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Social software and social networking 2.0.

Why Did NBC Censor SNL on the Web?Today

As I noted (to much derision from the peanut gallery) back in August, Tina Fey bears a striking resemblance to Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin. It seemed like an innocuous observation to me - they both looked pretty similar to me. Vindication from comments like “you are trashing the site with the political drivel” came several weeks later when Tina Fey appeared on Saturday Night Live impersonating the political candidate.

The skit was subject to much discussion and dissection, as it was wildly popular online, and has been credited by some analysts I’ve spoken to as being the reason why the comedy show has seen a ratings boost in recent weeks (in addition to the millions of views accrued across Hulu, NBC.com and YouTube from that skit alone).

So hungry for viral video views was NBC and SNL that they even uploaded a copy of the skit to YouTube, something that hasn’t been done since NBC ente

Mail Goggles Prevent You From Sending Drunken E-MailsToday

You know how it goes: it’s the weekend, all your friends are busy with their own affairs, you’re bored and slightly inebriated, and what do you do: you come home and start sending e-mails you’ll later probably regret. Actually, I’m more of an SMS sender with this regard, but regardless of the medium, we all know how bad it feels the morning after when you’re afraid to check out the “sent messages” folder.

To fix this, there’s a funny new feature from Gmail Labs. Called Mail Goggles, it activates only late at night (you can, of course, set the time of activation as you please) and over the weekend, and gives you a couple of math problems to solve before your e-mail is sent.

Now, although this feature sounds like something you might converse about over a coffee but never actually use, I’m sure that many late night e-mail senders will eventually realize that it’s better to get frustrated with your inability to solve a simple math puzzle than to be sorry the morning after.

There is, however, one fundamental flaw with the feature. However

CampusLive Gives Students Real-Time News They Can Use (Video)Today

CampusLive wants to be a 24/7 RA (Resident Assistant) for college students all across the country by providing real-time information that they can use. For example, students can use the Food Finder feature that lets them find out exactly which restaurants near campus are still open for delivery, take out of dining in. They can read reviews from fellow classmates and even contribute a review of their own and rate the establishment.

The home page is customizable and includes a search bar that can search Google, YouTube, CNN and most importantly the local campus area, including a people finder for the school. There’s a weather tracker that shows the local weather as well as other locations that the student selects such as back home. The TV listings feature shows what’s on the local channels.

MP4 / Subscribe for Free!

The comparisons to another website that started as a service for college students, Facebook, are inevitable. However, CampusLive makes it clear that they don’t want to compete with Facebook but rather work with them. They’ve even gone as far as to integrate with F

Have You Seen the Flickr Panda’s Technicolor Yawn?Yesterday

I’m trying to to come up with a decent way to introduce this - there really isn’t a sane way to approach this because the latest feature from Flickr, while fairly mundane in function, is borderline insane.

The service allows you to see new images as they come into the site and have been popularly rated as interesting (those on the FriendFeed night shift shouldn’t confuse this functionality with Tad’s Flickr Toy that shows the raw feed as they come in).

The bizarre part comes in with how they presented the information. The pictures show up on a rainbow trail spewing forth from a panda’s mouth.  

On the original picture the background is derived from, the algorithm and method of selection of the photos is more accurately explained:

“Explore” is basically Flickr’s front page, an introductory collection of ever-changing photos to show people the kinds of things inside the site. Each day Explore d

Michael Moore Intended to Flout Slacker Uprising’s International RightsYesterday

I don’t agree with Michael Moore over much, but for all his many jarring viewpoints, I find his approach to copyright and digital media surprisingly modern and refreshing. As Stan noted last month, Michael Moore decided to release the somewhat stale movie Slacker Uprising for free via download on the Internet:

“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,” Moore said. “The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November. I think Slacker Uprising will inspire million (sic) to get off the couch and give voting a chance.”

Of course, once it was released to the wilds of the web, it made its way very quickly to international torrenting websites like The Pirate Bay. Unlike DVDs and most corporate video distribution websites, there are no regional restrictions. This doesn’t seem like a particularly big deal at first blush, but when you take into account,