The new mob lynchings

I didn't go to SXSW Interactive due to my honeymoon, which was a much better conference with more interesting participants and panels. I did pay attention to some extent to panel write ups, and some of the backchannel communications via Twitter. They often annoyed me, sine I wasn't there but most of my Twitter pals were.

I have followed the Zuckerberg/Lacey story (too many links to bother finding the best one here, sorry) with avid interest. It has seemed more and more clear to me that SXSW played host to a lynching via social media. I am worried about lynchings of public women (I cannot find the Slate - or was it Salon - story about how the public fascination with Britney/Paris/Lindsay amounts to child abuse). This lynching in particular was awful because the woman in question isn't even setting herself up as an object. She's just a mediocre business journalist.

Here's a great statistical analysis of the Zuckerberg/Lacey interview that really adds something to this conversation and gives us reasons to worry about social neworking and backchannels. I really, really recommend that you read it, as it has something important to say about mob behavior. We online elites are not immune to it. I wish I had time to write a feature length magazine article about the new mob lynchings, maybe Kee Hinckley does. This is a major piece of thinking - my congrats.

So much for Facebook

I mean seriously, why the fuck bother anymore?

Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous

To hell with email

Apparently, email is like, over. Fine with me. My inbox is still full of crap I should have responded to a month ago. It's embarassing. Friends, I apologize.

Would I be better about replying to people if they wrote me through Facebook, though? I seriously doubt it. Now if we move into an MMO environment...okay. I will definitely respond to all messages delivered by blood elves.

Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead | CNET News.com

buildingsroman

This is a dope ass website (thanks for the tip, Ren) that lets you send ecards made out of overhead photos of buildings. Make your own GeoGreeting here.

The view from the street

As you can see, Google really paid attention to detail when doing the Street View map of San Francisco.

44th and Anza (Google Street View)

Damn, Google stoled my thesis

They must have come to the ITP thesis show 10 years ago and taken notes from my ingenious presentation. And you know, they didn't even do a good job - they forgot to embed the interiors so's to make this useful for the TV location scouts. Oh well, they'll get to it soon, or Flickr will, anyway. Any other ideas you need, guys? Lemme know.

Fuckers. I want my $5 mill.

Moo!

My new post on the SF Chronicle's Culture Blog is up! Read it and, er, moo.

Heh. HD-DVD is fuxored. So is Digg. And Wikipedia. And who else?

Need to catch up on this one? Check out the Digg home page. This is a good time.

Here's one of my favorite responses to this whole thing, the "intellectual freedom flag." Want to decode it? Just get the hexadecimal codes for each color.



Free speech flag

Extra Extra! Mob takes over Digg - Riot ensues!

Wikipedia's little debate about what to do

Update:
Digg backed down. The Internet is safe for free speech. From Kevin Rose's apology:

Today was an insane day. And as the founder of Digg, I just wanted to post my thoughts…

In building and shaping the site I’ve always tried to stay as hands on as possible. We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.). So today was a difficult day for us. We had to decide whether to remove stories containing a single code based on a cease and desist declaration. We had to make a call, and in our desire to avoid a scenario where Digg would be interrupted or shut down, we decided to comply and remove the stories with the code.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

I'm all a-twitter

If you haven't yet been bombarded by Twitter, allow me to introduce you to The Next Big Thing that will waste your time while letting you "socially network." Whatever.

I kinda like it, despite myself. The guy who told me about it described it as "ambient intimacy" and I think that's an accurate read on what this microblogging tool is good for creating. Really, it's just one-to-many texting, but it creates this weird feeling of webbyness.

The site blew up last week - probably just about when I heard about it - and so its running REALLY slowly now, but you should check it out. I think adoption is being strongly driven along by tech conferences, like GDC and SXSW.

My ID is sarahlefton. Twitter me.