David Lidsky's Blog, page 4798

Sharia Law Cuts Off All Talk of Amputation on Twitter

A court in Nigeria has ruled that, rather like Fight Club, you do not talk about punishment amputations on Twitter. A human rights organization, the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, had been hosting debates on social media sites in an attempt to draw attention to the issue, until a pro-Sharia group, the Association of Muslim Brotherhood of Nigeria, decided otherwise.

Oddly enough, the ruling does not cover a case in the Chief Swordsman (Punishment) of Kaduna's "Pending" tray, but rather one...

Design Within Reach Will Close Its Tools For Living Stores

It's been a tough few months for modern furniture retailer Design Within Reach. The company, which prides itself on authenticity, was exposed for knocking off famous product designs. What started as a catalog-only business had expanded--too quickly--into the retail world, and costly store space was weighing down on the company. Now, as DWR tries to get itself back on track, it will close store locations of its accessories line, Tools for Living. (New York's SoHo store is presently still...

GM's EN-V Drives Your Tired (or Drunk) Self Home Automatically

Too tipsy or tired to drive yourself home? GM's Electric Networked Vehicle (EN-V) can help. The concept vehicle platform, an extension of the Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility (P.U.M.A.) prototype that was developed by Segway last year, is like a personal form of public transportation.

GM explains:

EN-V, which is short for Electric Networked-Vehicle, maintains the core principle of personal mobility – freedom – while helping remove the motor vehicle from the environmental debate and ...

Lessons from Leno and Twitter Bombers: 3 Rules for Next-Gen Marketing

At the Advertising Research Foundation's (ARF) 2010 Re: Think Conference in New York City Tuesday, CEO of social-media marketing research firm Communispace Diane Hessan presented the eight rules for next-gen marketing research. Based on feedback from over 200 consumer-insight professionals, these tips can help companies in any industry find their footing in today's business world. Here are three that can help yours:

1. Manage Your Social Media Jitters. Hessan believes the Web is filled...

iPad: The Perfect Tool ... for Promotional Giveaways

Forget sales of the Apple tablet itself or even the predicted $8 billion apps industry it'll bolster. A whole new tertiary market is already springing up around "free" iPads.

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Apple's iPad is stirring up a storm of media and analyst attention, probably because it's defining a whole new paradigm of mobile computing. But one potential use of the iPad has gone almost unnoticed: Its huge potential as a promo giveaway.

Over at GigaOm today there's a neat piece that describes the iPad effect in what...

Facebook, Google Facing Another Legal Privacy Challenge in Europe

Facebook's no stranger to digital privacy controversies, and for that matter neither's Google--but it now seems that both companies may be facing a new legal challenge in the EU over user-sharing of data about people without their consent.

The issue has arisen thanks to the concerns of Swiss and German data protection commissioners. They've been investigating the matter, and have got to the point that they're demanding that Facebook "explain" its position. Their main beef is that if you're a...

Google Under Attack by Hackers, Market, While Brin Attacks Rivals

Hackers turned Google's corporate site into a dog's dinner this morning, redirecting visitors to the executive page to its Chinese site. Google has since resolved the issue, but it reinforces the general belief that the gloves are well and truly off, two days after the company decided to stop censoring content on its Google China site.

While the US Government is attempting to stay well and truly out of the fight, claiming that the Sino-American relationship was strong enough to withstand any...

Why Bitbop, Fox's Mobile Video Subscription Service, is No Hulu

A video subscription service for smartphones is to be launched at CTIA today by Fox Mobile Group, owned by that champion of the free Internet, Rupert Murdoch. (Can I just say how amazing it is to have Peyote on your cornflakes each morning?) Bitbop will allow users to view content via streaming, as well as downloadable movies and TV shows. It consists of a free app, which offers sneaky peeks, but to get the whole shaboodle, you'll pay a monthly sub of $9.99. Hmmm, shades of a paying Hulu

Infographic of the Day: The Spam Industry

The massive profits and massive growth behind the web's most annoying industry.

We all know that spam is huge, but this infographic by New Scientist offers a much closer look. Long story short: Preventing spam seems almost impossible, because the spammers are so nimble. They're also getting smarter.

Here's an economic breakdown of one single (albeit massive) spam operation. Out of 35 million span emails sent out in one month, only 28 actually turned into sales. (Are you reading this, guy who...

Facebook Measures British, Canadian and Australian Happiness, Serious Case of Mondays

Facebook is a friendly distraction for most of us, but that doesn't mean it can't also be a tool: Facebook's been exploring those billions of status updates as a social data source for example. The data on happiness indices around the world are fascinating.

Back in October 2009 Facebook began this experiment, using anonymized status updates from its U.S. users and correlating key words inside them with the Gross National Happiness Index (a movement dedicated to assessing how cheery or upset a...