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18Mar/10

Digital Culture Links: March 18th 2010

Links for March 18th 2010:

Oops Pow Surprise...24 hours of video all up in your eyes! [YouTube Blog] - YouTube has 24 hours worth of video uploaded every minutes!
AAP puts 'strict curb' on tweeting reporters [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] - "Australian Associated Press is cracking down on its journalists who use social networking sites while on the job. AAP reporter Sandra O'Malley wrote from her Twitter account yesterday morning that "work's put a strict curb on tweeting". The agency's editor-in-chief, Tony Gillies, says this is because reporters have been posting their thoughts online while on assignment. He says he is trying to protect AAP's brand. "I'm talking about people who work for AAP tweeting and blogging while on assignment for AAP," he said. "If they are tweeting during those assignments - and let's leave aside for one moment what they're doing rather than paying attention to the story that's unfolding in front of them - whatever they're tweeting may reflect on AAP."
Networks, Crowds, and Markets: A Book by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg - Full book pre-print version; looks like a really useful read: "Networks, Crowds, and Markets combines different scientific perspectives in its approach to understanding networks and behavior. Drawing on ideas from economics, sociology, computing and information science, and applied mathematics, it describes the emerging field of study that is growing at the interface of all these areas, addressing fundamental questions about how the social, economic, and technological worlds are connected. [...] The book will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2010."
Flickr Short URL Generator - URLkr - Useful tool to create flic.kr links, using Flickr's own URL shortening service.
Why short links can take a long time to get you around the web [Technology | guardian.co.uk] - Some URL shorteners are slowing down the web: "URL shorteners have become a fact of life, given the proliferation of short messaging services (and also the demands of print, which finds URL shorteners mean you can link to long URLs in a few characters). But they're sometimes a roadblock - at least, the one from Facebook is."
25 years of .com domain names [SF Gate] - Happy Birthday dot com: "On March 15, 1985, a Massachusetts computer systems firm registered the first .com Internet domain name. Although Symbolics.com didn't spark an instant gold rush, the event planted the first seed of a transformation that has changed the world into a Web-fueled digital river of news, commerce and social interaction. Today, exactly 25 years later, life B.C - Before .Com - is already a distant memory, especially in the tech-centric Bay Area. [...] In 1985, only six entities registered a .com, one of six top-level domain names created a year earlier in a reorganization of the early Internet's naming bureaucracy. At the time, .cor (short for corporate) almost beat .com as the designation for commercial Internet addresses."
Facebook passes Google as most-viewed site in US in past week [Technology | guardian.co.uk] - "Is that Google in Facebook's rear-view mirror? Why, yes, it is, at least in the US, according to the latest figures from Hitwise. The statistics will be worrying for Google, principally because that won't be traffic heading downstream from Google to Facebook; it will be people logging directly into the social networking site. And pause to consider: if the problem of search - what Google aims to do - is solved not by building the most fantastic search engine, but by building the biggest social network, what does that tell us? That we're not actually looking for that much? Heather Hopkins notes that Facebook was the most visited site in the US last Christmas eve, Christmas day and New Year's day - but also on the weekend of March 6th and 7th. That starts to look like a trend. Compared to the same week in 2009, Google's visits were up 9% - but Facebook's were up 185%. So now Facebook was 7.07% of visits, while Google was put in the shade - just - at 7.03%."

Tagged as: 2010, aap, bitly, dotcom, fbme, history, hits, internet, journalism, networks, pdf, search, short, socialnetworks, stats, url, urls, web101, web207, web309, webpresence No Comments

11Mar/10

Digital Culture Links: March 11th 2010

Links for March 11th 2010:

Chatroulette Map: Not So Anonymous Anymore [Laughing Squid] - Not so anonymous anymore: "Chatroulette Map is a project that is grabbing the IP addresses of users, along with a screenshot, and then using Geo IP tools to pinpoint them roughly on the map. The site relies on the fact that Chatroulette connects users directly to each other (assumedly in an effort to save bandwidth) and in doing so exposes IP addresses. Most of the screenshots are safe and entertaining, but there are a few of those Not-Safe-For-Work ones mixed in. The site is also a great way to see a small sampling of the concentration of users around the world."
American Idol Contestants Have To Give Up Their Social Media Presence? [Techdirt] - American Idol owns Idol's web identities? "Apparently, you don't just commit to handing over your music recordings if you enter American Idol, but now you have to give up your ability to build your own brand, as well. Hypebot alerts us to the news that American Idol contestants for the latest season were all forced to shut down their Facebook, MySpace and Twitter usage, and point everyone directly to American Idol's own website instead. In an age when having a strong social media presence is important to career success for many musicians, this seems like quite a big trade-off."
UPDATED: All Your Apps Are Belong to Apple: The iPhone Developer Program License Agreement [Electronic Frontier Foundation] - "The entire family of devices built on the iPhone OS (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) have been designed to run only software that is approved by Apple—a major shift from the norms of the personal computer market. Software developers who want Apple's approval must first agree to the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. So today we're posting the "iPhone Developer Program License Agreement"—the contract that every developer who writes software for the iTunes App Store must "sign." Though more than 100,000 app developers have clicked "I agree," public copies of the agreement are scarce, perhaps thanks to the prohibition on making any "public statements regarding this Agreement, its terms and conditions, or the relationship of the parties without Apple's express prior written approval.""
Porn internet domain name 'dot.xxx' plan revived [BBC News] - The .xxx top-level domain is once again on the ICANN agenda: "A plan to create an internet domain specifically for adult websites will be resurrected three years after it was rejected by internet regulators. The net's governing body Icann will reconsider the .xxx scheme on 12 March. Icann had previously given the domain the go ahead in 2005, but reversed the decision two years later amidst protests from US conservative groups. An independent review recently concluded that decision was unfair and that the plan should be reconsidered. Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has now confirmed to BBC News that its board will discuss the plan at its meeting in Nairobi, Kenya and could decide to back the proposals."

Tagged as: chatroulette, dns, eff, icann, iphone, legal, maps, mobile, net303, web101, web309, webpresence, xxx No Comments

29Jan/10

Digital Culture Links: January 29th 2010

Links for January 29th 2010:

[Source]
iPad DRM endangers our rights [DefectiveByDesign.org] - The petition against Apple's iPad (and other) DRM: "DRM will give Apple and their corporate partners the power to disable features, block competing products (especially free software) censor news, and even delete books, videos, or news stories from users' computers without notice-- using the device's "always on" network connection. This past year, we have seen how human rights and democracy protestors can have the technology they use turned against them. By making a computer where every application is under total, centralized control, Apple is endangering freedom to increase profits. Apple can say they will not abuse this power, but their record of App Store rejections and removals gives us no reason to trust them. The iPad's unprecedented use of DRM to control all capabilities of a general purpose computer is a dangerous step backward for computing and for media distribution. We demand that Apple remove all DRM from its devices."
Hitler responds to the iPad [YouTube] - Yes, it was inevitable that the iPad would attract the Downfall meme!
12 Key Features Apple iPad lacks [SMH] - It's 1, 2, 3, 8 and 9 which will stop me buying the first release iPad (I suspect much of this will be fixed by iPad 2.0!):
"1. iBooks is initially US-only
2. No built-in camera
3. No USB ports
4. No memory card read
5. Keyboard dock sold separately
6. No multi-tasking
7. No Adobe Flash support
8. Can only run Apple-sanctioned apps
9. Can only access iTunes videos and music
10. Lacks HDMI port
11. Screen is 4:3 aspect ratio, not 16:9 widescreen
12. No full GPS support"
New page in publishing turns on Apple's offering [The Australian] - eBooks, eBooks, eBooks, OI, OI, OI: "The use of e-book readers is in its infancy in Australia but Apple's iPad will be the harbinger of a change in the way Australians read books, says the nation's largest independent publisher. Allen & Unwin's digital publishing director, Elizabeth Weiss, said: "There is a buzz around. We think iPad will further stimulate interest in e-books." E-book sales - either via a PC or readers such as Amazon's Kindle - are statistically insignificant in the $2.5 billion book market in Australia, but the industry is expecting a similar pattern to the US where, in less than two years, and during a deep recession, digital books have captured about 5 per cent of the market. "You'll see a rapid take-up over the next six months," said Australian Booksellers Association chief executive Malcolm Neil. But he said that could result in some smaller booksellers losing market share and being forced to close."
Microsoft Releases a Study on Data Privacy Day [Microsoft Privacy & Safety] - More evidence that your web presence doesn't ever just stay on the web: "Our study found 70% of surveyed HR professionals in U.S. (41% in the UK) have rejected a candidate based on online reputation information. Reputation can also have a positive effect as in the United States, 86% of HR professionals (and at least two thirds of those in the U.K. and Germany) stated that a positive online reputation influences the candidate’s application to some extent; almost half stated that it does so to a great extent. What we hope people take away from this research is that an online reputation is not something to be scared of; it’s something to be proactively managed. That means not just removing (or not posting) negatives, but also building the online reputation that you would want an employer (or friend or client) to find."
Google Routes Around App Store On The iPhone... Others Can Too [Techdirt] - Apps want to be free, too: "I was just recently suggesting that the massive focus on "apps" and "app stores" may be a red herring, as eventually many of those apps can be built via the web (especially as HTML 5 moves forward), without having to go through any kind of app store approval process. So it's worth noting that, in fact, Google has done exactly that with its Google Voice app for the iPhone (doing so because of problems getting a client-side app approved by Apple)."

Tagged as: apple, apps, australia, convergence, downfall, drm, ebooks, Google, hitler, humour, identity, ipad, iphone, meme, privacy, protest, reputation, socialmedia, web101, webpresence No Comments

22Jan/10

Digital Culture Links: January 22nd 2010

Links for January 22nd 2010:

Essay on Identity 2.0: Constructing identity with cultural software [Anne Helmond] - Great paper! "...deals with the change of identity on the web as a result of the assemblage of social software platforms, engines and users. It can be stated that major platforms for presenting the self online have developed over time: the homepage, the blog, the social networking profile, the micro-blog and the lifestream. They each have their own specific way for presenting the self online. The advent of the search engine has had a major impact on both the construction and the presentation of the online identity. Search engines not only index the platforms on which identity is performed, but they also organize and construct identity online. They act as a central point where identity performance is indexed. Since identity construction and identity performance have significantly changed with the advent of these engines, identity must be reconsidered. It can be argued that the assembly of platform, engine and user has constructed a new type of identity: Identity 2.0. ..."
[Image Source]
Clinton Urges Global Response to Internet Attacks [NYTimes.com] - "Declaring that an attack on one nation’s computer networks “can be an attack on all,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a warning on Thursday that the United States would defend itself from cyberattacks, though she left unclear the means of response. In a sweeping, pointed address that dealt with the Internet as a force for both liberation and repression, Mrs. Clinton said: “Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society. Countries or individuals that engage in cyber-attacks should face consequences and international condemnation.” Her speech was the first in which a senior American official had articulated a vision for making Internet freedom a plank of American foreign policy.""
With Rival E-Book Readers, It’s Amazon vs. Apple [NYTimes.com] - You're nobody unless you've got an app store these days! "It’s a formidable high-tech face-off: Amazon.com versus Apple for the hearts and minds of book publishers, authors and readers. Amazon’s Kindle devices and electronic bookstore now dominate a nascent but booming market, accounting for more than 70 percent of electronic reader sales and 80 percent of e-book purchases, according to some analysts. And on Thursday it will take a page from Apple and announce that it is opening up the Kindle to outside software developers. Apple’s much-anticipated tablet computer, which is widely expected to be announced next Wednesday and go on sale this spring, will be a far more versatile (and expensive) device that will offer access to books, newspapers and other reading material through Apple’s popular App Store on iTunes."

Tagged as: amazon, annehelmond, applications, ebooks, freedom, hilaryclinton, identity, internet, Obama, usa, web101, webpresence No Comments

10Dec/09

Digital Culture Links: December 10th 2009

Links for December 6th 2009 through December 10th 2009:

Tiger Woods’s Web Site Is Drawing Attention and Scrutiny [NYTimes.com] - When Web Presence goes wrong: "In the nearly two weeks since Tiger Woods became tabloid fodder, his personal Web site has turned into a kind of town hall meeting on his reported extramarital behavior. More than 22,000 comments, many of them supportive but plenty of the finger-wagging variety, followed the Dec. 2 statement in which he admitted to vague “transgressions” and to letting his family down. The scandal over Woods’s suspected misdeeds has elevated TigerWoods.com’s traffic drastically, although not into the Internet stratosphere. In the week ending Nov. 29 — the day he issued his statement about his car accident — the number of unique users soared to 488,000 visitors, according to Nielsen Online. In that same period, it beat the 89,000 who visited BritneySpears.com."
Facebook's New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly [Electronic Frontier Foundation] - "Although sold as a "privacy" revamp, Facebook's new changes are obviously intended to get people to open up even more of their Facebook data to the public. The privacy "wizard" that guides users through the configuration will "recommend" — preselect by default — the setting to share the content they post to Facebook, such as status messages and wall posts, with everyone on the Internet, even though the default privacy level that those users had accepted previously was limited to "Your Networks and Friends" on Facebook [...] to ensure that users don't accidentally share more than they intend to, we do not recommend Facebook's "recommended" settings." (Facebook's explanation of the new settings.)
Game Developer Won't Edit 'Aliens vs. Predator' To Appease Australian Censors [Techdirt] - "Rose M. Welch alerts us to the news that game developer Rebellion has decided not to resubmit an edited version of its game Aliens vs. Predator after it was rejected by the Australian Classification Board for being too violent. The company stated that it agrees the game is not suitable for children: "We agree strongly that our game is not suitable for game players who are not adults... it is bloody and frightening, that was our intent." But Australia apparently doesn't have an option for such "mature" content, and Rebellion seems to recognize how ridiculous that is: "We will not be releasing a sanitized or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices." Hopefully, things like this will make Australia reconsider its censorship of such content." (Oh, Australia is ready to reconsider our insane games rating system ... some annoying guy in SA isn't!)
More than 50 papers join in front-page leader article on climate change [Media | guardian.co.uk] - THE GOOD: "The Guardian has teamed up with more 50 papers worldwide to run the same front-page leader article calling for action at the climate summit in Copenhagen, which begins tomorrow. This unprecedented project is the result of months of negotiations between the papers to agree on a final text, in a process that mirrors the kind of diplomatic wrangling among the world's governments that is likely to precede any potential deal on climate change. Fifty-six papers in 45 countries published in 20 different languages have joined the initiative, and will feature the leader in some form on their front pages.
THE BAD: "Two Australian papers, the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, pulled out at a late stage after the election of climate change sceptic Tony Abbott as leader of the opposition Liberal party recast the country's debate on green issues." (Australian media already bowing to Tony Abbott's climate change scepticism ...)
App Store Is a Game Changer for Apple and Cellphone Industry [NYTimes.com] - “Apple changed the view of what you can do with that small phone in your back pocket,” says Katy Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst. “Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend — one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years.” Ms. Huberty likens the advent of the App Store and the iPhone to AOL’s pioneering role in driving broad-based consumer adoption of the Internet in the 1990s. She also draws comparisons to ways in which laptops have upended industry assumptions about consumer preferences and desktop computing. But, she notes, something even more profound may now be afoot. “The iPhone is something different. It’s changing our behavior,” she says. “The game that Apple is playing is to become the Microsoft of the smartphone market.” (That last sentence is the important one: Microsoft has trouble playing with others; Apple's increasingly having that issue, too!)

Tagged as: apple, application, celebrity, climatechange, games, identity, iphone, journalism, mobileweb, r18+, security, smh, theage, tigerwoods, web101, web207, webpresence No Comments

6Dec/09

Digital Culture Links: December 6th 2009

Links for December 3rd 2009 through December 6th 2009:

Panic Attack and YouTube Discovery [The Chutry Experiment] - Great post from Chuck Tryon about Fede Alvarez's sudden appearance on the Hollywood radar thanks to his YouTube short “Ataque de Pánico,” (Panic Attack!), 4 minute special effects driven extravagnaza in which a city is destroyed and a career created: "One of the underlying narratives associated with Hollywood mythology is the “discovery story,” the idea that a talented newcomer emerges by chance, out of nowhere, to become a Hollywood “star.” Lana Turner was discovered, so the legend goes, on a barstool at Schwab’s drugstore. Now, as the tools of filmmaking and film distribution have been democratized, those discovery stories have expanded to filmmakers as well. And although it is the case that such stories can be read ideologically, it is also true that YouTube and other video sharing sites still offer us the opportunity to be astonished by the talents of an aspiring filmmaker."
Memories of a paywall pioneer | Media | guardian.co.uk - Scott Rosenberg reflects on Salon's experiments with a paywall, suggesting it's not the model for future news media: "I'm not hostile to the notion of people paying for online content. I do so myself. I'm glad people stepped up and paid for Salon. But the value of stuff online is usually tied to how deeply it is woven into the network. So locking your stuff away in order to charge for it means that you are usually making it less valuable at the moment that you are asking people to pay for it. And that's why people so often respond with: "No thanks.""
Vampire Politics by Lisa Nakamura et al [Flow TV, 11.03, 2009] - "True Blood is socially conservative, gesturing towards a radical politics (or any social movement based politics) that it cannot (or will not) deliver. Likewise, the form of the medium itself is conservative. Like its vampires, True Blood is a relic - it airs on television, not the Internet, and it is broadcast rather than streamed. Though HBO claims “it’s not television, it’s HBO,” we know better. Like the credit sequence’s time-delayed decayed foxes and possums, True Blood is a memento mori - to the Civil Rights South, to broadcast television, to civil rights organizing and “unsexy” rights-based movements. True Blood pursues vampire politics, which are all about sexy self fashioning. Were it not for the exquisite Godric’s self-immolation in season two, the program’s credo might be “survival of the sexiest.”"
Networking Families: Battlestar Galactica and the Values of Quality by Jordan Lavender-Smith [Flow TV, 11.03, 2009] - "Galactica’s interrogation of post-nuclear family mechanics and what it means to be human was potentially groundbreaking, but by the show’s end the reconstitution of the family breaks down, and a thick line is drawn between the natural and artificial, delivering an outmoded humanism through posthuman technologies."
Identity Wars: Google & Yahoo! Bow to Facebook & Twitter [RW Web] - "Yahoo! announced this morning that it is adding Facebook Connect across many of its properties. This afternoon Google Friend Connect announced the inclusion of Twitter as a top-level log-in option. These moves will be convenient for users, but may not be good for the future of the web." (This is a really interesting article looking at what happens when Facebook and Twitter become default identity authentication systems - so much power then resides in these systems, and what happens to attempts at standards like OpenID?)

Tagged as: attention, authenticity, blog, family, hollywood, identity, journalism, networks, paywall, trueblood, web101, web207, webpresence, yahoo, youtube No Comments

2Nov/09

Digital Culture Links: November 2nd 2009

Links for November 2nd 2009:

How to Give Your Movie Away Free and Still Make Money [Jawbone.tv] - Some great ideas from Brian Newman about ways to both freely distribute and make money from feature films. (Thanks, Chuck.)
Teens Sue School Over Punishment For Racy MySpace Pics [Huffington Post] - "Two sophomore girls have sued their school district after they were punished for posting sexually suggestive photos on MySpace during their summer vacation. The American Civil Liberties Union, in a federal lawsuit filed last week on behalf of the girls, argues that Churubusco High School violated the girls' free speech rights when it banned them from extracurricular activities for a joke that didn't involve the school ... some legal experts say that in this digital era, schools must accept that students will engage in some questionable behavior in cyberspace and during off hours. "From the standpoint of young people, there's no real distinction between online life and offline life," said John Palfrey, a Harvard University law professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "It's just life."" (It's called MYspace for a reason, methinks!)
Memories of Friends Departed Endure on Facebook [Facebook] - Facebook adds the ability to "memorialize" a Facebook page of someone who has passed away, but their loved ones wish their profile to remain online as a place for people to remember and reminisce about their lives. This feature has probably come along since Facebook got some bad press after suggesting people 'reconnect' with their deceased loved ones.[Via BBoing]

Tagged as: death, free, identity, myspace, socialnetworking, usa, web101, webpresence, youth No Comments

1Oct/09

Digital Culture Links: October 1st 2009

Links for September 28th 2009 through October 1st 2009:

Google Wave Overview [YouTube] - A nice and short (8 minute) explanation of Google Wave: it's a hosted conversation, encouraging collaboration!
MPs warned to avoid hasty blogs [BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics] - The next generation of [UK] Labour MPs have been warned to be careful about what they write on blogs and websites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube - as comments made in haste remain on the internet forever. At a packed fringe meeting hosted by Google at the Labour conference, activists, prospective and current MPs were told of the benefits of social networking sites - where politicians can get their message out without civil servants and special advisers getting in the way. Labour's newly crowned "Twitter tsar", MP Kerry McCarthy, made a bid to win over the sceptics by saying it did not have to be a burden [...] But in a word of warning Adewale Oshineye, a Google engineer, advised prospective MPs to bear in mind they were publishing something that could be dug out years later. "When you are saying something amusing as a prospective parliamentary candidate, in four or five years' time when you are a cabinet minister and someone digs that up...""
Online advertising 'overtakes TV' [BBC NEWS | Business] - "Online advertising spending in the UK has overtaken television expenditure for the first time, a report has said. Outlay grew 4.6% to £1.752bn between January and July, according to the study by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The recession saw overall advertising slide by 16% in the period, according to the study. E-mail campaigns, classified adverts, display ads and search marketing are all classed as online advertising. The body representing UK commercial television broadcasters said that the comparison was unfair." (Unfair ... or harder to pitch against?)
Aussies call an end to just phoning on mobiles [The Age] - "Using mobiles for just calls and texting is a thing of the past, as a third of Australians now check emails on their handsets and more than 70 per cent access mobile entertainment and information services. In spite of the global financial crisis, the use of mobile phone services has continued to grow in the past year as more Australians buy internet-enabled smartphones, the 2009 Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index reveals. Released today by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association, the exhaustive survey of 3710 respondents found 36% used email on their mobiles in the past 12 months, and, of those, almost half used email daily - a growth rate of 80 per cent over the previous year. In last year's survey, just 7 per cent of respondents accessed social networking sites from their handsets, but this figure has jumped this year to 32 per cent, with half of those accessing the sites daily."
Sarah Brown becomes Britain's highest-profile Twitter user [Politics | guardian.co.uk] - "Sarah Brown [wife of UK PM] has overtaken Stephen Fry as Britain's highest profile Twitter user, it emerged today. "SarahBrown10" has gained more than 775,000 followers since joining the social networking service in March, outstripping Fry's 768,000. The number of fans keeping up with Brown's tweets amounts to almost five times the entire Labour party membership. The prime minister's wife steers clear of political controversy in her messages, instead giving followers glimpses into her day-to-day life and publicising her favourite charities. ... Since joining Twitter, Brown has sent out 1,162 messages, each limited to 140 characters. Ross Furlong, an online public relations expert, said Brown's tweets could help Labour despite the fact that she does not use them for campaigning purposes. "Although the content is deliberately not party political, she is effectively pressing voter flesh online, as she did in person at the Glenrothes byelection to great effect," Furlong said ."

Tagged as: internet, mobile, mobilephone, socialmedia, stats, UK, wave, web101, webpresence No Comments

28Sep/09

Digital Culture Links: September 28th 2009

Links for September 22nd 2009 through September 28th 2009:

Creators' Corner [YouTube] - YouTube have just announced 'Creative Corner', a series of resources to help aspiring digital video creators learn better techniques, add special effects, and make the most of getting views on YouTube. Seems like a useful resource.
Online Aussies: ‘We won’t pay for news’ [mUmBRELLA] - "A large majority of Australians say they would not pay for online news, a survey suggests. According to a poll of more than 18,000 Australians released today by Pure Profile, only 5% said they would be willing to pay for “high quality articles”. A further 7% said they would be willing to pay if there was no advertising. 10% said they would not pay because the quality of online news was unimportant to them, while the vast majority – 78% – said they would simply refuse to pay for online news."
An Infusion of Another $100 Million Is Seen for Twitter [NYTimes.com] - "...the start-up appears to have chalked up another achievement. Twitter, which has no discernible revenue, is set to raise about $100 million of new funding that would value the company at around $1 billion, a person briefed on the company’s plans said Thursday. ... But Twitter’s cash infusion and exospheric valuation are not easily reduced to the level of the blind bets of past dot-com bubbles. In its three and a half years, Twitter has become a magnet for media attention, and its Web site now attracts 54 million visitors a month, according to comScore, the tracking firm. Along with Facebook, it is helping to remake the Web as a forum for the perpetual sharing of even the most trivial bits of information about people’s lives." (A billion dollars ... seems a lot to me.)
'Nigel the Crazy Noonga' Website Shut Down | Racism Outrage - "A website set up by a Perth student about a fictional Aboriginal character has been shut down and is being investigated by police amid racism claims. The website, which Radio 6PR reports was created by a 19-year-old Curtin University student, features audio excerpts of a character called "Nigel the crazy Noonga", who prank calls businesses and fast-food outlets with a fake Aboriginal accent. The portrayal of negative Aboriginal stereotypes has sparked outrage from the Aboriginal community. Craig Somerville, lecturer at the Curtin University Centre for Aboriginal Studies, told 6PR he believed the material on the website had crossed the line between humour and racism. "This is very nasty, rude and bad material," he said. "It's not only bad humour; it perpetuates a wrong judgment about Aboriginal people." Mr Somerville expressed his disappointment at claims the student who set up the website was from his university."
Ubiquitous Media, Rare Earths [sean cubitt's blog] - "... we act as if computing and network resources were unbounded. But materials, manufacture, use and recycling put boundaries round the materiality of internet and convergent media. The squalor and penury associated with extracting metals, building computers and recycling mobiles, TVs and digital devices are one half of a story which includes toxic waste, toxic working conditions, human waste from the maquilladoras, atnospheric and water pollution in the recycling villages of Africa and China, species and habitat loss . . . Like any other form of organisation, maintaining the negentropy of the internet requires vast amounts of energy, physical and human. It also requires materials that are becoming more strategic and costly by the minute. "
US proposes net neutrality rules [BBC NEWS | Technology] - The US has proposed new rules that would require internet firms to respect the principle of "network neutrality". The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said that "all web traffic should be treated equally". The new rules are intended to prevent firms throttling bandwidth-sapping web traffic such as streaming video. ... [The FCC] proposed two new rules to guide the FCC's approach to network neutrality. The first would prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from discriminating against bandwidth-intensive web-content and applications by slowing or blocking it. ... The second would mean that ISPs would have to be more transparent about how they manage network traffic. The two new rules join four previous guiding principles of the FCC, which state that all consumers must be able to access "lawful" content, applications, and services, and attach non-harmful devices to the network." (Network Neutrality FTW!)
In Facebook Fracas, Beauty School Goes After Student for Online Comments [The Wired Campus] - "A beauty school in Illinois is suing a student for his "defamatory" comments on a Facebook site that encouraged students to vent about their instructors. The Salon Professional Academy of Elgin, Ill., says Nicholas Blacconiere created a site called Tspa RobinHood that looked similar to TSPA Elgin's Facebook page because it used the academy's logo. The suit, filed in July, also says that he posted libelous comments about school officials on the site. Print-outs of the Facebook page included in the suit show several posts by "Tspa RobinHood." The site says it gives "the students a voice, because what happens when we need to be heard? Nobody gives a s___." It encourages students to send messages to the site, which it says will then be posted anonymously." (Reputation management: it's a game everyone can play!)

Tagged as: digitalmedia, digitalvideo, ecology, ethics, fcc, howto, internet, isp, monetize, net303, netneutrality, news, newspapers, paidcontent, racism, reputation, socialmedia, socialnetworking, sustainability, usa, webpresence No Comments

17Apr/09

Annotated Digital Culture Links: April 17th 2009

Links for April 14th 2009 through April 17th 2009:

Digging up dirt: Facebook spies for hire [The Age] - "Large companies and government departments are employing a new Sydney-based company to dig up dirt on staff by spying on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube posts. SR7 specialises in "online risk and reputation management" and claims to be the only company in Australia that actively monitors social networking sites on behalf of companies. It was formed about eight months ago in response to the growing trend for people to take conversations they would have traditionally had with mates at the pub on to their social network profiles. Few people realise these seemingly private sites are still public spaces. If controversial posts leak to the media, it can lead to brands suffering immense damage to their reputations. SR7 director James Griffin said business was booming following recent public relations disasters sparked by the stupid social network behaviour of a few rogue employees." (The golden rule: if it's online, presume it's public!)
Twitter activist goes into hiding [The Age] - "The woman behind the mass protests which rocked the capital of Moldova last week has gone into hiding after the so-called "Twitter Revolution" forced a recount of the general election. Natalia Morar, 25, a Moldovan who has already been banned from Russia for opposing the Kremlin, feared arrest after organising a flash mob which ended with 20,000 people storming the parliament building. Protests began after a conversation between Ms Morar and six friends in a cafe in Chisinau, Moldova's tiny capital, on Monday, April 6, the day after the parliamentary elections. The elections brought a larger-than-expected victory for the incumbent Communist Party. Suspecting vote-rigging, "we decided to organise a flash mob for the same day using Twitter, as well as networking sites and SMS," ...With no recent history of mass protests in Moldova, "we expected at the most a couple of hundred friends, friends of friends, and colleagues", she said. "When we went to the square, there were 20,000 people""
Twitter Gets the Oprah Treatment [Bits Blog - NYTimes.com] - "It is the universal sign of a new idea going mainstream: Oprah Winfrey is bestowing her endorsement on Twitter. The woman who can single-handedly send a new product or book flying off the shelves has just joined Twitter." I can't wait for Oprah's tweet of the month ...
Disney Templates is Today's BIG Thing - APR 07, 2009 [Video] - "Looks like the Disney Vault has a purpose after all - to keep us from realizing how similar our favorite classic Disney movies truly are. According to this video, Disney only ever made one movie, and they've been tracing it ever since." [Via]