The accusations are akin to something you’d find in communist china, but despite the official policy to not censor internet traffic beyond illegal content, a number of politically activist websites including thinkprogress.org and prisonplanet.tv are furious over their content being blacklisted from public buildings, and are not going down without a fight.

Liberal blog, Thinkprogress.org had this to say..

“..milder left-leaning commentary websites like thinkprogress.org and every non-mainstream news website are inaccessible.”

While many of prisonplanet’s Alex Jones’ rants are to be taken with a pinch of salt, this latest attack on free-speech seems to hold some water, which is bound to play on the fears of free-speech advocates in the UK and the US.

At the center of this controversy, is London’s St. Pancras International, one of the “biggest transport hubs in the west” which has implemented network-wide filters to only allow content from mainstream news sources, marking the edge of a very slippery slope that further erodes freedom of speech on the web. This was of course ignored by the carefully selected mainstream news outlets, who chose instead to focus on censorship in China during the olympics.

Whatever you think of these websites, no reasonable person should blindly accept that they be filtered out before you even get a chance to make your own mind up about the content. We are after all, in a supposed democracy that allows, or should allow individuals the freedom to discern the truth, and express political dissent.

The video messages call for those in favour of ‘upping the ante’ in their attacks against the ‘dangerous cult’, with the caveat that those who prefer softer tactics not interfere with the new ‘phase 3 of the operation’.

The first new video, entitled “Reclamation: Phase 3″ offers the sinister message “bring back the lulz - bring back the hate machine”…

..ending with the statement..

“The world will hear us. The echo will be relentless. We will ensure that Anonymous retains what is ours. Anonymous will reclaim Project Chanology once and for all. Leaders of Scientology, your card is marked. Soon, you will be nothing more than a whimper. Your organization will be ruined utterly, and disposed of without sorrow. Your fate will await, from August the Eighth.”

Shortly after, a second video message was posted, which consolidates the message, while making clear that new members of Anonymous are still welcome…

Despite claims from members and supporters that the peaceful protest tactics would do little to dent the position of Scientology, the celebrity endorsed ’sci-fi cult’ has seen a drop in new memberships since the internet campaign began, and has seen many of its websites become a target for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and hacking attempts from Anonymous members, which is being taken seriously by prominent members of the church.

I at least assume that because these hidden gems are new, relatively small, or just haven’t been pushed in your face by the media, that you probably don’t know about most of them, but despite their relative obscurity, the sites on this list are pretty damn useful, some offering far better features and nicer communities than their more established counterparts.

So without further ado, here are 10 genuinely great social networks that deserve a place in your bookmarks, and StartupEarth predicts could eventually outshine their mainstream competitors…

1. aNobii  - (www.anobii.com) -Taking the traditional book club out of the living-room and onto the web (and back into your living room via TFT, but anyway..) aNobii is an obscure but invaluable social network for book lovers to share book reviews and recommendations.

Membership: Free - Based: Hong Kong - Launched: 2005

 
2. Pijoo - (www.pijoo.com) -A social network for bloggers and blog readers to come together, find great new blogs to read, and share your favourite articles with friends. It’s also a great way to promote your blog for free. I’ve been following the progress of this one since its inception less than a year ago, and it has a geniunely nice commununity feel to it.

Membership: Free - Based: United Kingdom - Launched: 2007

 
3. Badoo - (www.badoo.com) - Reportedly the number 3 most popular social network in France, London based Badoo is a multi-lingual, social network that offers users the ability to connect with people at a local and global level, allowing them to share photos and videos, create reportages of their lives, and promote themselves and their work.

Membership: Free - Based: United Kingdom - Launched: 2003

 
4. College Tonight - (www.collegetonight.com) - Obvious pretender to Facebooks throne, College Tonight is a privacy-protected, registered-users-only social network that encourages actual social interactivity. It establishes distinct networks for each U.S. college, where students can post information about parties, concerts, and social events, download contact lists to their mobile phones, and make plans to meet up.

Membership: Free - Based: United States - Launched: 2006

 
5. Hi5 - (www.hi5.com) - Popular in parts of Latin America, Europe and Asia, Hi5 lets users create an online profile in order to show information such as interests, age and hometown and upload user pictures where users can post comments.

Membership: Free - Based: United States - Launched: 1996

 
6. Jaiku - (www.jaiku.com) -Jaiku is a social networking, micro-blogging and lifestreaming service comparable to Twitter. Jaiku was founded in February 2006 by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen from Finland and launched in July of that year. It was purchased by Google on October 9, 2007.

Membership: Free - Based: Finland - Launched: 2007

 
7. Orkut - (www.orkut.com) - Orkut is a social networking service which is run by Google and named after its creator, an employee of Google - Orkut Büyükkökten. The service states that it was designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships.

Membership: Free - Based: United States - Launched: 2004

 
8. Ryze - (www.ryze.com) - A free social network designed to link business professionals, particularly new entrepreneurs. The site claims to have over 250,000 members in 200 countries, with over 1,000 external organizations hosting sub-networks on the site.

Membership: Free - Based: United States - Launched: 2001

 
9. Youmeo - (www.youmeo.com) - Youmeo was originally founded in April 2005 under the name pplparty by then 15 year-old young entreperneur Calum Brannan. Currently the website’s offices are based in Coventry, United Kingdom.

Membership: Free - Based: United Kingdom - Launched: 2005

 
10. Zude - (www.zude.com) - A social network that offers free and unlimited web pages to all subscribers. Among Zude’s unique features is an innovative use of drag-and-drop technology which allows users to drag text, images, URLs, RSS, widgets and other content from another browser onto their Zude pages.

Membership: Free - Based: United States - Launched: 2006

The protest will be held on July 16th, at The Barbican Centre in London to coincide with BT’s 2008 AGM, in an effort to warn investors about the ISPs alleged involvement in illegal wiretapping as part of it’s early opt-out trial, in which customers browsing habits were profiled and sent to Phorm (formerly 121Media), a notorious spyware company.

The group, known as NoDPI (nodpi.org) strongly opposes the use of Deep Packet Inspection by ISPs as a clear invasion of privacy, citing the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act 2000 to make their case, and are also looking at arming themselves with the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and the Fraud Act 2006[pdf], both of which fall under the jurisdiction of the police.

Alex Hanff, founder of NoDPI says…

“At 19:50 this evening I phoned New Scotland Yard to fulfil my civic duty and report a crime. Based on BT’s admission to carrying out secret trials of this technology last summer without obtaining customer consent first, and in accordance to the guidance given by FIPR and the Home Office; I attempted to report BT for multiple criminal breaches of Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).

New Scotland Yard refused to issue the complaint a Crime Reference Number as they knew nothing about the issue and were ’sure higher bodies are dealing with this’…”

A downing street petition to “stop ISP’s from breaching customers privacy via advertising technologies” now has over 13,500 signatures showing strong public support despite Phorm advocates in the media trying to dilute the issue.

Phorm has courted controversy ever since it’s inception (then 121Media) by Founder/CEO Kent Ertugrul, when it distributed a piece of advertising software known as PeopleOnPage, which was classified as spyware by F-Secure. PeopleOnPage was built upon an advertising engine known as ContextPlus, which was effectively a malicious root-kit.

Since 121Media became Phorm Inc, the company has continuously hit headlines since 2006 for its practices, most prominently for its proposed trials with major UK ISP’s including BT, Virgin Media, and Talk-Talk. Advertising partners have also dropped out, including The Guardian, once a notable Phorm advocate and OIX adopter, which eventually pulled out of its agreement with Phorm after questions were raised about the legality of the scheme.

Phorm responded to the mounting PR disaster by hijacking Wikipedia, and deleting anything negative about the company history before being caught red handed. The question is; why should we trust a company like this with our private data?

See Also: Phorm is watching you, who’s watching Phorm?

Media Defender was founded in 2000 for the express purpose of shutting down illegal P2P file sharing networks by intercepting tracker servers used for piracy and copyright infringement and injecting malicious torrents into the network in an attempt to scupper illegal file-sharing, and of course making a tidy profit along the way.

Very noble, you might think - but the problem arises when Media Defender fails to make any distiction between illegal and legitimate content, as was the case with Revision3, who use bittorrents to distribute their own content. When the security hole was discovered, and subsequently closed on the Rev3 servers, Media Defender automatically responded by sending 8,000 “SYN” Packets per second, effectively shutting the service down. For the non-technically minded, this is like hitting a bee-hive with a stick, and Revision3 got stung.

The actions of Media Defender are obviously illegal, and this is where the FBI comes in, and Louderback’s response pulls no punches in regards to what action will be taken…

“Was it malicious? Intentional? Negligent? Spoofed? I can’t say. But what I do know is that the FBI is looking into the matter – and it’s far more serious than toddlers squabbling over broken toys and lost cookies.”

In his early response, Jim Louderback makes no mention of a law-suit, but that would seem to go without saying, considering the serious nature of the attack.

At the time of writing, Media Defender have not made a public statement regarding Revision3, but in a series of leaked emails published by TorrentFreak, an insider allegedly said..

“Given all the recent Digg, SlashDot and derivative online articles about MD, be careful what you say in job interviews. Specifically, I’m concerned about giving any information BEYOND what’s already on the mediadefender.com website. I’m worried about someone interviewing for a position just for the purpose of getting more info to post online…

.. This is really fucked.”

In 2006, MediaDefender was acquired by ARTISTdirect (ARTD). MediaDefender P2P Marketing Solutions are just one of the many projects that has come out of the acquisition.

A Fox affiliate showed its usual staple of dire ignorance and fear mongering by blaming a wave of violent crime in Chicago on the newly released game, which prompted a sales agent of the transit authority to pull the ads.

Take Two are understandably furious over what they call a serious breach of contract for their $300,000 launch campaign, and are responding by suing the sales agent responsible, Titan Outdoor LLC for a reported $300,000 in damages and a continuation of the campaign.

A spokesman for Titan Outdoor had this to say..

“Due to the nature of the alleged misunderstanding, and our ongoing relationship with the client, we cannot comment on the case at this time, but we are working closely with Take Two and the transit authority to reach an agreement that will satisfy all parties as to the content and specifics of the campaign.”

GTA 4 launched on the Xbox360 and PS3 consoles on April 29th 2008, reaching over $500 million in sales in the first week, making it one of the most influential launch titles in history. The series has often been blamed for real-life violence by scaremongers and the mainstream media due to its adult content including car-jackings, murder and prostitution, although the ads in question offer no hint as to the violent nature of the game.

The model is actually very simple; video publishers browse the marketplace for available opportunities, which come in the form of image ad-slots, which are then edited into a few frames of the video before being uploaded to popular video sites like Youtube.

The process is almost as simple as the classic advertising networks, requiring only a passing knowledge of video editing to implement the ads, and browsing the site for opportunities is just as intuitive as you’ve come to expect, and although the service is a little light on advertisers so far, the simplicity alone should draw them in as the site matures.

Eager to know more, I asked Nadim how Videorix differs from Brandfame, and how he has built on previous experiences to fine-tune his second start-up…

“The difference between Brandfame and Videorix is that Brandfame is a product-placement marketplace, meaning that to advertise in a video you need to have an actual product to display. Also, the process and the logistics are somehow complicated (arranging for shipping of the product to the producer and back to the advertiser, and negotiating how the product will actually be integrated in the video and negotiating compensation). This takes a lot of time and efforts and therefore caters mostly to bigger company (that also happen to manufacture an actual tangible product).

With Videorix, on the other hand, all you need to advertise in a video is your company or your website’s logo and a tagline or a website address. You decide on a list of requirements and publishers have to be able to fill all those requirements if they want to take your advertising opportunity. This is much easier, much faster, and much cheaper than Brandfame so we’re expecting to see a lot of smaller businesses and websites using Videorix.”

Having played briefly with the service myself, initial impressions are good - it really is a lot simpler than Brandfame, and the only obstacle now could be convincing advertisers to take the plunge. I asked Nadim about his strategy for drawing in both advertisers and publishers, and how he plans to compete in an already flooded advertising market…

“Online-advertising is definitely overcrowded. In-video advertising is still in its early stages and a lot of companies are all fighting for the same slice of the pie. The main problem is that if you want to use most of these advertising networks you must be doing your own video distribution or you have to join their network. For people distributing their videos on YouTube for example, that means giving up their audience on YouTube when switching. For most, this is not something they will even consider. Videorix differentiate itself in being platform independent. You can be distributing your videos on your own website, on Youtube, Metacafe, … it doesn’t matter. You can still use Videorix.

Also, most in-video advertising networks will take a 50% to 70% cut on advertising revenue. Videorix being a direct selling marketplace, you get 100% of advertising revenues. Sure, there are usage fees for advertisers, but when an advertiser says they want to pay $50 to get their ad in your video, you, the publisher, get $50 when you put their ad in your video.”

The service is still in beta, but already showing great promise, and time will tell if Videorix can gain a foothold in video advertising, and for video publishers and advertisers alike, there’s really no excuse not to give it a try.

Sign up with the promotional code ‘startupearth‘ and get $50 dropped into your account. Free money is always good, and proof positive that it’s not what you know, it’s what you read. ;)

There seems to be a growing consensus among the down-trodden majority that social media simply isn’t fair, and that a handful of power-users must have got where they are by special treatment, cheating, or some kind of witchcraft - but is that true? There may be a simpler explanation…

Whether it’s blogs, digg, twitter, or anything else that falls under the ambiguous “social media” umbrella, the failures are easy to predict - you’ve seen them; users who are desperately trying to game the system to glean a handful of curiosity hits on their own site, before being buried, blocked and penalised by the community.

Where are these people going wrong? If any of the following observations ring a bell, you might need to rethink your strategy if you want to avoid pissing off the entire internet…

StumbleUpon

1. You have multiple accounts - Not only are you spreading your efforts too thinly, but this becomes obvious when the same people appear on all your reviews. Gaming the system like this is pretty obvious to other users, and to the algorithm, which will flag you as a potential spammer.

2. You regularly submit your own articles - While there’s nothing wrong with submitting the occasional ‘pillar article’ if you think others will be interested, submitting every page on your own site will get it banned rather quickly, and your subsequent stumbles will carry very little weight. Leave submission to your readers.

3. You use the ‘Send to’ feature to ask for votes/diggs/whatever - There’s nothing more annoying than having your stumbling session interrupted by an SEO spammer asking you to vote for an article. This is the quickest way to land your reputation in the toilet.

4. Your avatar is a sexy porno chick stolen from Google Images - This trick can get you a lot of fans quickly, but the kind of people dumb enough to fall for it are most likely not your intended audience. To everyone else, you’re just another spammer.

5. You ‘thumb-down’ the competition - This might sound counter-intuitive, but by trying to sabotage sites that compete with your own, you’re driving away users interested in that topic, when you should be building bridges to your favourites via related keywords. Besides, if you’re threatened by a competing site, your thumb-down will have little impact.

Digg

1. You regularly Digg your own articles - This doesn’t necessarily make you a spammer, but it stops your readers from submitting your articles for themselves, some of whom will have a lot more influence on the Digg community than you. There’s also a much greater motivation for others to Digg an article before anyone else, as getting a story to the front page increases their own influence.

2. Your ‘Shouts’ include the phrase “Please Digg!” - This is instant bad karma on Digg, and most users ignore these annoying daily requests, and if you find yourself trading Diggs with other users, your account will be punished or banned.

3. Your headlines are just plain crappy - People scan headlines very quickly, and unless yours jumps out from the page, the story will be forever stuck in the ‘upcoming’ section. Popular headlines summarise the entire story in a few words, are not ALL CAPS, and include [vid] or [pics] where appropriate.

4. You don’t understand what Diggers want - The most influential users tend to be very tech savvy, and are not interested in “free hosting”, “how to install wordpress” or “how to make money with adsense”. Stop it.

5. The story you ‘broke’ was on the front page 2 days ago - Don’t waste your time re-submitting old news. A story is considered old after about a day, and you’re competing against an obsessive, compulsive community. You (hopefully) have a life outside Digg.

Blog Comments

1. You don’t read the articles you comment on - In an effort to gain a quick link to your site, you don’t bother to read past the first paragraph, eager to leave an ill-thought out comment like “Great article, I agree!” you not only embarrass yourself in the process, but you were kind enough to let others know which blog to avoid by linking to it.

2. You think ’scraping’ an article will get you a trackback - Any blogger worth reading will delete trackbacks from spammy, irrelevant, or scraped content. If, however you quote the article, adding your own spin on the story, trackbacks will be gratefully received, and a nice link to your article will appear in the comments.

3. You’re an irritating little troll - Leaving comments with the sole purpose of attracting eyeballs to your homepage, or just to let off some steam is never a good idea. Don’t write anything in a comment that you wouldn’t write on your own blog. The only people clicking through to your site are thinking “who is this a**hole?”.

4. You only comment on “Do-follow” blogs - You’re really missing out on an opportunity to engage with new readers if your sole reason for commenting is to improve your pagerank. Add something to the conversation on other blogs in your niche, regardless of the SEO benefits of doing so. People will return the favour.

5. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about - Think before submitting that comment, because most of the time, you can’t take it back. Stick to what you know, unless you want to leave a lasting testament to your stupidity.

Twitter

1. You think your followers care that “you’re stuck at the airport/just woke up/insanely bored” - Adding to the noise with ‘filler tweets’ does nothing to keep your followers interested. If you sound like a broken record, say something wildly inappropriate, controversial or profound once in a while.

2. You treat your followers like a captive audience for your link spam - If you tweet links to your blog on a regular basis, mix it up with a bit of chatter. Talk to people, not at them.

3. You think name-dropping makes you look good - If your tweets go something like “Having lunch with @TheQueen, then it’s off to pick up my @pulitzer_prize” then all you’re showing is your insecurity. Blatant self-promotion will get you un-followed.

4. You don’t engage with your followers, ask questions or respond to tweets - Pretty self explanatory, creating a dialogue with other users is the best way to retain followship, and shows potential followers you’re not just another spammer.

5. You follow 26,368,723 people - it’s pretty obvious to onlookers that anyone who follows thousands of people, and only has 20 or so followers is just trying to extend their reach. Nobody is that sociable.

Rosedale, who is set to step down in mid-May, made it clear that he still wants to work full-time on the project, and that his decision has nothing to do with problems within the company, and further went on to say of his replacement, Mark Kingdon..

“Mark is one of the few people with the right profile for the job, and will hopefully do a better job than I ever did. We’re about to become a big company, and I just can’t be bothered with people management.”

Second Life has seen a marked drop in return subscribers since its inception by Linden Lab back in 2003, and although subscriber numbers are over 13 million, only around 5 percent are said to be active users.

In January 2008, users spent an estimated 28.2 million combined hours online, meaning that around 38,000 users were logged on at any one time.

Second Life was originally launched with a traditional subscription fee model of $14.95 per month for an account, but Linden Lab abandoned that model later in the year when fewer than 2,000 subscribers had signed up.

Pricing has changed a number of times since then. Since February 2007, there are two types of accounts: basic and premium. Basic accounts have no recurring fee, but do not include the right to own land on the Second Life mainland, though ownership of land on private resident-run islands is possible.

Concerns were raised by regulators after a telephone call between Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang, where Google CEO Schmidt allegedly offered to help search rival, Yahoo! defeat the strong-arm tactics of Microsoft with the proposed Adsense partnership, increasing Yahoo!’s bargaining leverage against Microsoft.

While the Yahoo/Adsense trials were penned for only 2 weeks, investigators are concerned about a possible longer-term partnership between the search rivals, and the anti-competitive implications that could arise. A claim strongly refuted by Yahoo’s Tracy Schmaler, who said..

“Yahoo proactively kept the Department of Justice informed of its intention to conduct this limited test with Google and has provided information to DOJ on the nature of the test…”

..in a rebuttal which was mirrored by a Google spokesman, who added..

“We informed the Justice Department before we launched this test, and we have been responsive to their questions about it.”

Antitrust regulators are said to be keeping a keen eye on any possible Google/Yahoo partnership which could be indicative of anti-competitive practices in much the same way as the proposed Microsoft/Yahoo merger. Both deals are as yet unconfirmed but already raising eyebrows in the DOJ.

See Also: Microsoft eyes Yahoo! for $44bn buyout, Ballmer furious as Yahoo! trials Google Adsense