Feb 17 2009

Twitter’s getting more reliable, LinkedIn’s getting worse

Yes, Twitter had more downtime last year (84 hours) than any of 15 social networking sites monitored by Pingdom, but it showed dramatic improvement from July on. LinkedIn, conversely, had more downtime every quarter. MySpace and Facebook were among the best

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Feb 17 2009

Student Satirist Gets 3 Months; the Judge, Likely More

ponraul writes “When Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, sentenced Hillary Transue, 17, on a harassment charge stemming from a MySpace parody of her high school’s assistant principal, Hillary expected to be let off with a stern lecture; instead, the Wilkes-Barre, PA area teen got three months in a commercially operated juvenile detention center. In a reversal of fortune, Ciavarella and, his colleague, Judge Conahan, 56, find themselves trying to plea-bargain a 87-month sentence in Federal correctional facilities relating to a kick-back scheme that netted the pair .6 Million and PA Child Care 5000 inmates.” True poetic justice would be for these corrupt, callous judges to serve their sentences in the same kind of environment to which they were happy to dispatch juvenile defendants.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Jan 29 2009

Visualizing Pitchfork Media’s Top 100 Tracks of 2008

Genre was determined by the first style listed for the track’s artist at allmusic.com. Where that was not available genre was determined by pitchforkmedia.com and/or the artist’s myspace page.

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Jan 29 2009

Ireland’s Largest ISP Settles With Record Industry

An anonymous reader writes “In what has been billed as a world first, four music companies and Irish ISP Eircom have agreed to work together to end illegal music downloading. The Irish branches of the record companies (EMI Records Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment Ltd, Universal Music Ltd and Warner Music Ltd.) brought a High Court action against Eircom last March which has resulted in this settlement after eight days of trial. Eircom will be implementing a three-step process — informing a subscriber that their IP address has been detected infringing copyright; warning the subscriber that if they do not stop they will be disconnected; and finally disconnecting the user if they fail to heed the warning. Which technology they will be using to spy on their customers is currently unknown. EMI and the other record companies have recommended US-based Audible Magic, which (among other things) claims to block copyright violating web content from sites like Youtube and MySpace. However, digital surveillance is nothing new in Ireland and Eircom may have already tested and implemented the necessary technologies.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Jan 28 2009

Muxtape rises from ashes as a MySpace-like site for bands

The new, made-over Muxtape has launched after a nearly year-long battle against the RIAA. The Muxtape that we once knew and loved is gone, and has been replaced with a legit place for artists and bands to showcase their own work to the world.

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Jan 25 2009

Stories From The Tell-All MySpace Book

The book, which is really being published a year too late, goes into excruciating detail about the history of MySpace, its founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, and others involved in the business. Here’s an in-depth look at it.

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Jan 22 2009

The State of Video Game Regulation

Gamasutra is running an in-depth look at the regulation of video games in the US and other countries. They discuss the reasons for such legislation, such as child protection and intellectual property restrictions, as well as what gamers can expect to see in the coming years. “Fairfield also points out combinations of laws, which, when put together make for strange outcomes. The biggest of these, for video games, is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In short, gaining unauthorized access to someone’s computer and doing 0 in damages opens you up for criminal charges. It’s good for prosecuting hackers, but it makes for a strange fit with social networking websites and user-generated content. That fit was especially strange when prosecutors weren’t quite sure how to approach the widely publicized case of Megan Meier. The 13-year-old Meier committed suicide after being deceived and bullied by another girl and her mother, Lori Drew. Unable to find a good way to approach the issue, prosecutors charged Drew under MySpace’s End User License Agreement, effectively giving MySpace the power to dictate criminal law.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Jan 12 2009

Google Paper Proves Social Web Has Become a Science – eWeek


ITBusiness.ca

Google Paper Proves Social Web Has Become a Science
eWeek – 7 hours ago
Think back a week, month, year or almost 5 years ago to when you started using Facebook or MySpace. It seemed like such a harmless, simple social transaction as you were friended by a friend, colleague or significant other.
7 Social Media Predictions for 2009 Search Engine Watch
Flex your networking skills Boston Globe
ITBusiness.ca – Salt Lake Tribune – Hartford Courant – Net4now
all 9 news articles
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Jan 9 2009

Google Researchers Warn of Automated Social Info Sharing

holy_calamity writes “Researchers from Google have written a paper about how social networks can undermine privacy. The most interesting scenario they discuss is ‘merging social graphs’ — when correlating multiple social networks makes it possible to reveal connections that a person has intentionally kept secret (PDF). For example, it may be possible to work out that a certain LinkedIn user is the same person as a MySpace user, despite their attempting to keep their profiles separate. The Google solution is to develop software that screens new data added to a social network, attempting to find out if it could be fodder to such data mining.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Jan 6 2009

Facebook nudity policy draws nursing moms' ire – Jakarta Post


Jakarta Post

Facebook nudity policy draws nursing moms' ire
Jakarta Post – 3 Jan 2009
Web-savvy moms who breast-feed are irate that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace restrict photos of nursing babies.
I don't normally sign petitions, but in this case… guardian.co.uk
Breast-feeding should not be a source of shame The Olympian
HeraldNet
all 17 news articles
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