« June 1, 2008 - June 7, 2008 | Main | June 15, 2008 - June 21, 2008 »

Micro-Blogging Trends

O'Reilly Radar's Ben Lorica surveys current micro-blogging trends in When Micro-blogging Grows Up, reporting that three categories, technology, tech/personal, personal, accounted for 56% of the total "subscriptions" to the top 100 Twitter users. Political micro-blogs are less represented than in the blogosphere generally and there are substantially more liberal micro-blogs than conservative ones. Lorcia writes

Once more stable services and business models emerge, I still think micro-blogs will evolve to share some of the properties of the blogosphere described above. Micro-blogs from traditional media sources will be among the most popular. The liberal vs. conservative split will be less pronounced, with conservatives narrowing the micro-blogging gap. The top micro-blogs won't be as dominated by technology, although I'm not sure the format is really ideal for political topics.

[JH]

June 13, 2008 in Microblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Serial Entrepreneurs and the Rise of Web 2.0

Just release, Lacy's book is on my summertime reading list. [JH]

Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good:
The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0

by Sarah Lacy

List Price: $26.00 
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Gotham (May 15, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1592403824
ISBN-13: 978-1592403820

Book Description: Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good is the story of the entrepreneurs who learned their lesson from the bust and in recent years have created groundbreaking new Web companies. The second iteration of the dotcoms—dubbed Web 2.0—is all about bringing people together. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace unite friends online; YouTube lets anyone posts videos for the world to see; Digg.com allows Internet users to vote on the most relevant news of the day; Six Apart sells software that enables bloggers to post their viewpoints online; and Slide helps people customize their virtual selves.

Business reporter Sarah Lacy brings to light the entire Web 2.0 scene: the wide-eyed but wary entrepreneurs, the hated venture capitalists, the bloggers fueling the hype, the programmers coding through the night, the twenty-something millionaires, and the Internet “fan boys” eager for all the promises to come true.

About the Author: Sarah Lacy has reported on startups and venture capital in Silicon Valley for nearly a decade. Most recently she was a reporter for BusinessWeek, where her August 2006 cover story on Web 2.0 was among the most popular summer issues in the magazine’s history.

June 12, 2008 in New Publications | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

McAfee Identifies Most Web Dangerous Domains to Surf and Search

The second annual McAfee Mapping the Mal Web report (pdf) on the riskiest and safest places on the Web reveals that 19.2% of all Web sites ending in the ".hk" domain pose a security threat to Web users. China (.cn) is second this year with over 11%. By contrast, Finland (.fi) remains the safest online destination for the second year with 0.05%, followed by Japan (.jp). In addition to country domains, McAfee found the .info domain to be the most dangerous generic domain. According to the Report, as much as 11.8 percent of all .info domains pose legitimate security threats. The fewest number of sites likely to pose a security are .gov government sites and the most popular domain on the Internet, .com, is the ninth riskiest overall.

Other key findings from McAfee's 2008 Mapping the Mal Web report include:

The McAfee report is based on results from 9.9 million Web sites that were tested in 265 domains for serving malicious code, excessive pop-up ads or forms to fill out that actually are tools for harvesting e-mail addresses for sending spam. [JH]

June 11, 2008 in Internet, General | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Free Webinar Today: Getting the Most Out of Social Media Using ShareThis Plug-In

Tuesday, June 10th at 1 pm Pacific
Space limited; reserve your spot by emailing webinar AT sixapart.com

From the announcement: Join us for an informative session about current trends in sharing your blog content around the web.  With so many choices out there, we'll discuss how bloggers can extend their reach quickly and effectively.  TypePad's Andy Wibbels and guests from ShareThis will host this informative talk about on how to get the most out of social media using the ShareThis plug-in.

June 10, 2008 in Announcements | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Canadian Law Students File Privacy Complaint Against Facebook

The law students at the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic analyzed Facebook’s policies and practices in a course last winter, identifying specific practices that may violate the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. They have now filed a privacy complaint (pdf) against Facebook with Canada’s federal privacy commissioner.

Hat tip to Christine Corcos (LSU), Media Law Prof Blog. [JH]

June 9, 2008 in Blog Law | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack