in 2007. With 22.3 million unique visitors as of March 2010 as opposed to just 524,000 a year ago, there’s little wonder why Twitter is getting ready to set its monetization plans into motion.

Do you guys think Twitter will succeed, considering that Facebook has moved aimlessly about its monetization plans?

(Source: New York Times)

Insurance companies are getting desperate. They will do what they can to squeeze more moolah out of its customers.

Home insurance premiums could rise as much as 10% for the most trivial of reason… if you are using social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook because it can compromise your home security.

Darren Black, the head of home insurance at Confused.com, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if, as social media grow in popularity and more location-based applications come to fore, insurance providers consider these in their pricing of an individual’s risk. We could see rises of up to 10pc for people who use these sites.

Source: Telegraph

WTF, that basically includes everyone, except for your 90 year old grandma.

Twitter is not satisfied with its massive user base on Earth. The social network has extended its arms into outer space and recruited our astronauts as members.

A NASA astronaut made Twitter history on Friday by sending the first tweet from outer space. Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer broadcast the following message directly from the International Space Station:

“Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! More soon, send your ?s”

Will Neil Armstrong have envisaged such technology breakthroughs when he made his foray into outer space decades ago?

[PC World]