Ed Hunsinger / Laughing Squid: Chatroulette Map: Not So Anonymous Anymore  —  Whenever people mention the random webcam site, Chatroulette, it inevitably leads to talk of how there are certain less-than-desirable webcam chat partners on the service.  Some would wager that the guise of anonymity on Chatroulette helps these users feel a bit safer when baring it all.

Great marketing is great marketing—whether it’s for a website, car, or house. Check out this video for a house. Read about the creation of the video at Extreme Real Estate Marketing. More on real estate. Permalink | Leave a comment  »

February is always a weird month for search data. Click to read the rest of this post...

Mark Zuckerberg has long signaled that the future of Facebook will be off Facebook.com.  His social network will take a big step toward that future at a developers conference in April. That's when, according to a WSJ report, Facebook plans to launch a tool set for Web developers who want to make their off-Facebook Web sites look and work more like on-Facebook "pages." Read the rest of this story » See Also: Mark Zuckerberg's Early Misdeeds Gain Mainstream Media Attention What It's Like To ..   show all text

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's staff knew of concerns about former Rep. Eric Massa's (D-NY) since last October. Washington Post: "Joe Racalto, Massa's chief of staff, told Pelosi's director of member services in October that he was uncomfortable with Massa's behavior, specifically that the lawmaker was living with several male staffers and routinely used sexually explicit language with them. The call to Pelosi's director of member services was prompted, according to the source, by the fact that..   show all text

When it comes to competition, CNN president Jon Klein fears Facebook. The man at the top of the news network believes that the social network is more of a threat to his business than other broadcast media organizations. In a recent question-and-answer session with BusinessWeek, Klein specifically states, “We want to be the most trusted source,” and, “I’m more worried about the 500 million or so people on Facebook versus the 2 million on Fox.” The intriguing statements come just weeks after..   show all text

CNN spotted a copy of Karl Rove's Courage and Consequence in the office of White House senior adviser David Axelrod, who confirmed "he got a copy of the book from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and is planning to check it out." Said Axelrod: "I will read it."

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Scordit Quick Pitch: A social site where you share the stuff you’ve bought or want to get, and win prizes by doing it! Genius Idea: It’s nice to share your new purchases or “scores” with friends or to let people know what stuff you really ..   show all text

Last week, an App Store error got the latest version of Foursquare for the iPhone into a few users hands a little bit early. That hiccup resulted in the app briefly disappearing from the App Store before finally returning early yesterday. Now the newly designed version of the app is in the App Store and available for everyone to check out. Foursquare 1.7 features a new design, faster checkins and shouts, plus an easy way to view your checkin history. The app also features pull-to-refresh,..   show all text

Load up the station wagon, we’re heading east to South by Southwest!  This weekend a bunch of the Causemedia Group gang will be invading Austin along with a few thousand others, determined to see absolutely everything before they collapse from exhaustion and too much barbecue.  (Is there such a thing as too much barbecue?) Chris Noble, [...]

Itunes App Store is full of amazing applications as well as really bad ones (baby shaking anyone?). There are an estimate 140,000+ applications available and, more and more, it becomes hard to sort through all of them and many iPhones these days look like the final resting place of unused applications that the user downloaded and realized they were rubbish but keep them installed anyway. Being a regular traveler I’m often looking for traveling apps that  give me more than the ordinary features..   show all text

The Board of Education in Kansas City, Mo., accepted a sweeping and contentious plan to shrink its school system in the face of dwindling enrollment, budget cuts and a $50 million deficit.

On August 3, 2009, Bob Bennett voted against an amendment that prohibited $17.5 million from being spent for the High Energy Cost Grant Program, which was targeted even by the Obama Administration as wasteful and redundant. Sen. Hatch voted the same way. (SOURCE). On March 13, 2008, Bennett voted against reducing FY 2009 funding by $750 million on programs rated “ineffective” by the OMB. The savings would be used to pay down the debt. (SOURCE). On October 23, 2007, Bob Bennett voted to kill an..   show all text

Here’s the announcement from SFgov.org: We are pleased to announce the release of our Open311 API. The design is a result of a collaborative effort between cities, non-profits and developers. We look forward to seeing what you produce. You can request an API key from their website and read-up on the Open311 API spec here on the wiki. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them here or on the mailing list. We look forward to working with the developer community and seeing some amaz..   show all text

Social media boasts its own unique set of celebrities, people who have scored fame (or infamy) by craftily sharing the mundane and occasionally details of their life. The Frisky highlights ten folks who scored fame by tweeting: iJustine iJustine is one of a scary group of girls who is gorgeous and also into all those things boys nerd out about when they’re together. (See: Olivia Munn). Justine Ezarik is a vlogger (video blogger), most famous for her video “300-page iPhone bill.” She also ha..   show all text

Making their voices heard, some of our readers made the road trip from Chicago to St. Louis to protest the Obamacare Road Show at the St. Charles High School. Every voice counts: One group of folks on Bennett Avenue journeyed from Chicago to hold signs protesting health care reform. Stefanie Wilson, 44, daughters Ellery, 18, and Charlotte, 16, said they drove four hours along with friend Ryan Szumny, 20, after hearing about Obama’s visit through columnist Michelle Malkin’s Web site. Wilson sai..   show all text

Pelago knows that just about every location-based app in the world is seeking coverage right now just prior to SXSW where they will all battle Highlander-style. So they approached me with a pretty smart pitch: curing the “social rut.” What they mean by that is these days, despite the prevalence of social networks, people are actually less social than ever because they’re being roped into playing games like Farmville and Mafia Wars for hours on end. Sitting in their rooms. Alone. While that ..   show all text

A new study from security firm Barracuda Labs provides some interesting insights into the state of the Twitterverse. Unfortunately for the microblogging startup, the stats say that most of its users aren’t very active. The study looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts (PDF) in order to figure out how people are using Twitter. It started with one assumption: an active or “True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people, and had tweeted at least 10 times. By tha..   show all text

Mitt Romney's new book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, will debut on top of the New York Times bestseller list due out March 21, a source tells Ben Smith.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel notes Scott Walker (R) is running a television ad introducing himself and "touts his fiscal tightness by mentioning that he packs his own lunch every day." Unfortunately, as CQ Politics notes, the ad doesn't say he's running for governor.

I missed this report from last week and it is totally worth highlighting. Because of the Christmas Day panty bomber and all the other threats and nonsense the Islamofascists are throwing at us, the TSA intends to make us all start walking through full body scanners where TSA agents will be able to see us in all our nekkid glory. Except the Council on Islamic Relations objected. So now the TSA looks like it is going to carve out a total exception for muslims so no muslim will be subjected to a ..   show all text

Regular readers will know my love for all things location. In particular, these check-in location-based services fascinate me, mainly because I see them as a bridge between social networks as we’ve known it, and actual social interaction in the real world. Foursquare has been my app of choice over the past year (it launched almost exactly a year ago at SXSW). But the latest version of Gowalla has me thinking about switching sides. At the very least, I’ll be using both at all times now. Gowa..   show all text