Links for September 22nd 2010 through September 23rd 2010:

• Zotero Everywhere [Zotero Blog] – The big announcement from Zotero is that the reference management system is growing up from a Firefox-specific plugin to plugins for many browsers and even more importantly, a stand-alone desktop application. That’s the death of Endnote you can hear! The announcement: “Today we are announcing support for Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Internet Explorer, which account for 98% of the web’s usage share. Plugins for these browsers will soon allow users to add anything they find on the web to their Zotero libraries with a single click, regardless of the their browser preferences. Rather than use the Zotero pane in Firefox, users will have the new option of accessing their libraries via a standalone desktop version of Zotero, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.”
• Google’s Chief Defends His Privacy Comment — or Joke [NYTimes.com] – In an interesting on his infamous comment that teens should be able to change their names when they become legal adults in order to escape their online histories, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told The Colbert Report that then comment was intended as a joke and his intention was simply to emphasise the fact that once something is online it’s potentially there forever. This is either a very clever sidestep by Schmidt to get around one of this most legendary gaffs, or the slowest retraction ever not-quite-issued. See the video:
  

  The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
  Eric Schmidt
  www.colbertnation.com
  Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

• Announcement: Dissertation, “Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Self-Branding in Web 2.0,” now available [tiara.org] – Alice Marwick has generously shared her 2010 Ph D dissertation, “Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Self-Branding in Web 2.0.” under a Creative Commons (CC BY NC ND) license (PDF link). This is a must-read for those interested in social media, the way Web 2.0 is used (Marwick does a great job contextualising the term) and obviously social media more broadly. (Strongly recommended for Web 101 and Web 207 students.)
• A Better Games Experience [Facebook] – Facebook moves to reduce the number of people annoyed by social game feeds in their news, while making the game news more central for social/casual gamers: “Previously, you’ve had the ability to hide an application story, or block it completely. Now, we’re putting changes in place so game stories only post to your feed if you’re playing them. This means people who play games can post stories to their Wall without worrying about overwhelming their friends who aren’t playing, and people who don’t play games won’t see irrelevant stories in their feed for which they have no context.”
• Twitter patches hole after cyber attack [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “Twitter has fixed a security flaw on its popular social media website after a cyber attack sent some users to Japanese porn websites. […] It said no user information was compromised. A tweet from Twitter’s safety chief said the attack had been “fully patched” and that hackers could no longer exploit the flaw. “We don’t believe any user info was compromised,” the tweet said. Twitter’s website was hijacked by users who exploited a security flaw that allowed messages to pop up and third-party websites to open when a user moved their mouse over a link, security technology company Sophos said. Sophos, which has no formal business relationship with Twitter, says the messages spread without users’ consent.” Twitter’s Official Response