LSQHA Blog Reviews

A new study released earlier this month seems to contradict findings from Pew Internet Project's February report on the declining blog authorship and blog readership among the youngest generation of online users. Instead of seeing a downward trend in blogging, the latest research appears, at first glance, to have us questioning those prior reports. According to the latest study, this one from BlogHer and iVillage (red flag?) and co-sponsored by Ketchum and The Nielsen Company , young adults known as "millenials" are the top demographic group in both reading and writing blogs with nearly one-third reporting they read blogs and just over 40% saying they blog themselves. So was the earlier study - the one claiming "kids don't blog" anymore - wrong? Sponsor Odd Demographics Studied In the new study, the focus was on four age groups: millenials (ages 18-25), Gen X/Y (26-42), Boomers (43-61) and Seniors (62-76). This is a confusing segmentation of demographic groups because they've lumped in some of the millenials with the the "Gen X" group to create a hybrid group called "Gen X/Y." The term "millenials," however, is often used interchangeably with "Gen Y," so it's unclear why they've decided to break up that demographic group in this way. To boost Gen X's numbers, perhaps? We can't be sure. Ignoring Those Under 18 More importantly, the study simply ignores the youngest generation, the one we like to call "generation I" or the "iGeneration" (you can guess why), which was a major focus of Pew's study. In fact, Pew's study showed that only 14% of tweens and teens ages 12 to 17 now report that they blog , down from 25% only four years ago . And only 52% reporting reading and commenting on their friends' blog, down from over three-quarters back in 2006. In other words, the Internet's newest users aren't blogging or all that interested in reading blogs. Instead, they prefer Facebook, said the study. It's their method of communication between friends and for getting the latest news. Yes, sigh, Facebook is the new Internet. And the social network's latest moves will only further solidify that position with the launch of the universal "like" button for the entire web, the "instant personalization" provided by websites like Pandora and Yelp (to start), the "sign in with Facebook" boxes that appear on seemingly every site now and so on. How this youngest online generation uses the Internet is an important trend to watch. Although their habits may change over time, it's worth considering that their general disinterest in sharing their thoughts, feelings, news and ideas via blogging is a trend that will continue as they age. After all, who needs to blog when you have Facebook? BlogHer/iVillage's Findings For what it's worth, the BlogHer/iVillage study found that those 18-25 were the group most likely to write or read blogs, with 40.4% reporting the write blogs and 30.3% reporting they read them . The mysterious Gen X/Y group was a close second with 28.1% of the group saying they were blog authors and 29.3% saying they were blog readers. Some of the other numbers are questionable, although we have no way of proving their legitimacy or lack thereof. But really: 12.8% of bloggers are seniors? This is perhaps the most shocking number of them all. Nothing against seniors, of course, but I live in a state filled with them , and I have yet to meet a single senior who even knows what a blog is, much less authors one. At the end of the day, the study's numbers just feel a little too bullish on this whole blogging thing for my tastes. Plus, there's little info about the methodology included in the report and, then there's the fact that BlogHer, a blogging community for women, is, in part, behind the research. The truth of the matter is that neither this latest study nor Pew's research is likely painting an entirely accurate picture of the blogging landscape. We've questioned Pew's methodology many times in the past and we're skeptical of positive studies put out by those who would benefit from the news.

Parsing real-time information that streams down a screen as a list of short text updates isn't easy. Thanks to two new visualization tools from PostRank , however, the company's users can now use PostRank's new entity extraction feature to see real-time updates in your stream on a map and through a tree map interface. These two new features will be available to developers through Postrank's real-time API . You can also find demos of PostRanks real-time geo and entity trends here and here . Sponsor The tree map view gives news organizations the ability to quickly see which of topics and stories they are tracking are currently trending. PostRank analyzes the updates it receives in real-time and extracts proper names, places and things. The tree map, which updates in real-time, then displays these updates and ranks them according to "share of voice." PostRank also performs sentiment analysis on these updates and colors the updates accordingly. The geo map works similarly, but instead of extracting proper names, places and things, this algorithm just focuses on places. Thanks to this, a PostRank customer can easily see which cities, countries and regions are currently being mentioned online. The demos are now available in PostRank's new Labs section - which opened earlier this month. Discuss

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PostRank Launches New Tools to Visualize the Real-Time Web

Blippy , the controversial site where the over-sharing, web-connected generation can link their credit cards and share their purchases has just come under fire from numerous tech blogs as it has been discovered that people's credit card numbers are now available on Google. The site's value has been hotly debated since its launch with some saying it's an incredible recommendation service while others say it's a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Interestingly enough, it was featured yesterday on the New York Times , where that same question was posed to readers. Sponsor Now, thanks to a tipster who apparently emailed all the popular technology blogs (see: VentureBeat , Mashable , CenterNetworks for more coverage), there's a way to enter a simple search query into Google and get back the credit card numbers of Blippy users. The query is: site:blippy.com +"from card" At present, this security hole seems to be affecting Citibank-issued MasterCard numbers only, according to the bloggers at VentureBeat . Blippy proponents will likely argue that the mistake, although quite a large one, was caught in time before major damage could be done. It's doubtful that any identify thieves have been able to retrieve these credit card numbers quickly enough to cause harm to those affected. However, the users whose credit card info has been compromised will now have to cancel their cards and be issued new ones - a hassle to say the least. Was the benefit of using Blippy worth it? What if this security hole was only discovered by criminals and not a white-hat hacker type like the guy who contacted us? We've argued before that people should definitely weigh the risks to their privacy before using services like Blippy, especially since you're not just sharing info from one private credit card account, you're aggregating all of them. If Blippy's infrastructure was compromised, hackers could get all your credit card info and the usernames and passwords you use across the web, too. (Probably the same one you use everywhere, if you're like most people). If that risk is acceptable to you, then by all means, share away. You might find it interesting to see what others have shared too. But when something like this happens, don't be surprised. Nothing put on the Web is ever really private - as this breach clearly shows. Discuss

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Credit Card Numbers Now on Google Thanks to Blippy

Worried about Facebook "like" fraud? You should be. Thanks to Facebook's overly simple implementation of the new Facebook Like Button , anyone can post a "Like This" button on their website pointing to any URL of their choosing. In other words, users can be tricked into liking websites they're not even on . You can bet that enterprising spammers have already figured out how to use this technology for their own nefarious purposes. If you want a safer solution, there's a new Facebook "like" bookmarklet you can use instead. Sponsor The bookmarklet was created by Kyle Bragger , formerly the CTO of Cork'd , a social networking site for wine lovers, and now working on his own project, Forrst , an invite-only community for developers and designers. Not only does using the bookmarklet he created protect you from "like fraud" as described here , it's also a handy way to like anything on the Internet - even if there's no "like" button available on that page. How to Use the Facebook Like Bookmarklet To use the bookmarklet, just drag this link to your bookmarks bar in your web browser: Like-o-matic . Once there, you can click it anytime you're on a page or website you like. Like ReadWriteWeb , for example? Click the button. Although there's no "Facebook Like Button" for the website as a whole (you can, however, find us on Facebook ), you'll be given the opportunity to "like" ReadWriteWeb. After clicking the bookmarklet once, you'll see a message appear at the top of the screen: "Be the first of your friends to like this." Click the button with the thumbs up on it and it will register your like on Facebook and post it to your News Feed. That's all there is to it. By using the bookmarklet instead of the like buttons on the websites themselves, you can be sure that your Facebook "like" will be pointing to the real thing. Plus, it allows you to "like" anything you want - even a site that isn't using Facebook buttons. Nice! Discuss

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How to "Like" Anything on the Web (Safely)

YouTube has quietly begun offering a variety of movies and TV episodes available for rental at youtube.com/store . After experimenting with $5 rentals of Sundance Film Festival movies this January, the site is now offering 48 hour rentals mostly between 99 cents and $3.99. Rental fees are paid through Google Check-out. Independent, Bollywood, Manga and documentary films dominate the charts so far. We expect a formal announcement from YouTube about the store soon, we were tipped off to its opening this morning by reader Ron Ilan , creator of children's video aggregator site creator Totol . Sponsor Gigaom's video industry blog NewTeeVee reported that YouTube expanded its rental program in February beyond the Sundance films, but didn't make a whole lot of money on early experiments with paid viewing. Are you interested in renting videos from YouTube? I am. Every time I open up one of those Netflix envelopes and stick a disk into my computer, I wonder "how much longer are we going to be using these physical media to transport video?" The end is clearly in sight for that method. Bring on the rentals! Discuss

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YouTube Video Rental Store Now Open