U.S. NetworX

UPDATE: As of Jan. 20, Congress is backing away from the bills and postponing action.

You’ve heard about SOPA and PIPA, the two pieces of legislation aiming to stop online piracy of copyrighted material, and the accompanying protests. But let’s distill it even more, as this is a controversial enough topic we all need to consider.

To make things simple, let’s attack it with the 5 W’s we learned in school, and we’ll certainly leave you to dig even deeper if you like.

Who?

As NPR reported, the battle is basically Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. You have the media conglomerates (movies, music, media lobbyists, etc.) on one side wanting to stop the online piracy of their content. The other side, you have the vocal opposition of many Internet users and those who rely on it for their own jobs, including Google, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter, Firefox and LinkedIn.

What?

While SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act – PDF) gets the majority of coverage, there’s also PIPA (PROTECT Intellectual Property Act – PDF). SOPA originated in the House of Representatives, while PIPA is the Senate version. Both seek to add powers to respond to copyright infringements across the Net. The New York Times reports that some methods could include preventing search engines from sending users to sites with questionable content, as well as interacting with payment tools/sites like PayPal to stop the transfer of money for possible pirated media.

When?

Reports show that the Senate could begin voting on PIPA on Jan. 24. However, protests were hitting a feverish pitch starting Jan. 18, with many big-name websites (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) going dark in protest, as well as explaining the issues and requesting their visitors to take action.

Where?

While the two bills have originated in the U.S. Congress, their reach could extend even farther. The Internet being so decentralized will lead to so many problems as to searching for possible infringements, you might see foreign websites, hosts, ISPs and the like stuck in such a legal morass. Let’s say a user in Ireland posts an infringed movie file from a California movie company to a website hosted in Israel – it’s likely both groups will be pulled into the fight with the studio. How do you get all the groups, with their separate legal issues, to comply with one another?

Why?

At the heart of the matter is a fight against online piracy of copyright infringed works. I don’t think people want to have free or vastly cheap access to songs, movies, TV shows, etc., but the too broad, too powerful laws are irking many. There is talk of these laws having an adverse effect on free speech rights and the integrity/security of the technology that “powers” the Internet.

I want to know more!

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/21380/SOPAPIPA-blackout (Disclaimer: I’m a paying member of this website, but this post goes into a very detailed account of a SOPA-like request to shut down a site due to alleged copyright infringement.)

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/copyrights/index.html?smid=tw-nytimes (Once again, the Times has a great overview on a large topic, with multiple links and details.)

http://www.vice.com/read/pipa-supporters-copyright-violations (Some of the SOPA and PIPA legislators are in fact using copyrighted works without request/permission.)

http://theoatmeal.com/ (The animation takes a humorous look as to how SOPA might shut his website down. It might be crude, but the points are valid. Note: the animation might not be safe for work.)

I’m a huge fan of maps and their graphical display of any topic. With Google’s mapping technology as just one of many options, there’s a huge selection of data being presented on top of base geographic information. Here are some of the best ones I’ve found lately.

Ship-ment tracking

It’s one thing to see where your UPS package is located, but how about tracking an entire cargo ship? You can use the Live Ship Map at MarineTraffic.com to see what’s currently sailing and any associated data with that vessel. For instance, you can follow this link to see what’s sailing near New Orleans. Click any vessel to bring up data such as name, speed and photos of the ship.

Hurricane help

As of this writing, there are no active hurricanes near the nation, but the Google Crisis Map was a boon to recent weather events like Irene and Lee. It allowed users to overlay possible tracks as well as current storm location. Other information included shelter details for storm victims and power outtages. Here’s hoping we don’t see this map receive any new storms to track.

Which state has the most football fans?

Not one map per se, but the New York Times takes a look at how states break down among college football popularity. Part of their article looks at Google’s own search data, via their Insights tool. From Insights, you can see which state is searching the most for college football-related info, and you can go as deep as to seeing that within the Jackson, Miss., area, Brandon is searching the most.

Comings and goings

Using migration data from 2007, this map provides users a graphical look as to where people are going from Country X or where they came from in the first place. Following this link you can see where Americans have been emigrating.

We’ve previously posted the Top 10 signs you’re using a bad site/email hosting company, so it’s only fair to post the signs your website needs to be redesigned. Watch out, folks, we are trained professionals…just not in comedy.

1.    You forgot you even had a website or what it looks like.
2.    It has a hit/traffic counter at the bottom of the page. (Congrats on your 20 visitors.)
3.    There’s an animated stick figure in a hard hat, with flashing “Website Under Construction!” text.
4.    Your homepage has an address like http://yourISP.com/home/~yourusername.html
5.    The site is built entirely in Flash.
6.    When you call your host, the call goes straight to voicemail, which is currently full or has not been setup.
7.    Audio or video automatically plays when you visit, but you can’t turn it off.
8.    Menu options read Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 …
9.    Your host says the design can’t be viewed on your iPhone.
10.    It’s hosted at MySpace.

New research from Outbrain, a content recommendation service and tool provider, shows that maybe we shouldn’t be trading in search engines for social media platforms. At least not just yet.

As reported by Search Engine Land, the report showed that out of 100 million visits to connected sites, 41 percent fell in the search category as the method they used to arrive to a site. In addition, the top three traffic sources were non-social media tools.

In another bit of research, Outbrain investigated the average number of page views per session – basically, once the user was there, did they click around the site? Visitors who arrived by a search mechanism clicked around more, while social media visitors tied for last place.

You can view Outbrain’s original report by clicking here.

So what does this mean?

I wouldn’t toss out search engines in favor of social media placement if you are looking to promote your site and your message. Simply put, folks are still using Google and the like to find the information, despite the current hype social media tools are garnering. As financial experts say, “diversify.” Social media might be growing, but there’s still a large audience of potential visitors who are going to want to use Google and co. to find you, and once they’re there, they want to stay.

With a dose of schadenfreude, another highly visible Twitter account has fallen victim to an inappropriate message.

Reported earlier this week by Adweek, the Chrysler Twitter account let slip the F-bomb and is in the middle of playing damage control. The story seems to be still developing, but the latest is that the Detroit automaker will not renew the service contract with their media company. This was on top of a public firing of the poster, but allegedly not requested by the car company.

This is not the first big name being hit by a slip of a finger: consider two more that have been reported just this year.

February saw a Red Cross Twitter user post on the organization’s account about their current level of beer and all that entails. (Bonus points, though, for the group turning it into a slightly humorous event.)

And earlier that month, fashion designer Kenneth Cole’s account posted a less than appropriate message equating pro-democracy riots in Egypt to the launch of a new spring clothing line.

What’s the lesson? For social media managers, be sure you’re posting to the right account. Lots of programs out there (Tweetdeck, Cotweet, etc.) can let you manage multiple accounts at one time – you have to take care to have the right message for the right account.

Bonus link: check out these propaganda-style designs aimed to promote various social media platforms.

Update: March 14 saw the firing of comedian Gilbert Gottfried due to his Twitter-based jokes on the recent disasters in Japan. Gottfried had portrayed the Aflac duck’s voice in US commercials.

The Digital Surgeons company has released a graphical breakdown of users of the two social media leviathans Twitter and Facebook, with data mostly from users in the United States.

Click here to see the graphic

Some interesting data to ponder:

• Facebook’s users out-populate Twitter users by a factor of five
• Facebook users are more likely to login every day
• Twitter users, though, are more likely to update their status every day – so it seems Facebook might be more read-only
• There are a few more non-U.S. users in Facebook
• While Facebook users are far more likely to follow a brand, Twitter users are more likely to purchase from that specific brand
• Education-wise, Facebook seems to be skewed more toward the younger crowd, as there are more high school users
• However, Twitter seems to be much more popular for currently enrolled college students by almost twice as much
• Going hand-in-hand with the education data, the age breakdown supports the notion that Twitter is being used by an older population, with a large portion (74 percent) in the 26-54 span vs. Facebook’s 53 percent in that same age span

Putting it all together, what does it mean? I find one interesting thing to ponder is who wants to market to which platform. Facebook is getting heavier use from the younger crowd, so if you had to market to tweens, teens and high school students, you can’t go wrong. Twitter, on the other hand, would be best used for those marketing to an older, educated crowd (read: has the disposable income). It also seems that Twitter users are more willing to engage with a brand via a purchase.

Trends in 2010

On a related note, both Facebook and Twitter have posted “end of the year” reviews that dig into their own usage data.

Facebook takes a look back at the top trends in 2010

Twitter lists the most popular retweets as well as what it considers some of the most powerful messages.

I’ve been following two large-scale events over the last month that look straight out of the movies or some Tom Clancy-type techno-thriller. Let’s look at both today.

Call a plumber, you have a WikiLeak

Most likely you’ve heard/read about WikiLeaks and all things associated with it. From the hosting of U.S. State Department cables between countries, to Julian Assange’s arrest for alleged sex crimes, all the way up to a community-based distributed denial of service attacks … it’s been a wild ride.

Here are some recent recaps of what’s been going on:

New York Times’ series on the cables and diplomatic reactions to the content

Der Spiegel’s coverage

El Pais’ extended reporting

NYT’s primer on the WikiLeaks site and related developments

Swedish documentary film about the WikiLeaks organization

An anti-nuclear worm unleashed by a spy agency?!

Less known than all of the WikiLeaks drama is the Stuxnet mystery. This “worm” is being investigated as a possible weapon designed for subtle damage to specialized industrial equipment: centrifuges used to purify materials for possible nuclear weapons. It appears to have been spread via a USB memory stick and looks to be targeting high-level industrial locations and factories. Taking that a step farther, there are some hints in the worm’s code that might connect it to Israel as being the developer.

Now for the big disclaimer: none of this has been proved yet, but how are those JFK conspiracies going?

Here are some reports on the Stuxnet worm:

F-Secure security group runs through a (sometimes funny) Q/A review

CBS reports that Iran says Stuxnet stopped their centrifuges

Fox News does a good job wrapping the details together