A friend of mine recently told me that web 2.0 is all about herd mentality, the power of the mob. I think he was right.

“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.” Digg Founder, Kevin Rose.

Kevin Rose was compelled to issue that statement after a massive Digg Bomb. In a nutshell, someone discovered a 16 digit number that is used to lock HD-DVD movies and prevent piracy. Digg administration decided to pull all stories containing that number because the body controlling the tecnology underlying HD-DVD anti-copying technology issued them with a legal threat. Digg users revolted at this and made sure that all the top ten stories on the Digg homepage contained the number. After this had gone on for while, Kevin Rose posted his post on the Digg blog. Kevin’s post also contained the number. That sure was brave because now Digg will probably be sued. That would be pointless because the number is very widely available.

This created quite a storm. Personally, I hate Digg users’ immaturity – this started quite well but turned out to be spam. Beyond spam, actually – we can all copy and paste! Here are some selected comments from here:

“OK, think about this, if digg get’s sued, the real life owners of the site will pay. You cowards posting the key, grow some balls and post your name and address with it. I BET you won’t. Why? Because you don’t want to get sued. I finally know how many 13 year olds are using digg.”

“You should All know that a number CANNOT be copyrighted nor possesed. That’s why they can’t sue us.”

“You got part of it right. They should take it down. But not because it’s against the law. Not because it’s copywrited (you can’t copywrite a number). That’s like me copywriting 28 and saying it’s my intellectual property. Many people are just having fun, but many of us believe that Digg handled the situation bad. They banned accounts, deleted stories, and then said they did it because of blah. If they just deleted the stories and said they were with us and just didn’t want to be the ones to fight the battle legally that’s one thing. Doom9 still has the original story from February where the hacker got the number through legal means… no hacking involved. By the way, I’m not sure how you can even believe it’s against the law. Yes, it might bring a frivolous lawsuit. That’s what DRM companies are for, but it isn’t copywrited etc.”

“This is how it’s against the law: DMCA – [ Digital Millennium Copyright Act ] Passed in 1998, the DMCA is a bill designed to bring copyright law up to date with digital media. Among other things,it outlaws the manufacture of, or “trafficking” in, technologies capable of circumventing “technical protection measures” used to restrict access to copyrighted works”

“My 2 cents. Enough with the new posts and topics about the HD-DVD key. I know it’s about socking it to the man and the freedom of information, but the HD-DVD bandwagon has left without you and is not turning around. I guarantee 95% of the people who posted the code lack the technical knowledge to actually make use of the sequence, let alone, create an application worth downloading. Just be patient and a solution for playing HD-DVD’s on Linux and non-compatible HDCP displays will be here shortly from the people who are capable of creating such software and more importantly extracting the key themselves. Bitches.”

“That is the whole point. We are not capable of doing anything with the number other than writing it down and putting it on t-shirts. Which is why it is so stupid that anyone would try to block it being posted. The people who can do something with it already have it and asking Digg to remove it isn’t going to help, which is why they shouldn’t, and now won’t.”

“So you think by placing Digg in a position where they could be sued is fair, as long as you have your freedom of speech? This is the internet, not a country.”

Did you know that the pornography industry is so large that it is expected to decide the winner in the Blu-Ray Vs HD DVD war? (Just like it did in the Betamax Vs VHS war). Yes, porn is BIG – if you can get the porn industry to adopt your technology then you’re on your way to make billions. Easy peasy.

Recently, I featured ustream.tv on this blog’s ‘Cool Sites‘ section. I was very impressed at Ustream’s inherent power when I saw what Chris Pirillo did with it. Now, some bloggers (like Robert Scoble) are using ustream to lifecast, and the ongoing web 2.0 Expo is available to us all, live, and for free thanks to ustream. What else can you do with Ustream? Ever heard of porn sites offering porn of the live sex show and cam-girls(there’s even cam-guys, lol) flavor? Tell you what, if I was a porn-site webmaster, I’d be seriously considering moving over to Ustream. If I was in the Ustream administration, I would be actively trying to attract porn-site webmasters. I know that many people look down on porn but, surely, doesn’t it make too much sense from a business point of view to ignore and/or abhor? If Ustream doesn’t do it, someone sure will – that’s the nature of the Internet.

Porn aside, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to use your mobile phone as a web-cam? What about as a web-cam that you can stream to the whole Internet, for free? Currently, those using Ustream to live-cast need a conventional web-cam (usually attached to their head with tape or something) and a laptop. I don’t know about you, but that’s a bit cumbersome. The equipment needed for live-casting needs to get less cumbersome (read smaller). I expect that to happen and it will, naturally. What I’m hoping for is for someone to make live-casting possible from a mobile phone. Think about it. There’s a billion plus mobile phone users – a good number of these people can afford to get phones fitted with the right technology to live-cast. Let’s not even mention that the mobile phone industry is one of the fastest growing industries, worldwide. If you can make live-casting possible from a phone then you’ve hit the jackpot, no doubt about it.

I predict that live-streaming technology will be extremely successful and will make a lot of people a lot of money. It’s the next big thing. What do you think? Leave a comment and you’ll get ‘paid’.

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Have you ever looked at a mad person? I mean really looked, noticing the facial features, hair, clothing buttons, etc? I have done that before and, like Mama Shady, I ended up wondering what was going on in her(the madwoman’s) head. What was she thinking of? Does she care about the things you and I care about? What does she think about God? All this gets me to awe at just how intriguing life is. Some of us are mad, some of aren’t. Maybe most of us are ;-). I hate it when people say that life is short – because I can’t think of anything that’s longer. Can you? Lately, however, I’ve come to realize that this statement does have a meaning : you have to live your life to the fullest; no regrets! But what is the secret to life? Life is about love. Think about it. Once you find something and/or someone (preferably both) you love, it’s all good – smooth sailing.

This short post was adapted from this week’s Comments For Beer winners. Here’s the link love:

The Church of Jacin delivers a powerful sermon on The Law of The Universe: You cannot be free of something until you love it.

Jason from Jakeldaily.com talks about how to generate free traffic to your blog by submitting your posts to news sites and social bookmarking sites.

Speaking of blogs, blueflux.net explores the ins and outs of blogging. (This blog has been built into a succesful blog without spending anything on marketing.)

Still on blogs, did you know that blogging as we know it is dead and gone? Nothing will ever be the same again – it’s the blog apocalypse! (Shokthx from digitalkeyto.info gives us this one.)

The wonderfully talented egm takes us on a journey through Boston via simply superb photographs.

Mama Shady explores the world (and intrigues) of madmen.

Finally, some sex (yes, the sex that is alluded to in the title). Aco of MyWordsOnly fame tells us why no-strings-attached sex is the best kind of sex – otherwise, sex just isn’t as fun as it can and should be.

Do you also want some Link Love from me? Well, you can have it. Just leave a relevant comment anywhere on this blog. Read the Rules.

One of the best things about blogging is that it is not something that you can do locked up in your own little world – blogging is a community thing. Every community has rituals. Blogging has memes (how do you pronounce that again?). Collis from NorthxEast tagged me with this one so here goes:

1. I Love to Write
I may not be as good as Stephen King but I think I can write quite well, and I love doing it. As someone who loves writing, I love having people read what I write. Running a blog has to be the best way to expose my writing to as many people as possible.

2. To Act as an Example and Experiment
I know someone with a killer idea for a new blog (no you won’t get anything from me) but he has little or no experience with computers let alone the internet. This blog is an experiment we set up to test the waters, so to speak. I hope to learn certain things from it (see #4 below) and also inspire him to get his own blog.

3. To Share
I read a lot and I’d like to believe that I gain a lot from what I read. I like to share, even knowledge, and right now, blogging is the best and easiest way of sharing my knowledge, with the whole world no less. Connected to this, I blog because its fun to do so.

4. To Learn
By my own standards, I’m pretty much of an internet newbie. I don’t want this to be so(at least not much longer) therefore blogging is my own way of getting into the internet and understanding how it works. Of course, I’ll be using this new-found knowledge to start making money on the net soon.

5. I’m Addicted
As I mentioned elsewhere, I find it fascinating that I can write something while under my sheets in the bed and, almost immediately, someone from China or Australia can read it. Isn’t this cool? So I blog because I don’t want the kids in China to have fewer options of what to read while on the web.

That’s it! Now it’s my turn to do the tagging. Mama Shady, Archer, Aco, Kirima and The Fun Hunt you’re it!

Take a look at these specs(courtesy of thetechzone):

• 30 GB 1.8-inch hard drive (Toshiba)
• Support for a variety of music, video, and picture formats including MP3, ASF, WMA, WMV, MP4, MPEG-4, JPEG, and AAC’
• 3-inch QVGA LCD display, 65k color
• Radio Data System (RDS) enabled FM receiver
• Integrated 802.11b/g WiFi
• Up to 14 hours of audio playback, 4 hours of video or pictures (under optimal conditions)
• 4.4 × 2.4 × 0.58-inch (11.2 × 6.1 × 1.4 cm)
• 5.6 ounces (158.8 grams)
• CPU: Freescale i. MX31L processor; ARM Core, FPU (SCIMX31LVKM5 / 3L38W / CTAU0629)
• RAM: 64 MBytes x32 Mobile SDR DRAM / 133 MHz / 90 mA (K4M51323PC-DG75)
• Flash: 2 MBytes NOR flash, 3.3V, 1Mx16 Boot block (PH28F160C3TD)
• TV-out
• USB 2.0
• Included in the box: earphones, USB data cable, carrying pouch

The 30 Gig Zune is definitely a heavy hitter. Here’s how to win one for yourself: John Chow dot Com, a blog that helps you make money on the internet, is giving away a Microsoft Zune. To enter, all you have to do is write about it. Unfortunately, that means only those of you who have blogs can try your luck in this one.

Happy Blogging!

Surfing through Trendhunter, I came across the story of a new breed of webcams. Yep, you can now get a fake webcam. Think about it. Have you always wanted to broadcast your cam on services like Yahoo messenger or msn, but you held back because you’re not that confident about your looks? Or maybe you just don’t have a cam? Well, now you’ve got options. You just need to head over to fakewebcam.com and get yourself a fake webcam (surprise, surprise). The program lets you broadcast pre-recorded video as your webcam. Neat, huh?

Not only can you dupe that pretty girl from Australia (or Eastern Europe – doesn’t really matter) into digging ‘you’ but you can also share your favorite video clips easily with friends and family, over IM while you chat away.

Speaking of duping your new e-girl, this reminds me of my own experience with online dating: The year was 2005 and I had met this real nice girl at talkcity. We hit it off like we’d known each other for decades (though I wasn’t even two decades old, yet) and I started ‘feeling’ something for her. This was pretty strange because I normally don’t feel anything for anyone unless I’ve known her for quite a while. Since I was still a bit green behind the ears and probably a bit silly also, I found myself entertaining thoughts of having met ‘the one’. It was pretty nice, while it lasted. She is a great person.

A healthy long term relationship, a meeting in the Bahamas, love – I wish these were included in the conclusion to my story. Reality, though, is much much harsher. A few months down the road, my magnificent castle of love came tumbling down as I realised that our ‘relationship’ was based largely on lies, and more damn lies! Come to think of it, all my e-friendships so far have been mostly dishonest. Moral of the story? Meeting pals, or lovers on the net isn’t for the faint hearted – almost everyone will lie to you. The internet just makes it so very easy for a person to build up this virtual image of themselves that looks almost nothing like that person irl (irl = in real life). And Now we have fake webcams.