Twitter caved in to censorship last week when it announced it will censor tweets on a country by country basis. Tweets blocked by the government in one country will still show up in another country.
As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.
Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country - while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.
Twitter shows here what a censored tweet or username will look like. You will see a grayed-out tweet or username that says "Tweet withheld" or "@Username withhheld."
Countries do have different rules for free speech, but surely Twitter could have resisted caving in to the censorship demands of every single country. On a positive note, Twitter does say it will share the tweet and username removal requests it receives from governments. Take a look:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook may file papers for an IPO as early as Wednesday of next week. The WSJ says the IPO could raise $10 billion for Facebook and give the company a massive $75 to $100 billion valuation. The New York Postsays the NYSE and Nasdaq are battling for Facebook's listing.
Facebook does have impressive revenues. They reportedly made $3.8 billion in 2011. However, the costs to make that $3.8 billion is unknown. The company has over 3,000 employees according to its factsheet.
Facebook says it has about 800 million active users. Strong growth continues for the company, but it may start getting close to its maximum number of active users as it approaches the 1 billion user mark, especially with the relatively recent entrance of Google+. There are only so many people on Earth (about 7 billion) and only a certain percentage of them are going to use Facebook. Facebook should be able to make a lot of revenues with a massive user base of 1 billion people, but probably not enough to deserve a valuation of $100 billion.
Highlight is an iPhone app that aims to help you locate people in the real world. You can only find other people that have Highlight installed. The app alerts you when Highlight users are nearby and tells you who they are.
If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight helps you remember it.
As you go about your day, Highlight runs quietly in the background, surfacing information about the people around you. If your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them.
Technologizer reports that Highlight can identify people within a block and half of your phone. If you don't want random strangers to be able to identify you, then you should probably avoid apps like Highlight. You can choose to be visible only to friends or friends of friends. You can also pause the app and Highlight peeps won't be able to locate you.
Hugh MacLeod at Gaping Void was ready for the most recent "Blogging is Dead" meme and he will be ready again the next time the blogosphere dies.
Former TechCrunch reporter Sarah Lacy recently launched a blog covering tech startups. The blog is called PandoDaily. She has $2.5 million in funding.
Get ready to continue to fight again and again and ignore David Pogue's incredibly incorrect and lame SOPA/PIPA article that tells you to put your pitchforks down. Clay Shirky explains why this is wrong here. Consider taking Pogue off your reading list. There is no place in a free world for bills like SOPA/PIPA that seek to control information and/or support of them. There is no doubt that lobbyists for MPAA/RIAA and other organizations will continue to push bills like SOPA/PIPA through members of Congress they have purchased.
Justin Timberlake helped MySpace launch MySpace TV at CES.
The White House is now on Google's relatively new social network, Google+. The White House's Google+ page, available here, includes news, photographs and videos. It is similar to what you will find on The White House Facebook page. The White House is also on Twitter and MySpace.
The White House says, "On this page you'll find news from the White House blog, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, and opportunities to engage with Obama administration officials and policy experts on topics ranging from the economy to technology. We hope you'll join the conversation on the issues that matter the most to you right here on Google+."
The White House Google+ page can be found here. The page also says that comments posted on the page may be "subject to the Presidential Records Act and may be archived."
Bloggers Blog also recently joined Google+. Our page is located here.
Wordpress.org is one of several sites going dark to oppose the awful Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills. The bills give new powers to major entertainment and media companies to take down websites they think are violating copyright. These powers could very easily be abused and used to censor vast portions of the Internet. Keeping information freely available on the Internet is extremely important to our society. Anyone backing this bill needs to be voted out of office.
Wordpress shared this video to explain why the bills are bad news:
Bloggers Blog now has a Google+ page. Google+ is a relatively new social network from Google. Google recently started incorporating results from Google+ into a new personalized search feature called "Search Plus Your World." Search Engine Land has a good article about the new personalized search feature here.
You follow Bloggers Blog on Google+ by clicking on the Google+ button below and adding us to one of your circles.
Reddit has announced it will black out its regular content on January 18th from 8am to 8pm to protest the PIPA/SOPA legislation. Reddit has created a little Braveheart inspired figure to lead the charge.
There is widespread concern - including from Internet inventors, founders and engineers (see here) - that bills like SOPA could be used as a means of Internet censorship.
Reddit says it will display a simple message about how PIPA/SOPA legislation is wrong for the Internet.
Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action. We will showcase the live video stream of the House hearing where Internet entrepreneurs and technical experts (including reddit co-founder Alexis "kn0thing" Ohanian) will be testifying. We will also spotlight community initiatives like meetups to visit Congressional offices, campaigns to contact companies supporting PIPA/SOPA, and other tactics.
Reddit says there is new hope the legislation can be defeated. The delay of the bill last month is certainly helping knowledge of the bill's dangers spread online. Reddit says, "There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there’s a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation."
Tim Tebow and the Bronco's overtime playoff win helped set a new sports Tweet per second record. The Bronco's overrated quarterback Tim Tebow completed an 80-yard pass on the first play of overtime to win the game. The play generated 9420 tweets per second - the second highest number in Twitter history according to a tweet by Twitter.
Here are the top eleven TPS events:
25,088 TPS: Castle in the Sky anime movie airs in Japan (12-9-11)
9,420 TPS: Tim Tebow overtime touchdown pass in playoff game (1-8-12)
8,868 TPS: Beyonce/MTV VMAs (8-28-11)
7.671 TPS: Troy Davis executed (9-20-11-)
7,196 TPS: Japan Beats US in Women's World Cup (7-17-11)
7,166 TPS: Brazil eliminated from Copa America (7-17-11)
7,064 TPS: Steve Jobs resigns (8-25-11)
6,939 TPS: New Year's Eve 2011 (12-31-10)
6,436 TPS: BET Awards Viewer's Choice Award Mixup (6-27-11)
6,303 TPS: Barcelona defeated Manchester (5-28-11)
Reddit really cranked in December, 2011. The link-sharing social media site announced it served 2.07 billion pageviews last month. It also had nearly 35 million unique visitors.
Reddit's traffic has doubled in less than a year. Reddit says it plans to improve infrastructure in 2012 and help make it easier for users to discover new subreddits.
There are redditors who feel reddit is getting too big, and even if we don't always reach the same conclusions, we see the same trends and patterns you do. We have some improvements coming that will help redditors discover new subreddits, help new users better understand the way reddit works, and provide better tools to support the moderators of both big and small subreddits. We're also going to keep improving the infrastructure so that the site will be faster and more stable even as growth continues.
Mashable says Reddit may have benefited from a decline in traffic at Digg.
PostSecret was one of the early successful blogs. It dominated the Bloggies in 2006. The blog also found success through books and exhibits. The blog remains popular today and continues to post postcards submitted by users. However, the blog has had to shut down its iPhone app because of abusive posts by a small number of obnoxious users.
PostSecret's Frank Warren writes that the number of abusive and profane posts overwhelmed the volunteer moderators.
99% of the secrets created were in the spirit of PostSecret. Unfortunately, the scale of secrets was so large that even 1% of bad content was overwhelming for our dedicated team of volunteer moderators who worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week removing content that was not just pornographic but also gruesome and at times threatening.
Bad content caused users to complain to me, Apple and the FBI. I was contacted by law enforcement about bad content on the App. Threats were made against users, moderators and my family. (Two specific threats were made that I am unable to talk about). As much as we tried, we were unable to maintain a bully-free environment. Weeks ago I had to remove the App from my daughter's phone.
Facebook, Blogger and Twitter were the top social network and blogging sites in 2011 according to a new Nielsen report. The data runs from January through October, 2011. Facebook had by far the largest average number of unique visitors per month. Blogger continues to have huge monthly visits. Google+ will no doubt have a much higher rank in 2012.
SAY Media has acquired ReadWriteWeb, which is one of the leading technology blogs. SAY said in a press release that ReadWriteWeb's founder and editor Richard MacManus will continue to lead the blog at SAY, where it will anchor SAY's technology hub.
MacManus, said in a statement, "With SAY's technology and services we'll be able to scale ReadWriteWeb in ways previously unavailable to us. We'll now be able to expand our editorial scope into relevant areas of interest and redesign the site to create a more premium experience for both our readers and advertisers."
TechCrunch says ReadWriteWeb was sold for around $5 million.
Ashton Kutcher has decided to let Katalyst Media manage his Twitter feed following a backlash that resulted from his unresearched tweet in support of scandalized Penn State coach Joe Paterno.
A collection of over 8 million followers is not to be taken for granted. I feel responsible to deliver informed opinions and not spread gossip or rumors through my twitter feed. While I feel that running this feed myself gives me a closer relationship to my friends and fans I've come to realize that it has grown into more than a fun tool to communicate with people. While I will continue to express myself through @Aplusk, I'm going to turn the management of the feed over to my team at Katalyst as a secondary editorial measure, to ensure the quality of its content. My sincere apologies to anyone who I offended. It was a mistake that will not happen again.
It has been about two and a half years since Aston Kutcher beat CNN to become the first Twitter account to a million users. Kutcher has sinced dropped to the tenth most followed according to Twitter Counter's chart. He will probably soon be passed by Selena Gomez and Oprah. He has fallen a ways since holding the number one spot, but he has managed to rank very high on Twitter and amass over eight million followers. Kutcher's fans are asking him to stay real on Twitter, but if he does decide to outsource his tweets he won't be the only celebrity doing so.
Google has launched pages for its Google+ social network. Search Engine Land describes the new feature here.
You can already make pages using the Create a Page tool. We added a page here. It is very easy to add pages. The pages will have to be updated manually. So far there is no way to pull it tweets or a feed, which would be a nice feature for Google to add.
Robert Scoble has made some good points here about the lack of features on Google+ Pages. However, it is early and Google probably has plans to add many of the features Scoble mentions, such as letting more than one person post to an account. In the meantime, if you operate multiple accounts, you should be careful which account you are posting to.
The Wall Street Journal is 
The White House is now on Google's relatively new social network, Google+. The White House's Google+ page, available 
Reddit really cranked in December, 2011. The link-sharing social media site 
Google has launched pages for its Google+ social network. Search Engine Land describes the new feature 
