A BATTLE is raging in the blogosphere after a blogger hung up her keyboard and complained to police after receiving online death threats.

Marketing and technology blogger Kathy Sierra started getting death threats in comments on her blog about a month ago. Then people started posting messages on other blogs. Anonymous commenters have threated to slit her throat and hang her. The final straw for Sierra was seeing a photograph of herself on the blog unclebobism with panties placed mask-like over her face a la Hannibal Lecter. (The site has since been shut down.)

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Tags: internet, Magazine, TV, Kathy, Kathy Sierra, Kathy-Sierra, Sierra, biddy, blog, blogger, blogosphere, chris locke, chris-locke, final straw, final-straw, hannibal lecter, hannibal-lecter, hate mail, hate-mail, inundated, mail locke, mail-locke, misogyny, photoshopped, received death threats, received-death-threats, robert scoble, robert-scoble, sexual fetish, sexual-fetish, speaking engagement, speaking-engagement, suffocated | No Comments »

This weekend I took some time off from the Web 2.0 echo-chamber to explore some more mainstream social software. My conclusions? MySpace is likely to be bigger and more influential than the blogosphere within a matter of months (if it isn’t already).

Now this is all pretty intuitive and I probably don’t need to explain it - simply put, the youth demographic consists of extremely sociable early adopters who remain constantly connected via cellphones and the Internet.*

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Tags: myspace, internet, people, Bloggers, People, aggregator, aggregators, bloggers, blogosphere, cellphones, decentralized web, decentralized-web, digg, echo chamber, echo-chamber, exponential growth, exponential-growth, imageshack, launch, likewise, photobucket, sociable, social experiment, social-experiment, specialized services, specialized-services, time off, time-off, video service, video-service, youtube | No Comments »

Patagonia, the outdoor apparel company, announced today the launch of their public weblog, The Cleanest Line. The blog is open to employees, customers, friends and industry insiders. All participants are encouraged to share stories, photos, news, events and environmental action alerts. The company also plans to utilize the blog as an open chain of communication and hopes get valuable feedback from its customers. The blog can be accessed on Patagonia’s homepage (www.patagonia.com) or via the URL: www.thecleanestline.com

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Tags: webmasters, Bloggers, apparel company, apparel-company, bloggers, blogosphere, dialogue, genuinely, haters, industry insiders, industry-insiders, launch, outdoor apparel, outdoor-apparel, patagonia, photos news, photos-news, product discussions, product-discussions, proud parents, proud-parents, scary place, scary-place, spammers, url www, url-www, weblog | No Comments »

Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan (know ’round the ‘net as Shakespeare’s Sister) were recently hired by the Edward’s Presidential Campaign to develope the camaign’s web presence. As was to be expected, the wingnut-o-sphere pounced at the opportunity to cull their posts for potentially objectionable content. Now the rumors are swirling fast that the campaign may fire the two women over this controversy.
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Tags: internet, Amanda, Amanda Marcotte, Amanda-Marcotte, Edwards, Marcotte, McEwan, Melissa, Melissa McEwan, Melissa-McEwan, arguably, blogosphere, cowards, cull, develope, ezra, fight back, fight-back, internet folks, internet-folks, job offers, job-offers, objectionable content, objectionable-content, pandagon, pounced, presidential campaign, presidential-campaign, public internet, public-internet, utter garbage, utter-garbage, web presence, web-presence, wingnut | No Comments »

Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere — the world of weblogs.

A few years ago, Web search was revolutionized by a simple but profound idea — that the relevance of a site can be determined by the number of other sites that link to it, and thus consider it ‘important.’ In the world of blogs, hyperlinks are even more significant, since bloggers frequently link to and comment on other blogs, which creates the sense of timeliness and connectedness one would have in a conversation. So Technorati tracks the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging.

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Tags: internet, Bloggers, blog, bloggers, blogosphere, conversations, global conversation, global-conversation, hyperlinks, internet study, internet users, internet-study, internet-users, pew internet, pew-internet, profound idea, profound-idea, prominence, real time, real-time, relevance, study estimates, study-estimates, technorati, time nature, time search, time-nature, time-search, timeliness, weblogs | No Comments »