In RetroTech: NetLingo Blog

It's called Google 411 and it rocks! If you haven't heard of it yet, you absolutely must try it. Both free and easy... all you do is call 1-800-GOOG-411 (which is 1-800-466-4411), say where you are and the business you're looking for, and it will connect you for free (which means no more 411 info charges on your cell phone ;-) You can also use Google 411 to text in your query and it'll text back what you're looking for. I tried it and ended up using it again and again... now it's programmed into my phone and it's the NetLingo go-to 411 service. Sometimes big paradigm shifts come in small packages. Watch this quick video to learn more!
With the 411,
Erin

If you haven't downloaded it yet, now is the time! As seen on The Martha Stewart Show, the new NetLingo iPhone app is here!

The List: Text & Chat Acronyms
(this link will launch iTunes)

Whether you're a parent who wants to know what your kids are online chatting about, or a texting or chat addict who needs the latest acronyms, this app is for you! Powered by NetLingo, the largest library of texting, chat and IM acronyms and abbreviations on the web, this handy application provides an instant reference to over 1800 acronyms, plus 230 smileys.

Each acronym, abbreviation and smiley is defined and additional information such as acronym origin, usage, and classification is provided. Free future updates will include new acronyms and smileys from our ever-expanding database, plus enhanced application features such as lingo search, cross-linked acronym references, and the NetLingo.com "Word of the Day" feeds direct to your app. Happy messaging!

Special Offer: For a limited time, buyers of version 1.0 will receive a future free upgrade to NetLingo Premium upon it's release, which will include the ENTIRE NetLingo dictionary of online jargon for everything from business to technology to organizations, and more ;-)
Learn more about the NetLingo iPhone app here!

At long last, Erin's appearance on The Martha Stewart Show aired in April 2010. They didn't let us know in advance :-( but we got the footage for all to see and they say it will air again :-)

Watch NetLingo.com founder Erin Jansen discuss the pros and cons of texting on the Martha Stewart show here!

It was a good thing! With more than 82 million people communicating regularly via text messages, and with limits imposed on the length of texts, these messages can rely heavily on shorthand. So what does it all mean? Erin offers Martha some some basic translation:

* 143: I Love You
* 2moro: Tomorrow
* 2nite: Tonight
* 411: Information
* B4N: Bye for Now
* BITD: Back in the Day
* BFF: Best Friends Forever
* BRB: Be Right Back
* BTW: By the Way
* FTF: Face-to-Face
* IRL: In Real Life
* JK: Just Kidding
* LOL: Lots of Laughs
* NBD: No Big Deal
* NP: No Problem or Nosy Parents
* OMG: Oh My God
* OT: Off Topic
* POV: Point of View
* RT: Real Time
* TMI: Too Much Information
* TTYL: Talk to You Later

Be sure and watch the show! You'll hear about "The List" book and iphone app, which you can get here ;-)
See you online!
Erin

I’ve tracked a lot of online trends but the newest craze to sweep the Internet

I’m told the website was not made to be dangerous, but because of its simple nature, it allows anyone (including kids) to easily turn on their webcam and instantly see and talk to strangers. As you might surmise, a majority of the pictures via webcams contain obscene images, including nudity and sexual activity, truly shocking when you consider it is all in real time.

I first discovered Chat Roulette when Fox News ran a story on it and featured NetLingo as the source for parents to stay up-to-date with online language (watch the TV show here!). But it was a friend of mine who accurately brought the obscenity of this service to light.

When she told me the following story, I was stunned and I realized the best way to describe Chat Roulette to you is to tell her first-hand account. Two things should be noted: (1) this story is not for children 12 or under and (2) the narrator is my modern day, 43-year-old best friend who is an artist and not much shocks her, but she is also a parent and when she saw Chat Roulette, she was mortified. “What happened?” I asked. Here’s what she said…

“I went over to my boyfriend’s house and it was the usual scene: his youngest son (Franky, age 16) was at his computer making crazy, weird music while on Facebook, and my boyfriend (Allen, age 48) and his oldest son (Jake, age 19) were hanging around his computer looking at different t-shirt sites because they’re going into an online business together. So it’s the typical post-modern, nuclear family evening where we’re all gathered around the dinner table but everyone is on their computers, and suddenly Jake says to me “have you heard of chat roulette?” I said no and my boyfriend was like “OMG, you’ve got to see this, it’s unreal!” (at which point I got the distinct impression that he had probably looked at it a couple of times himself). So we logged on to chatroulette.com and honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same….

Once you get there you have to create an account and login, so while Jake is doing that, we position ourselves so that he’s sitting in the middle with the laptop, and I’m on one side and Allen’s on the other, so whoever he’s talking to can’t see us but we can see the screen. Bascially when you get there, you land on this page and it’s crudely set up like IM and there’s a video camera, and so he starts by clicking through to the first person. That’s how it works: you click a button and it randomly takes you to someone else who is logged on with their video camera and viewing and being viewed on this site. The first thing I noticed is that most of the people on there are old men! Not only that, but they’re just sitting there, mind numb, staring into the screen, waiting for someone to talk to them. Allen was like “it’s so sad, look at this, these people are sad, it’s pathetic” and we all agreed.

Of course Jake doesn’t want to talk to these men, he wants to talk to girls or other teens, so he keeps shuffling through chat partners, when the next thing I noticed is that along with old men waiting for someone to talk to them, it is also mainly men masturbating. Not only that, these men have positioned themselves to fill up the entire screen! We were literally watching strangers jack off as up close and personal as possible! We couldn’t believe it, we’d scream, and he’d click the button to take us to the next anonymous, random, who knows who, chatter. We must have seen at least 10 masturbators within 10 minutes! :-0

There were also lots of screens that just had pictures or an image in front of the webcam, like a twot-shot, but it wasn’t a person, it was a video that was looped over and over again showing a woman masturbating. We were like WTF? Someone put up a looped video of a vagina? What is the world coming too? It was unreal! And we did see young girls too (not really older women but mainly young girls) naked and half naked. I couldn’t believe how hideous it all was. In addition to being able to see everything, you can also chat with these people by IM, and even talk to them which also means they can hear everything you’re saying. Talk about online privacy gone awry.

Finally Jake stopped on a girl that looked to be about 15 who was a little on the heavy side and basically topless (she had positioned herself so you couldn’t yet see her nipples) and they had a small interaction: she said hi and asked him if he was horny, he said IDK, she said she could hear music in the background, and he typed I can dance, and she said let me see you dance. Of course we’re all ROTFL in the background, and suddenly Jake rips off his shirt and starts dancing, at which point it was the girl who decided to shuffle away from him! Too funny.

Then we landed on a chat screen with these 3 teen guys who were wearing sunglasses, smoking pot, and listening to loud music. So Jake was like “Yo” and they were like “Hey” and then Franky ran and got this weird walking cane that looks like a shrunken voodoo head and everyone was laughing so hard that Allen and I accidentally leaned into the video camera radius and the boys were like “OMG, who’s that old man?” And then clicked away and they were gone.

Here’s the deal: I’m an artist and a parent and not a lot of things shock me, but with this, not only did the people that were on there and what they were doing alarm me, but the complete uncensored access of it filled me with a kind of distress. Granted there’s a disclaimer at the beginning, but despite the warning, all kinds of pornographic and inappropriate behavior is going on. As a parent of a teen, I was horrified to realize that my son could not only be exposed or participating in this, but also abetting other minors in online porn (or pron as the kids say). Those girls were not adults. The only adults on there were the old men, waiting, staring mind numb at the screen probably for hours. It was creepy.

It also scared me because I know what I was like when I was a teen (which was 25 years ago) and if me and my friends would’ve known about this site back then, it would not have been good a good thing, at all. Frankly, we would’ve been exposed to appalling things which at that age can be damaging, and we would’ve ended up in trouble. The fact that kids are so much more modern these days, and have such easy, unrestricted access to such vulgar images is frightening. If ever there’s been a time for you, the parent, to stay informed about exactly this kind of stuff, it is now!” - Special thanks to my friend for sharing her story!

Here are the facts: Chat Roulette started in late 2009 but didn’t gain worldwide attention until early 2010, when several thousand people at any moment could be found on the chat service. It’s for this reason, many parental groups say kids should not be on Chat Roulette at all (or any video chat service for that matter). While the website has a “report this user” feature, there is no way to protect children 100 percent of the time. In addition, to keep them from partaking in any kind of obscene Internet meeting, kids should not be allowed to have computers and webcams in their bedrooms.

The solution is not filters and monitoring software alone, these cannot guarantee your kids will not see obscene content online. Parents must be proactive in personally monitoring Internet usage. And as my friend said, moms and dads need to stay up-to-date so you can have open, educated conversations with your kids about the risks involved when communicating in the online world. That’s why NetLingo offers a subscription service called "Get With The Program" specifically for parents and professionals. Launching next month, June 2010, sign up here to get an update! In the meantime, check out Chat Roulette if you must, but don’t say you haven’t been warned!
HCC batman,
Erin

Erin Jansen is an expert in online communication. She is the founder of NetLingo.com and author of “NetLingo: The Internet Dictionary” and “NetLingo: The List” - the largest collection of text and chat acronyms. Erin writes to educate, entertain and empower people worldwide about the language used in the online world. In addition to updating the online dictionary, she offers several free Word of the Day emails, a blog and a subscription service to help you improve your Internet IQ ;-) Learn more at www.netlingo.com

In international tech news, South Korea has imposed a gaming curfew to try to crack down on what authorities call an epidemic of Internet addiction among the young. The Culture Ministry announced this week that anyone under 18 would be blocked from accessing three popular online computer games after midnight. Many other games must add features that will drastically slow the speed of Internet access once a gamer has been logged on for a certain number of hours. The measures come in response to a rash of incidents that shocked the nation in recent months. In one case, a couple was charged with letting their infant starve to death while they raised a "virtual child" on the Internet. Whoa, as seen in The Week.

Okay, so why do we care about this? Internet experts look for trends coming out of South Korea because they embraced mobile technology and gaming much earlier than the U.S. did. Read my previous post about Internet addiction and take the test! Do you know someone who is borderline addicted to the Internet?
Post your comment here...

Advertising is everywhere, and now it's going to be on your iPhone apps. Apple has thrown down a direct challenge to Google's mainstay business of online advertising, announcing plans to introduce a mobile advertising platform called iAd, said Tom Krazit in CNET.com. The iAd platform will allow marketers to create advertisements that appear within apps for the Apple iPhone. The ads can be programmed to appear on the iPhone before the app begins playing. Apple hopes iAd will pry advertisers away from Google by offering them a chance to reach a captive audience using one of the premier mobile devices on the planet. As seen in The Week, what do you think about online advertising infiltrating your cell phone someday? Post your comment here!

Several studies have shown that it's impossible for most people to concentrate on two or more things at once --homework and Facebook updates, for example, or driving and talking on the phone. But new research has found that about 2.5 percent of the population are supertaskers, capable of multitasking without suffering a decline in performance. University of Utah researchers set up 200 volunteers in a driving simulator and gave them each a cell phone. As they drove, they had to hit the brakes occasionally to avoid hitting a virtual car in front of them; meanwhile, they had to respond to a series of word and math tests through their phones.

The vast majority of subjects were terrible at multitasking: They were 20 percent slower to hit the brakes and performed worse on the phone-mediated word and math tests. But to the surprise of the researchers, one in 40 people excelled at performing two tasks at once, indicating that they could simultaneously concentrate on driving and a challenging phone conversation. There is clearly something special about the supertaskers, study author tells LiveScience.com. It may be that human beings have only recently developed the skill, he says, or it may be that some people's brains naturally have the ability to handle several tasks at once. Researchers now plan to study fighter pilots, chefs, orchestra conductors, and TV producers to see if there is a high percentage of supertaskers in some professions. Meanwhile, they warn against assuming you're one of the exceptions, since the odds are so heavily against it ;-)

Only one out of 40 people can pull it off... do you know a supertasker? I do. Post your comment here!

Like millions of music lovers, Steve Almond of the Los Angeles Times was thrilled with the advent of iTunes and iPods. "Suddenly, not only could I download virtually any song I wanted, I could easily organize my music and have it with me at all times.

But I'm starting to wonder whether supreme convenience has impoverished the actual experience of listening to music. When I was a kid in the prehistoric '70s, listening to music took time and commitment. After rifling through my collection, I'd put an album on the turntable, drop the needle, and sit around and melt into the music, often reading the lyrics from the album cover. It was not something I did while working on homework, let alone while checking email or thumbing out text messages. It was a transcendent event, with real emotional impact. These days, the ease with which we can hear any song at any moment we want, no matter where we are, has diluted the very act of listening, rendering it just another channel on our ever-expanding dial of distractions. Music is more accessible than ever, but it's also less sacred." -As seen in The Week

What do you think, do iPods cheapen music?

Where's the sense of wonder? asked David Fearon in PCPro. The story of personal computers is one of "amazing semiconductor and materials science," astonishing leaps in processing power, and cleaver engineering that makes e-mailing and Web surfing quick and easy. But if you try to engage someone in a conversation about computing power, you'll soon notice they're wearing a glazed expression. You won't hear any admiration for "all this massive investment, all this science involving some of the world's finest minds." That's because "computing technology is assimilated into everyday life with such speed and regularity, we don't even notice that we should be amazed." We think nothing of firing up a browser, searching the Web for "fun games," and moments later playing "a game running in a Flash plug-in, running in a tab, running in a browser, running in a window, running on a multi-windowed operating system." Yet just a few years ago, that now routine scenario was inconceivable. That's computing for you. "It's a humdrum, everyday sort of miracle, but a miracle nonetheless." -As seen in The Week

It's a frequent complaint among parents: Young people today are spoiled, self-centered, and have a huge sense of entitlement.

A new study has found evidence that it may be true. Researchers examined the results of a standardized personality test given to college students nationwide between 1994 and 2009. Called the narcissistic personality inventory, the test measures the respondents' degree of self-regard through a questionnaire that asks them to choose among such statements as, "I insist upon getting the respect that is due me," or, "I usually get the respect I deserve." (Narcissists favor the former.) The portion of students who registered as having high narcissism surged from 18 percent in 1994 to 34 percent in 2009. Psychologists have been debating the mixed results of various studies on whether self-centeredness is rising, but San Diego State university psychologist Jean Twenge tells Discovery News that she is "extremely confident" about her findings. It is clear narcissism is rising," she says. - As seen in The Week. Read a related blog post here.

So what do you think... are young people are becoming more narcissist and do you think social networking sites are a contributing factor?

Russian brides are passe, says Petra Prochazkova in the Czech Republic's Lidove noviny. Now it's Russian men who are wooing women's hearts all over Europe's online dating websites.

"It may seem unlikely --after all, Russian women tend to see their men as drunken layabouts and filthy primates. But in the eyes of foreign women, Russians are "real men, at once romantic, kind hearted, and mouthwateringly manly." Czech and other European women are tired of the West European males on offer, "these bespectacled intellectuals or bland, boring bankers. We have our own intellect and education --we don't need a partner who reads nonfiction in bed. What we need "is a he-man, one of those real guys with a rugged complexion, weather-beaten by the Siberian winds." In surveys that measure this sort of thing, Russians currently come in third among the most attractive men in the world, "right after Italians and Americans." So even though many of them "dress like mobsters" and have absolutely no taste, they can afford to be selective in choosing their ladies. European men take note. "Women find a buttoned-up, humorless miser to be a far worse mate than your garden-variety Russian drunk." - As seen in "The Rise of the Mail-Order Russian Groom" in The Week.
MfG,
Erin

I love this editorial, it's by my favorite editor at The Week, Eric Effron. "If you are creeped out by those online ads that seem to know far too much about us --"Looking for a divorce lawyer?" "Need to lose weight?"-- then brace yourself.

Marketers are starting to employ a new technology, dubbed real-time bidding, that enables them to target messages based on what we're doing online at that very moment. Apparently, it's not enough that ads for everything from CDs to cosmetic surgery are now generated according to our recent Internet searches, Facebook postings, and even the content of our email. Now, if you make an online purchase of, say, a golf club, within milliseconds companies can buy online ad space from Google and other search engines to pitch you golf balls or golf vacations. The technology, Google's Neal Mohan tells The New York Times, "delivers on the promise of precise optimization."

Personally, I'm not sure I want to be precisely optimized. Then again, maybe it's better than all the imprecise optimization that goes on in the nonvirtual world. According to a recent study, every day, the average American is exposed to some 3,000 commercial messages, subtle and otherwise. That may seem hard to believe, until you remember that ads zoom past us on busses; greet us at the gas pump, in elevators, and at urinals; are stamped on eggs and other products we take home; have infiltrated movies and TV shows in the form of product placements; and, thanks to naming rights, have co-opted the identities of major sports stadiums and even school gymnasiums. If this all leaves you feeling a bit queasy, consider this: "Airlines have even sold ads on motion-sickness bags." - Eric Effron, The Week

Okay, so what did we learn here? Mainly that cloud computing programs, such as Google's Gmail program, can scan your email messages to deliver relevant online ads to you (doesn't sound like a good thing). We also learned more about contextual-based advertising (could possibly be a good thing if it ever gets here). The thing to keep in mind is protecting your privacy and limiting your use of too many online services. Read up about your digital footprint and see my shocking previous post on Google and privacy issues here.
B4N,
Erin

My best friend was on a conference call today where she heard of a new malady facing the human race: disconnect anxiety. I knew immediately what she meant, having experienced it at times myself, but wow, it’s always interesting not only to hear that others have a similar dysfunction, but that there’s an actual term for it. Hey, that's my job, tracking terms.

“Disconnect anxiety” describes what happens to people when they get cut off from their technological source: cell phones, email, social networking sites, blogs and the Web. We’ve seen it and experienced it, but isn’t that also the very definition of a SNAFU?

BlackBerries become CrackBerries, believe me I get it, this is the industry I work in. But when you finally unplug for a decent amount time, you see that the real world is still even more fascinating. In fact, just recently--back from a three week trek in South America with very little online access and “no, we didn’t bring our laptops”-- I must say I found my unplugged sojourn completely liberating. I was more present and enjoying the moment and the world around me. In fact, everyone was ;-)

The latest research shows that 68 percent of Americans suffer from occasional disconnect anxiety when away from a computer or cell phone: feelings that range from general discomfort to inadequacy and panic. Okay, time out… I think everyone needs to take even a mini-digital vacation, don’t you?

Try it. Unplug for a day… okay, maybe 4 hours. Disconnect from the motherboard and take a stroll, look up at the sky, watch the clouds. Whatever you do, just remember that life happens off the grid, too. The Internet is here to enhance our lives, not be our lives. So, connect back to yourself, the Web will always be there when you return.
Ciao,
Erin

I just returned from vacation in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Peru, and along the way I enjoyed learning a little about the tech industry in South America!

For example, did you know Latin America is the world's growth leader in terms of computers-per-person? In education, Uruguay is a pioneer in implementing the dream of Nicholas Negroponte: one laptop per child. Uruguay has also implemented "Zonamerica" a technological free-trade zone on the outskirts of Montevideo. Nearby neighbors like Brazil, Argentina, and Peru have backed various official stimulus packages for [[infopreneur|infopreneurs]], as well as laws to protect and encourage local [[software]] development. I find these examples to be exciting and it makes me reflect on the opportunity the region has to keep narrowing its digital divide!

A particular highlight in the tech field is Chile. With an initiative that managed to make headway in the demanding world of the social media networks that are so popular these days, Chile has emerged as a technological frontrunner. However, even though an enormous amount of faith has been put on the viability of social networks to facilitate communication during catastrophes (like the recent earthquakes in Chile and the [[Twitter]] rallies worldwide), it was also made very clear to me that both foreign service programs and national human volunteers are still necessary factors in delivering serious relief.

I also discovered the fact that Chile's earthquake has scientifically shortened the day. The geek inside me finds this intriguing ;-) As if the day weren't already short enough, it just got a little shorter according to a report in The Week. The massive, magnitude 8.8 earthquake that rocked Chile on Feb. 27 was so deep and strong that it redistributed the Earth's mass slightly; that movement shifted the axis by about 3 inches, enough to speed up the Earth's rotation. The faster it rotates, the shorter the day. Experts estimate the day is now 1.26 millionths of a second shorter than it used to be, and even though it sounds like an infinitesimal reduction, it is something that will last forever...

Claro! South America is incredibly impressive, and fun and full of light and life ;-) At the tech event I attended in Santiago, sponsored by Chile Ayuda, someone asked "Are you a tech entrepreneur?" "Of course," I said. "Well, I've got a suggestion for you: move south. No, I don't mean to Los Angeles or San Diego, I'm talking about way down south in Chile. They'll welcome you with open arms and offer you incentives." "Thanks for the tip!" I replied. And then I looked at my friend and thought hey, I may need to check this out...
C4N,
Erin

...and "silver surfer" is the NetLingo Jargon Word of the Day today ;-)

A silver surfer is an adult, generally 50 years of age or older, who frequently surfs the Web and spends time online ("silver" refers to the color of their hair).

Unlike neophytes, silver surfers are considered netizens, experienced users of the net. The phrase silver surfer is commonly heard in the U.K., but applies to midlife adults (generally those in their 40s, 50s and 60s), and seniors (age 70 and over) everywhere. Here are a few humorous U.K. expressions I get a kick out of: BHIMBGO, BHOF, BARB, WOOF

The fact is surfing the Internet is great exercise for the aging brain! It helps keep you mentally sharp and feeling connected. Read my prior post "Know Any Silver Surfers? Get Them Online!" here. There are several online communities dedicated to silver surfers, in fact ThirdAge.com is definitely worth checking out. And if you haven't already done so, subscribe to the NetLingo Jargon Word of the Day here!
Cheers to the WOGs,
Erin
p.s. If you like the comic book character Silver Surfer, you should quick meet Surfus too...

I was catching a little junk sleep in the cube farm this morning when I woke up and suspected that a carnivore had attacked my inbox. I had a drunk mouse and sure enough, my zen mail messages had been carpet bombed and the bots , spiders and Trojans were winning the war against my firewall. I called tech support, who gave me the usual technobabble which bottom line meant it was going to be an all day repair job.

I could see from my peer-to-peer networking system that the net.god upstairs in the nerve center was trying to fix the problem and boil the ocean at the same time, the digiterati in the next cubicle were working on some new neologisms, and the neo-luddites across the way were talking about the latest in netsploitation. The network pirate two doors down was looking sinister this morning and the rest of the geeks, like me were just checking out the shareware girls as they, and the rest of the cappuccino cowboys, came to work.

I still considered myself a wild duck so decided it was the moment to take the nerd bird and pitch my shrink-wrap software, technopuppet idea to a guerrilla marketing drive-by VC in the Valley, Mr. Joe Letsdoit. I grabbed my smart phone, Googled it, then MapQuested it (I still like it better than Google Earth ;-) and headed for the airport before my seagull manager arrived. Within a few hours I was in Joe’s office ready to do my dog-and-pony show. Joe turned out to be pretty much of a drump and today he was experiencing a little ticker shock. He immediately asked me to open my kimono before even signing an NDA. I did, he groked my idea, but was already looking for a way to greenwash it. He said he had to keiretsu the idea and would get back to me.

I made the barbie bird flight back, stopped by Sharper Image with the rest of the technojunkies and made it home in time to work on my text-to-speech app for tomorrows office presentation by yours truly, the demo monkey, also known as waldo. The current look is cross of cornea gumbo and angry garden salad, but my main purpose tomorrow is to make sure everyone is eating our own dog food. That is, of course, if the tier zero propellerheads in IT haven’t jerry-rigged my system. Oh well, at least it wasn't a total salmon day. HIOOC, better head to *$ before I burn the candle at both ends, C4N!

Trying to stay on top of technology is no easy task. Fortunately it is one that I love. Especially when I get to learn about new and intriguing technology that ultimately impacts us users. And then I get to try and explain it ;-) but for me that's the fun part.

Take lifestreaming for instance...

I just read an excellent column by Paul Gillin in BtoB who recently joined the Posterous parade and subscribed to Google Sidewiki. You've got to love a columnist who's second sentence out of the gate is "These technologies are going to mess you up."
Here's what he had to say:

"Posterous is one of the emerging class of so-called lifestreaming tools (Ping.fm is another) that magnify the voice of individuals by syndicating their comments through multiple online outlets. With Posterous, my messages automatically ripple out to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, my blog and even video- and photo-sharing sites. Post to Posterous and be published everywhere.

Sidewiki is, potentially, even more disruptive. Google describes it as a way to “contribute helpful information to any Web page,” but it is really an invitation for customers to take over your site. A feature of the latest version of the Google toolbar, Sidewiki enables anyone to share commentary about any Web page. With a single click, visitors can see other people's opinions in an adjacent sidebar.

Services such as Posterous, Sidewiki and Google's new Wave platform are taking the commercial Internet to a new level. The first 15 years of the Web were all about sites: Information had a virtual home, and it was up to the visitor to find it. That scenario is about as efficient as requiring friends to come into your living room to hear your movie review.

The next evolution of the Web will take us beyond the site to a metaphor based upon content. Twitter began the journey three years ago with a service that casts messages into cyberspace to be caught wherever readers choose to catch them. Twitter has a Web site, but the majority of its active members send and receive tweets through third-party readers. Nearly every social platform will offer this kind of integration in short order.

These trends will disrupt traditional concepts of influence. Individual opinions will increasingly be magnified and syndicated through channels that can't easily be evaluated by monitoring comments, trackbacks and Technorati rankings. Marketing messages will be less important than the audience's validation of those messages. The winners will be the companies that do the best job of enticing constituents to do the talking for them." Fantastic!

Read more articles by Paul Gillin, a consultant who specializes in community journalism and social media, on his website, http://www.gillin.com

Apparently yes, you really can get "addicted" to the Web. And despite the many jokes about it, Web addiction is becoming more serious for both teens and adults.

Researchers are finding that teens who have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to become addicted to the Internet. They are also finding that adults who spend many hours everyday involved in pornographic websites, gaming sites, and online communities are likely to be depressed, according to The Week.

Internet addiction has been a problem for the South Koreans and Chinese who, because they embraced mobile technology much earlier on than we did, are already going to rehab for Internet addiction. Now Americans have an Internet rehab facility too. A new center called reSTART opened in Washington, ironically near the Redmond headquarters of Microsoft. For $14,000 it offers a 45-day program intended to help people wean themselves from pathological computer use, which can include obsessive use of video games, texting, Facebook, eBay, Twitter and any other time-killers brought courtesy of technology.

Are you or is someone you love addicted to the Internet? Take this test and find out!

As more studies continue to emerge about teens and adults who "spend nearly every waking minute on the net or playing video games" the chicken-and-egg question remains unsolved: Does heavy Internet use cause people to be depressed and lonely, or do depressed and lonely people gravitate to excessive time on the Internet?
What do you think?
Erin

Fans of Apple's new iPad are predicting it will have a revoltuionary impact, changing the way people consume books, newspapers, and magazines, and bringing high-definition movies, videos, and TV shows to a protable, right-sized screen. Count me among the converted, said Farhad Manjoo in Slate.com as reported in The Week. Having just handled one myself, count me among the converted too!

The thin, flat, 1.5 pound wonder unveiled by Apple founder Steve Jobs this month is a perfect hybrid of laptop and smart phone. It will enable people to cruise the Internet and read email on a relatively large, almost magical touch screen. It runs for 10 hours, without having to be recharged. Best of all, it's a huge upgrade on Amazon's Kindle, providing a more intimate, full-color alternative in which the user sees two pages at a time, with a crease down the middle. Readers can turn pages instantaneously with a flick of their fingers.

"The iPad is undeniably cool, but it's hard to see where it will fit in," said Nancy Dillon in the New York Daily News. "It's another device I never knew I needed." The iPad has no digital camera, so you can't use it for video calls. It doesn't multitask (what!), so you can't surf the Web shile checking email (hello?). And it can't run applications that Apple hasn't approved. Having said that, Version 2.0 is sure to be better.

Tablet devices like theiPad are the wave of the future, destined to make your PC obsolete. Today, most poeple want their computers to connect to the vast databases of the Internet--known as the cloud--whenever they want and wherever they are. The iPad, for all its imperfections, has made that movement inexorable. "Whether it finds mainstream success or not, there's no going back."

It's become common practice for marketers to glean information from social networking sites. Now, like many campus admission boards and future employers, financial lenders are studying your Facebook and Twitter updates "to gauge your creditworthiness." In particular, small, private lenders seem most likely to tune into your tweets to get a better idea of your lifestyle and how likely you are to pay.

As crazy as it sounds, your digital footprint is also based on your tweets. "Chances are slim" that larger lenders bother to keep tabs on you in detail -- but if they do, it could be considered a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. To be safe, give lenders, and any non-personal accounts, a different email address from the one attached to your private or social networking accounts.