Simple but very effective Flash-based narrative presentation about the huge privacy problems inherent in Facebook’s design and the way users fill it with their private data!

Audio Twittering: Short-burst (200Kish) Mp3 files connected to Twitter tweets …

Countries of the world mapped by their dominant social networking service. I’m surprised MySpace is still the biggest choice in Australia as the rush to Facebook in the last month has been huge … I hope this map is updated monthly!

Solid piece about the history and success of Postsecret, written by its progenitor, Frank Warren.

Quicktime recordings of: “On June 19, danah boyd participated in the Berkman Luncheon Series to discuss her work and research in the area of social networks. ” (Runtime: 1:26:24, size: 320×240, 247MB, .MOV, H.264 codec)

(Via Chutry)

“An Introduction to the Power of Web2.0”, Edition 2.0, from Trevor Cook and Lee Hopkins. Quite a useful primer, with everything from blogs to Twitter and Jaiku.

If you want to know anything about Australia’s 19.8 million citizens, the 2006 census results have just gone live …

Things went pear-shaped for a Malibu Banana Rum after an online videoclip creation competition held in YouTube was acussed of being rigged by competitors! (What out when viral and participatory competitions backfire!)

We keep on writing about startup after startup getting into the online video space, but we’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing trend: they all say they’re looking to monetize professional content.

Funny: “Actor James Gandolfini, best known for his portrayal of mob kingpin Tony Soprano on … The Sopranos, was shot to death Tuesday … by a fan unable to accept the open-ended conclusion of the series finale that aired earlier this month.

“…virtual reality might finally be the medium that unites the passive experience of watching television with the interactive potential of the Web.”

“Next time your children are in MySpace, consider this: they may be joining a political movement. Virtually all next year’s US presidential hopefuls have now set up profiles on MySpace and Facebook …”

Facebook for the rich, MySpace for the less rich? (boyd, danah. 2007. “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace .” Apophenia Blog Essay. June 24 . http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html)

“I guess I see my blog as a space to work out half-formed ideas. I just didn’t expect 90K people to read it. Blog essays to me are thoughts in progress, blog entries that are too long to be blog entries. But I can see where there’s confusion.”

Bob Harris writes 3000 words about the last 5 minutes of The Sopranos. It’s worth reading every one of them (but not until after you’ve watched the episode, of course!)

“Missed Bloomsday this year? There’s still time to celebrate. In fact, if your whole weekend is free, you can download a new audio version of Ulysses, listen to the entire book, and still have a few hours left for eating and sleeping.”

Interesting article about the rise of amateur/citizen taken photographs in the public domain and the impact this has for journalism and activism.

“Doctors have backed away from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more. “

My In Media Res post on the pre-911 Spider-Man trailer, its removal from cinemas and strange non-history thereafter.

WIth conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey leading a review of history curricula in schools, all you need to know is that Conservative has areally big ‘C’.

Lars says When I viewed the new iPhone site something struck me: did Apple change the dimensions of the unit? A quick comparison of the official Apple photos revealed they’ve just changed handsize.

The Spanish short film, Lo que tú Quieras Oír–released under a CC … license–has achieved a huge amount of popularity on YouTube, totaling close to 10,000,000 views! (This is why all Youtube films should have a CC option at upload!)

Is increasing product placement going to ruin or financially revitalize videoblogged/YouTube hits like Lonelygirl15? (I suspect the latter…)

“Google is expanding its empire into universities – with entire campus e-mail networks switching over to using Google’s e-mail service.” (Given how bad many uni email systems are, I can see the appeal, despite the privacy issues.)

Sony tries its hardest to piss off its female consumers with PS2 ads with the punchline: “PS2, because your girlfriend bores you shitless” (Are they really ignorant of how many female gamers are out there?)

Ian Bogost and Ian McCarthy ‘performed’ the ‘Wandering Rocks’ section of Joyce’s Ulysses via Twitter on June 16 (Bloomsday).

In the UK, ” 80% of the Internet browsing public over the age of 15 watched a video in April. Viewers went primarily to YouTube and Google Video, who counted 16 million uniques and over 600 million streams out of a total of nearly 25 million online video

Jean Burgess does a roundup of current and in-progress academic research on/into YouTube, its contents and its communities.

Clever. Hillary Clinton does a parody of the final minutes of Sopranos to announce her “campaign song”. This is very, very clever politics! 🙂

Three options – one free.

Nancy Baym’s excellent little essay looking at what it means to be a music fan in the web2.0/internet era, and gives big music companies some good advice on dealing with musical fandoms (celebrate with, not fear them!)

“This essay deals with the phenomenon of the perceived freshness fetish, the automation of this freshness and the common habit of apologizing for a lack of freshness. I will argue that this freshness fetish is not new to blogs…”

Jason Mittell’s debrief report on his ‘Media Technology & Cultural Change’ unit and the many cool assignments tried out by his students, including mashups and machinima. Some good ideas here! 🙂

Hilarious “steampunk” remix of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction as a Penny Dreadful! 🙂

“Red vs. Blue, the cult hit, web-video series created from in-game Halo footage, concludes its genre-defining run as it airs its 100th and final episode Wednesday evening.”

“In what’s being touted as a milestone for web marketing, the viral phenomenon Dove “Evolution” advertisement won the Grand Prix at the 54th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival this weekend.”

“10. Deodorizer. 9. Plant food. 8. Insect repellant. 7. Dye. 6. Furniture scratch cover-up. 5. Cleaning product. 4. Kitty repellent. 3. Flea dip. 2. Dust inhibitor. #1 use for used coffee grounds….drum roll here…. Cellulite reducer.” (!)

“Steve Chen, co-founder of wildly popular video sharing website YouTube, said Saturday consumers in many parts of the world will be able to access the site on mobile phones by next year.”

Michelle Slatalla’s interesting story of a parent who joins Facebook to see what her daughter is doing, only to end up reflecting on whether Facebook should, really, be a space for teens rather than adults.

Great ways to visualise user data from lastFM.

One of the best and most unexpected DVD extras of all time … Sin City Breakfast Tacos! I think Robert Rodriguez needs to make a film noir cooking show! 🙂

Check http://www.foureyedmonsters.com/ for more, including a very clever fan-based marketing strategy. [Via]

“Andrew Michael Baron, who has been publicly opining about new models for monetizing online video, announced today his pioneering video show Rocketboom is launching a sponsorship system, with YouTube being the first participant, starting tomorrow.:

A look at the privacy concerns raised by Google’s ‘Street View’ function in Google Maps. Lists (and links) to a number of the revealing moments of life captures by Googles roaming digital eyes.

“When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton asked YouTube viewers to vote on a theme song for her presidential campaign, she certainly got the attention she wanted — and a whole lot of jokes at her expense.”

“Mark Zuckerber’s very interesting pitch to 800 developers at the San Francisco Design Center about Facebook Platform is available on video. Here are some of the highlights: * Facebook adds over 100,000 users per day …”

Christy Dena takes a look at how “filmmakers are thinking beyond the film” across various media, platforms and approaches, arguing for convergent production from day one:”Filmmakers don’t create films anymore, they create worlds.”