Craigslist, that giant bulletin board of missed connections, apartments for rent, and drugs (if you know where to look) is taking measures to decrease the number of prostitution services on their site. The site will now charge to place ads in the erotic services section (which they couldn't just get rid of, if they were so worried?) to get the credit card information and phone numbers of people placing the ads. So far, that's dettered the sexy opportunists and ad placement has decreased by 80% as all those "sexy massage parlors" try to keep their numbers unlisted.
So from now on, only people who offer to have sex with random strangers have to do it for free, and be legit, i.e. in the name of filling up that empty void in their life that a hundred cats can't fill.
In honor of the new UCLA studies by neuroscientist Gary Small that found Internet surfing and texting actually makes people better at certain tasks, like filtering information and making snap decisions, every one should go see Ben X this weekend:
"We're seeing an evolutionary change. The people in the next generation who are really going to have the edge are the ones who master the technological skills and also face-to-face skills," Small told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Of course, blah blah blah, with great power comes great responsibility and we can't all just go Aspergin' out and hope to become Professor X. But honestly? With the current trends in journalism rewarding online content over print, maybe the smartest move is to start teaching children at an early age how to take ten minute breaks from the screen in order to not hurt their eyes while logging in 15+ hours a day writing in their beginner's blog.
Andrew Sullivan, that mess of walking contradictions (Libertarian Conservative/Gay) who blogs for The Atlantic, another mess of contradictions (an ostensibly left-leaning mag that's becoming increasingly right-wing since the late Michael Kelly took over as editor in 1999) wants all of America to know how hard it is being his online avatar.
In an essay titled "Why I Blog," Sullivan spends around 5,000+ words describing his relation to the "quintessentially postmodern idiom" and the nasty, nasty commentator criticism.
"As Twitter has made the leap to the masses, a fundamental, quantitative question has started to percolate among technoscribes: How the hell is Twitter going to make money? Behind that query, though, is another that often goes unasked in today's Silicon Valley: Does Twitter even want to make money in the first place? Or is it all peer pressure?" [The Big Money]
So much for Rock the Vote: A new study by Northwestern shows young adults are overwhelmed by the amount of news thrown at them regarding the election. The report found that students are confused "because they feel news sites bombard them with too much information and too many choices," which is literally the most pathetic statement ever made about this generation.
Come on dudes, time to rally, this is supposedly the year where the collegiate influences the election! Plus, no one else can figure out the Internet so if you guys can't, they might as well pull the plug on this whole 2.0 experiment.
New Ultimatum: No more YouTube salvia videos until till you kids learn how to navigate Huffpost, k?
So if you watched last season of Mad Men (and you did), there was that whole subplot of Nixon vs. Kennedy in 1960, and how to market a candidate (Nixon) that was less media-aware than his opponent. The presidential debates coincided neatly with the rise in personal televisions and mass media, meaning for the first time Americans could watch the great debates unfold from home, which some speculate is the reason Kennedy won. Kennedy was way hotter than Nixon.
Similarly, today the race to the White House is being fought on different technological battleground than it's been in previous years. And like JFK, Barack Obama knows how to play the new mediums to his advantage. The MSM may not always like it, but Obama's camp is changing the face of electoral process in a way that Marshall McLuhan would have been proud of. Here's how: CONTINUED »
Ready to jump into the Web 2.0 fray, Salon — the left-y web magazine that isn't Slate — today launches Open Salon, a sorta bloggy-news-aggregator-social-networking thing that hopes to bank on the readership's tendency to whine and talk about each other. So far, we don't see any advertising, which makes Open Salon's most ambitious undertaking not its We Are One Web tool set, but how it plans to compensate bloggers content producers.
Because we all know one left-y website with a problem doing it. CONTINUED »
Google's virtual world cross-over Lively — it's part Second Life, part chat room — is supposed to be a safe, fun space for Internet nerds to geek out over their latest obsession, whether it be the iPhone or some new limited edition action figure. It is not, as far as Google's original intentions would suggest, a place for Internet trolls to gather for live sex shows. Except that's what's been happening. CONTINUED »
After many months and months in development, former Radar editor and up-and-coming new media titan Remy Stern today launches Cityfile, a database of who's who in Manhattan industry circles. Artists, media types, socialites, designers, and foodies are all on board, with Stern's crack team of writer-researches having already compiled 2,109 names. The site promises to add new profiles all the time — but also, more excitingly, to drop names, too, because sometimes important people are suddenly no longer important, and this distinction MUST BE MADE.
So what's a site like this good for? For blogs like ours, the answer is obvious: Free research tool! For others, however, Cityfile as a resource might be less clear. Allow us to help. CONTINUED »
NBC News' new iCue service is, unlike MySpace, "a fun and safe environment" for everyone to hang out discussing news video clips, news articles, and news-focused games. The ad-supported vehicle is geared toward high school kids, who are, apparently, in need of yet another online destination.
The site, developed by the geeks at MIT, "employs a 'Cue Card' media player that users can view, flip over and get more information, customize them with their own input, then store and trade them with other members of the community," reports B&C. It's basically a giant Flash app that lets you read a written transcript while you watch the video! And most importantly: It features an intro from Tim Russert. He's hip with the kids.
Are you a JetBlue crew member who just joined the airline's brand new internal social network? We'd like to hear from you!
What are crew members posting on each others walls? Do they care that passengers will lose out on free headsets beginning in June? That rising fuel prices are forcing the airline to cut flights? Is the biscotti or the Terra Blue chips the workforce favorite? Oh — and do you frickin' hate having to say "Happy Jetting"?
Know what's a stupider idea than giving Liz Smith another platform? Nude video blogging …
What's 1,300 words on how hard it is to be a blogger?
For the New York Times, it's an embarrassing Sunday front page story about how some of our kin work day and night to spit out the drivel heretofore referred to as "copy" just to satisfy our employers' post quota demands or our own innate need to fill the HTTP://WWW with endless commentary. Some of us blogger types have even suffered major health complications as a result of these sweatshop-esque demands, including heart attacks and death, which can also be triggered by scary monsters lurking in the night.
That's the Times' newspeg – the deaths of tech bloggers Russell Shaw (heart attack) and Marc Orchant (massive coronary), and the heart attack of Om Malik (survived) – neglecting the notion that some folks maintain perfectly healthy lives, albeit with recreational coke habits, to maintain this lifestyle. Nevermind that a story on, say, the fact that CEOs are still commanding exorbitant salaries while Americans investing in their companies suffer shareholders suffer affects a much larger group of people than the vain bloggerati, and might've served audiences better than hiding in the business section. But why leave yet another dramatic blog beat stone unturned?
Eats.com is a new social network for foodies centered around their irrational devotion to restaurant openings and buzz. You'll be shocked to find out it is not a social network backed by the fast food industry. Or Jenny Craig. [Tour, Eats.com]
The alpha-stage PrimeTimeRewind.tv hopes to be the universal remote control that, one day, if all goes well between Jeff Zucker and Rupert Murdoch, Hulu.com will one day become. Use the 3-D cube – redundant! cubes are 3-D – to navigate to all your favorite shows, where a click on Scrubs or Brothers & Sisters brings up not a single video player, but links you directly to the show's broadcast network and its own proprietary player. Annoying workaround, yes, but now you get to spend more time watching your shows and less time trying to illegally download them on BitTorrent. Below, take the cube for a spin.
CONTINUED »
Social-media sites like Wikipedia and Digg are celebrated as shining examples of Web democracy, places built by millions of Web users who all act as writers, editors, and voters. In reality, a small number of people are running the show. … At both Digg and Wikipedia, small groups of users have outsized authority. In the case of Wikipedia, this authority is both organic and institutionalized. A small segment of highly active users author the majority of the site's content; there are also elected site administrators who have the power to protect pages, block the IP addresses of problem users, and otherwise regulate Wikipedia's operations. At Digg, active users have more of a de facto authority over the site's goings-on (though there are persistent rumors that the site has "secret moderators" who delete content). But officially speaking, while the site's algorithm seems to favor devoted users, no individual Digger has the power to unilaterally delete a post.
-Chris Wilson, "The Wisdom of the Chaperones," Slate
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you were a company that had been completely bested by your rival. The only people who use your products do so out of pity or laziness. And that laying off hundreds of employees was your best option in what will ultimately be a futile effort to stay afloat. And let’s also say, again, just hypothetically, that your name ended absurdly with an exclamation point.
Well, then you would be Yahoo!, and should be pretty excited that Microsoft was making a stupidly high offer for your company in hopes of taking down Google. And even though few other companies are in a better position to take over Yahoo! financially or otherwise, Yahoo! is still weighing its options:
[The review] will include evaluating all of the Company's strategic alternatives including maintaining Yahoo! as an independent company.
Because, you know, something better could come along.
Apparently, Classmates.com only value on the internet is as an ubiquitous advertiser. United Online, which owns the site, has withdrawn its IPO plans because of “current market conditions.” In other words, Classmates.com got out-bubbled by Facebook.
We love ourselves some HSN. (QVC has too much jewelry; ShopNBC has too many computers.) So we've immediately fallen in love with Home Purchasing Club, which features items we're thinking of buying for our sisters. And fellow staff members.
Ah yes, if it weren't for axed Men's Journal editor Michael Caruso, who's behind this clip from The Daily Tube, we never would have had the chance to relive the embarrassment of OfficePirates.com.
What do you need to make you feel like there's a better tomorrow? A new Cosmopolitan website, that's what. Relaunched this week, the gals at Hearst are bringing you a whole new look to match covergirl Ashlee Simpson's nose. Exciting features abound, including "Hot Guys," "Celebs & Gossip," and, because it's all about You this year, "You, You, You." (That's where you'll find the Cosmo Quiz, just so you know.)
Naturally, we know you're clicking on the first tab mentioned. It's there that you'll find the photo feature "Guy Without His Shirt." And because Cosmo is sooo with it, they're bringing you a new guy every month! Just think, a new hottie to oogle with the same frequency as their print product. Oh happy day.
Editorial Director
