Author Archive

By most accounts, people wouldn't think I'm a very private person. I'm online most of the day. I blog in several places. I'm active on most social media sites. Most people are aware that my husband is also online and on Twitter and FriendFeed, and that I have four children and that my youngest is a huge fan of Seesmic. So it would seem I'm pretty open in that regard.
Anything revealed, however, is surface-level. I don't use my children's real [...]

The Volokh Conspiracy notes that courts have cited Wikipedia in decisions over 300 times. That's three hundred times that the user-created encyclopedia has been used in documents that become part of the public record. And while Eugene Volokh doesn't usually see a problem with this, one particular use by the Seventh Circuit demonstrates just how questionable the practice may be, depending on your view of user-generated content.
In the decision for Rickher v. Home Depot, Inc., the Seventh Circuit uses the [...]

Here at Profy, we keep a running tab of which authors are going to write about which topics so that we don't all end up writing the same article. Most of the topics clear out rather quickly, but sometimes we end up waiting for months for a beta invite to review a new application.
I have several I've been waiting on since the beginning of the year, and like any early adopter magpie, when I see the shiny new invitation in [...]

The iPhone has developed the same culture of Twitteritis that the rest of the Web has in the two-and-a-half weeks since the launch of the App Store and the iPhone 3G . Everyone wants to build the perfect Twitter application, but with so many to choose from, which one do you choose?
Twitterific would seem to be the odds-on favorite to win. Already established on the desktop, the blue bird's move to the iPhone was both logical and expected. Not [...]

It's fairly obvious that YouTube is trying to clean up its act in light of the Viacom suit, clearing out any potential copyright issues. But when prominent YouTubers are impacted, does the seemingly overzealous housekeeping cause more damage than it helps?
Seesmic CEO and popular YouTube user Loic Lemeur found himself on the wrong end of a YouTube copyright issue lately. On July 18, Lemeur's YouTube account was suspended due to alleged copyright violations. The content in question? Interviews with [...]

Drama 2.0 stole a topic from me that I've been thinking about for a while; I don't believe I have a personal brand. A friend joking referred to me as "always being a gun for hire" in the tech blogosphere, and I'm totally fine with that. I'm hired (and paid) to do a job, and that's build a brand for the company I'm working for, whether it's here at Profy or at The Industry Standard, or anywhere else that I've [...]

Today hasn't been a super-happy day on the Web, with sad news coming from every angle, it seems. The escaped "Spam King" killed himself in a horrifying murder-suicide, and "The Last Lecture" professor Randy Pausch lost his battle with pancreatic cancer.
Spending all of my online time using either social media tools or reading news, I'm used to the typical reactions to news that you'll see on Twitter or in blog postings, or so I thought. I'm confused, however, with what [...]

Gizmodo noticed that Aurora Feint spent some time yesterday delisted from Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, apparently due to security violations. The app, a game that's part casual gaming, part MMO, was alleged to be sending a user's contact list up to the Aurora Feint servers unencrypted.
The game is back in the App Store today with the contact list integration feature removed, and additional security features, according to the Aurora Feint staff, who are also doing [...]

Update: Well, we managed to come it at just a tiny bit over an hour. We're doing better at cranking through the topics! Duncan claims he's on some type of medication that gave him a sunny disposition, but there was enough cussing in the after-show to let us know he wasn't overtaken by a pod person. For your listening enjoyment, here's tonight's episode:
 
It's Thursday again, and time for Things You Can't Say About the Internet, my weekly podcast on [...]