Today I learned that one of my favorite bloggers Kathy Sierra is threatened with death threats. Yes, you did read that right - death threats. Was is the world coming to? What makes a person do that? I cannot imagine how terrible this must be to Kathy, but I am sorry to hear about it.
I have had my share of cyber-bullying - not to an extreme extend as Kathy's - but the kind where a person has deliberately attacked me and my site (not physically though). At the moment I am "attacked" by what I believe is a single person (there is a pattern). This person spams my articles with varies degree of profanity and he has tried to hack into my site - and to add spyware like code into the comments (all attempts have failed). So far, the comments from this person fills over 300 letter sized pages.
Note: My response is to simple block the IP address, which means that I currently block several anonymous services (that is mostly what the person uses). I have also added a filter that blocks any comments containing profanity and varies code bits designed to alter my back-end systems.
But, one thing is when a person is calling you names and deliberately trying to destroy your site (as in my case), another, and a much more serious problem, is when person threatens you existence (in Kathy's case). In both cases it is a line that you simply do not cross. There is no way these actions can be even remotely justified. I hope it is just a kid that doesn't know better.
In any case, Kathy is one the best writers I know, her blog "Creating Passionate Users" has been tremendous help to me. I hope that her life will soon return to normal and her attacker is caught by the police!
You have probably heard about all the buzz around net neutrality, the concept of equal access to the internet.
These days, everyone talks about HTML5. All the big guys like Apple, Google, and Microsoft put a lot of effort into making it happen. Google is especially focused on bringing HTML5 and web apps into the world.
Want to try out the new Digg 4 - go here http://new.digg.com (limited access - be quick)
Earlier today On2, the company behind the video codec used in the FLV video format (used by Flash), told us that they will discontinue their Flix video product line.
There is one story that keeps popping up about Wired Magazine reporting that 26% of their traffic is now coming from the iPad. A truly amazing number. But there something odd about it. I'm not seeing that anywhere else. So I did a little digging.
My use of the stream have now reached a point where I am no longer looking for news. Instead, my world is pretty much divided into two types of information. Updates that are followable, and updates that isn’t. I am now spending 99% of my time on the first group.
Foursquare Grader has compiled a list of the percentage of people who have been rewarded a badge on Foursquare. This tells us a lot about how it is being used. Most social networks have a relatively low activity rate, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
A few days ago I wrote, “Facebook is Dying, Social is Not,” and it appears that I hit a nerve. The article has so far been read by more than 25,000+ readers, in less than 3 days. It is safe to say that the complexity and privacy issues are something people really cares about.
Every now and then a short video is released that show just how much the world has changed. One of the best ones are “The Social Media Revolution” from Socialnomics. Yesterday they released an updated version, with all the latest stats.
You might have heard it already, but Google have released a new beta version of Chrome, which breaks new records in speed. And to show off how fast it really is they have made a little video.
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