Did Facebook just lose some of its street cred?

Valleywag is reporting that Facebook just hired Ted Ullyot, the former chief of staff of former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Ullyot is connected to some rather controversial issues during his time under Gonzales, including how he:

helped defend — or at least did not object to — policies established by the infamous “torture memo,” which argued for ways the Bush administration could forgo the Geneva Conventions in order to prosecute the War on Terror.

The announcement is already receiving some backlash from the Facebook crowd. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

What’s the point of Twitter?

Social media expert Beth Kantor makes some interesting points about the value of Twitter in a recent blog post.

Here’s a quote from her post:

Stepping back and seeing patterns is an important skill when you use Twitter, particularly as a listening tool.  That’s why I like to grab a search feed from Twitter for topics that I’m monitoring and then step back and see the patterns.

For non-Tweeters, the knock against Twitter has always been that it’s just another platform to talk about yourself. Another ‘mememe’ tool. But serious Tweeters tend to use Twitter to share first and promote themselves second, which is the true spirit of social media.

As Beth points out, blogger Bryan Person has developed an interesting way to monitor his Tweeting habits and ensure they aren’t too mememe.

Speaking of Twitter, Wired writer Clive Thompson wrote a great piece on Twitter as a ’social sixth sense’ last year.

Here’s a quote from the piece:

Individually, most Twitter messages are stupefyingly trivial. But the true value of Twitter — and the similarly mundane Dodgeball, a tool for reporting your real-time location to friends — is cumulative. The power is in the surprising effects that come from receiving thousands of pings from your posse. And this, as it turns out, suggests where the Web is heading.

I have found that the Status line in Facebook – which works very much like Twitter – to be another way to create a ’social sixth sense’.

Are we all destined for Googlethink?

Nicholas Carr thinks so. Carr is the author of the now-famous article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“, which got the webherd talking this summer.

Carr’s appearance on the Colbert Report proved to be funny, especially when Colbert aptly illustrated Carr’s point by playing on his iPhone while Carr was speaking.

Watch the video here (Canada) or here (US) >>

Control visualizer in iTunes 8

If you’re an iTunes fan and loving the new visualizer in iTunes 8, you’ll be happy to learn that Macworld has discovered a few secret controls for the visual effects feature.

Here are some of their findings:

• + and -: Increase or decrease the intensity (brightness) of the particles; multiple presses further increase or decrease the intensity.
• A and S: Add or Subtract particles to the visualizer. You can make the visualizer as complex (or sparse) as you wish.
• R: Reset the intensity and particle count to their default values.
• E: When in nebula mode (press N), this greatly accentuates the nebula clouds, making them very easy to see. (If you’ve used the M key to change modes, you may find that the nebula clouds aren’t visible; it seems they’re only used in certain modes.)

Click here to read more >>

Great parody of Nigerian email scam

This is making the rounds on the web. It’s worth reading for a chuckle.

eLies: Do you lie via email?

Interesting poll over at Lifehacker asking: Are you more likely to lie via email than by handwritten letter?

The poll is based on a study out of Lehigh University shows that workers lie 50% more of the time via email than in handwritten communication.

Personally, not only do I not lie in emails, I rarely even exaggerate. Emails are too easy to archive and search. Not worth it.

Check out the poll here >>

Does ideology trump facts?

Anyone who’s spent more than five minutes on an internet forum will agree with this study that says ideology often trumps cold, hard facts.

And in fact, the study shows that trying to correct misinformation often leads to reinforcement of the false belief.

Read about it here >>

Watch Hulu from Canada (and other places that aren’t the U.S. of A.)

Discovered this little trick for watching video on sites that don’t allow their content to be viewed outside the US.

Basically, it’s just a piece of software that gives your computer a virtual IP address, which is how websites identify where your computer is located. Using this method you can connect to sites like Hulu because your IP address looks American.

(By the way, Hulu is a website that offers free, ad-supported streaming video of TV shows and movies from major networks and studios.)

I’ve quoted from a fellow blogger’s site in case you have trouble with the link below:

“In order to view Hulu shows outside of USA, all you need is a VPN (Virtual Private Network) service. With VPN, your computer will be connected and assigned a new USA IP address. Therefore with the new IP address, it is possible to view all Hulu shows or access any services that are limited for USA residents. Hotspot Shield is a free VPN service software. Hotspot Shield helps secure your computer, your anonymity and your online communications when using wi-fi. (download Hotspot Shield now)

System Compatibility for Hotspot Shield:

• Windows Vista
• Windows XP
• Windows 2000
• Mac OS X (10.5 Leopard)
• Mac OS X (10.4 Tiger)

How to run Hotspot Shield

After you installed Hotspot Shield on your computer, a small red shield was placed in the bottom right corner of your icon bar (or on the top menu bar for Macs). Click on the red shield and choose ‘Connect’ from the menu. A browser window will open and begin to connect to the internet securely. Once the shield turns green, it is safe to browse the internet.”

Check out the full how-to >>

Narcissists on Facebook? Say it ain’t so?

This one fits in the Captain Obvious category – or, because it was a formal study conducted by university researchers, let’s call it Dr. Obvious – but a new study shows that you can detect narcissism by examining a person’s Facebook page.

Really?

Best bit from the article:

“The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and wallposts that individuals have on their profile pages correlates with narcissism. Buffardi said this is consistent with how narcissists behave in the real-world, with numerous yet shallow relationships. Narcissists are also more likely to choose glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photos, she said, while others are more likely to use snapshots.”

No kidding.

Greatest. Blog post. Ever.

How many times have you seen a headline like that, with ‘blog post’ substituted by video, photo, song, quote, etc.?

Probably about as many times as you’ve been profoundly disappointed by the link in question.

Click here for a sampling >>

It’s not breaking news to say that there is an abundance of black and white thinking on the web. Everything is the ‘best ever’ or ’sux’, with little in between. (The recent Dark Knight/Godfather war is a great example.) It’s juvenile, but not restricted to juveniles. More mature web users find different ways to say ’suck.’

And isn’t the comic book guy reference getting a little tired?