Links of interest for October 9th 2008 through October 12th 2008:

• VloggerHeads – An 18+ onlys videoblogging site where comments are – in theory – taken seriously and meaningful conversations are encouraged between videobloggers. Yes, they’ve left YouTube for good reason. There’s a good rundown on the rationale behind the site in this Wired article: “Sick of Griefers, YouTube Vloggers Start Members-Only Site“.
• A Decade of Internet Superstars: Where Are They Now? [PC World] – A puff piece looking at the trajectories of internet meme folk after their meme’s energy has run out. Would you believe Chris “leave Britney alone!” Crocker has released his own single? Jennifer “Jennicam” Ringley has completely dropped off the web after being the most visible person on it for a while. And the Ask a Ninja guys are still answering questions … like ninjas.
• Tweethearts: blogger proposes to nerd girlfriend over Twitter, she tweets back acceptance. – Boing Boing – “seanbonner: @tarabrown so, um, you wanna get hitched?” Proposal by Twitter! (She says yes!)
• Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube [Institute of Network Cultures] – A fantastic collection of scholarly essays looking at YouTube as a cultural phenomenon. The entire collection is released under a Creative Commons (CC BY NC SA) license and features work by: Tilman Baumgärtel, Jean Burgess, Dominick Chen, Sarah Cook, Sean Cubitt, Stefaan Decostere, Thomas Elsaesser, David Garcia, Alexandra Juhasz, Nelli Kambouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, Minke Kampman, Seth Keen, Sarah Késenne, Marsha Kinder, Patricia Lange, Elizabeth Losh, Geert Lovink, Andrew Lowenthal, Lev Manovich, Adrian Miles, Matthew Mitchem, Sabine Niederer, Ana Peraica, Birgit Richard, Keith Sanborn, Florian Schneider, Tom Sherman, Jan Simons, Thomas Thiel, Vera Tollmann, Andreas Treske, Peter Westenberg.
• YouTube Links to Online Music Stores [Google OS] – “YouTube started to add links to iTunes and Amazon MP3 for music videos from EMI Music and Universal Music. “Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products — like songs and video games — related to the content they’re watching on the site,” announces Google Blog. … For now, the links are only available in the US, but they will be added internationally if this experiment turns out to be a success.”