“MySpace, the website that redefined the meaning of friends in cyberspace, is showing signs of fatigue, with latest figures indicating that Australians – or at least hip ones – are deserting it for rival Facebook.”

“A poll by The Times of 3000 fans who bought the album found the average price paid was £4 ($9.20) … On those figures, on the first day alone, the band would have collected more than $10 million, and by cutting out the middle man…”

Jason Mittell ponders how much authority J.K. Rowling.has over the Potterverse now the books are complete. Is outing Dumbledore canon or fanon? Is it more than a little disappointing being gay really wasn’t explicitly discussed in the books at all?

According to Cory Doctorow, Bloodspell is “the first feature-length machinima film, made entirely with a game-engine, and it’s a pioneering and important start for a new industry.” (Free download, too!)

The third minisode/webisode leading up to Battlestar Galactica: Razor. See young Bill Adama dogfighting with original Cylon raiders! [Better Quality Torrent]

“.. reports today that Linden Lab (second life publisher) has released statistics that show that SL ”attracted just 11,975 virtual Australians during September 2007, a decline of 13.3 per cent on the previous month, and 24 per cent from July”…”

“Can a major rock band turn out a profitable album without a major label to back it? Can said band sell the album as a legal DRM-free mp3 download? Can said download still make money even if users themselves are allowed to choose $ …”

“Voters can expect a deluge of political advertising whenever they log on to the internet in the three days leading up to the federal election due to a loophole that exempts the medium from the political advertising blackout.”

“Bloggers are now finding themselves prey to censorship from repressive governments as much as journalists in traditional media, a report says. Reporters Without Borders’ annual study of press freedom says China is one of the worst offenders…”

The battle of words between current Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, and the leader of the opposition, Kevin Rudd, has hit a tit for tat low with their current exchange of words in advertisements, both currently on YouTube …

“Beginning today, eight years of episodes of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” are fully accessible on the show’s Web site. Videos of every skit, every joke and every guest are available for free, fully searchable on TheDailyShow.com.”

“Fully 32% of online teens have been contacted by someone with no connection to them or any of their friends, and 7% of online teens say they have felt scared or uncomfortable as a result of contact by an online stranger.”

Facebook “announced today that it will strengthen warnings about child safety on its site and said that it would take steps to improve its process of responding to complaints about sexual or inappropriate content.”

“Video site YouTube is launching filtering tools to clamp down on the sharing of video without permission.” It took them a while – I wonder where the kids will go next as YouTube becomes uncool?

The concept is simple yet brilliant: a countdown from 100 to one using only snippets of movie dialogue. Stop what you’re doing and watch this now. the clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FExqG6LdWHU

The Australian Greens invite LOL Cats parodies of other Australian politicians with some fairly amusing results.

Sam Ford wonders how YouTube’s copyright protection software will impact on fair use/fair dealing and the ability to ‘quote’ in media clips. At first glance, it doesn’t appear the YouTube copyright protection software will be able to tell the difference!

Lifecasting: lots to see, but can they sell it? “technologists at Justin.tv have figured out ways to make video streaming on the Internet inexpensive but haven’t gotten much further than that in puzzling out a business…”

“It’s no secret that Facebook, which started as a networking playground for college kids, is graying, and that the percentage of active members who are over 25 years old and out of school has risen to some 40 percent” (of  45 million users).

Christian Erickson explores the moral ambiguity in the latest season of the 4400.

TechCrunch reviews YouTube and their many, many online video sharing competitors. Conclusion: Blip.TV is the future. [Via]

Young Bill “Husker” Adama preprares to launch on his first mission during the first Cylon War. This is minisode #2, counting down to Razor in November. (This is available on the main SciFi page in the US, but the rest of the world needs YouTube!)