OPEN

Kevin A slams media's claims as the 4th Estate:

"Watchdogs? Defenders of democracy? I wish. Mostly of the media operate as little more than professional gossips and hypocritical scolds."

""@JessB123 You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

"Although the message was aimed at one of Bonnen's 20 followers, Chicago's Horizon Group Management LLC, Bonnen's landlord at the time, came across it.

"This week, Horizon filed a $50,000 lawsuit against her claming the post was malicious and defamed the company, which had previously been sued by Bonnen"

How to create a personalised Twitter background.

“The brain may be regarded as a kind of parasite of the organism.” schopenhauer

Excellent free set of tools for editing your avatar photos:

"BeFunky makes it easy to get photos from your favorite web sites. Apply special photo effects and save back to your account."

I suddenly realised I hadn't bookmarked this great presentation on Twitter by Laura Fitton. I especially like that she stresses the need for "Twitter literacy" and her explanation of Twitter as "Something we are learnging very fast is that Twitter makes a great command line interface…"

Analysis o f different kinds of social network:

1. "Personal" networks. Your actual, honest to goodness friends.
2. Behavioural networks- what you do, the connections you make.
3. Publicly articulated social networks. "Address books and buddy lists are articulated social networks."

"Our instinct then is to ask: which is the "real" social network? Frankly, it depends on who you ask. Your mother may be cranky that you don't talk to her as often as your colleague and she may resent your refusal to Friend her on Facebook, but this doesn't mean you love her any less. Of course, this doesn't stop her from thinking you don't love her. If we're trying to understand emotional affinity, the behavioral and publicly articulated social networks aren't particularly helpful. But if you're mother thinks that time is not only a proxy for emotional depth but a proof of it, your behavioral social network might really upset her."

If even the best in the business can't keep their personal data secure…

"Using our PDF-to-Word conversion technology, you can quickly and easily create editable DOC/RTF files, making it a cinch to re-use PDF content in applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, OpenOffice, and WordPerfect.
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"Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies – Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Attorneys General of the United States"

Chris Brogan thnks bout how and when to say "no" in social networks – the debate in the comments is extensive and useful.

Ncie post from FreshNetworks suggesting first steps for people in developing their social media literacy:

1. Write comments
2. Use Twitter (even if nobody follows you)
3. Get tagging

Social media introduction for marketers by DM agency Wunderman:

"Social Media 101: Discover the power of your voice
From behavioral trends to the technology tools and the brands and people who are using social media, we invite you to become an active practitioner in this session."