Digg has taken the decision to remove its list of top Diggers from the site. The company says spam and continuing attempts to game the system are the reasons and that there are new developments in the pipeline which will reward the most prolific Diggers in the future. However, speculates Steve Rubel, this could be a tactical error which alienates the community and pushes it into the arms of, say, del.icio.us. Time will tell.

Technorati Tags: social media

Lots of stuff about Viacom’s decision to ask YouTube to remove 100,000 of its clips. Some, like Charlene Li of Forrester see it as a short-term blip. Others, like Jeff Jarvis are less kind – “Viacom cuts its nose off to spite its face”. He goes on to explain why the decision is short-sighted, to put it kindly.

Technorati Tags: convergence , video

Steve Rubel takes a close look at recent offerings from Yahoo! and thinks he spots tell-tale signs of silo-itis in the new media behemoth. Get a Merissa Meyer to sort it out, he counsels.

Technorati Tags: media

Macworld has a think-piece from some-time contributor Glenn Fleishman who argues that a combination of the iPhone, Apple’s recently announced new phone, and broadband services from AT&T could mark the first step towards the holy grail of truly converged devices.

Technorati Tags: mobile, convergence

Jeff Jarvis, again, from Davos – this time reporting on Reuter’s chief Tom Glocer’s views about user generated content.

he doesn’t buy the professional/amateur line. (We’ll be left with no labels and no borders. And maybe that’s the point.) He says Reuters invented user-generated content 50 years ago aggregating trader information and then selling it back. Adler asks him whether professional journalists will lose their jobs as a result of this. “I think there’s only one type of journalism, which is good journalism…. I know some professional journalists who write crappy text and I know amateurs who write beautiful prose.” Asked whether there willl be fewer professional journalists, once again, Glocer says there will be fewer newspapers and that there will be other opportunities for people who want to do journalism to get paid for it.

Technorati Tags: blogs, media

Jeff Jarvis reports on a session with Bill Gates, Caterina Fake (Flickr), Chat Hurley (YouTube), Mike Parker (Nike), Viviane Reding (EU), and Dennis Kneale (Forbes) at Davos. The topics covered the future of television, the role of Government and IPR.

Technorati Tags: politics, predictions

Jeff Jarvis writes about what he is calling the “YouTube Campaign” for the US presidency.

Technorati Tags: politics

Hillary Clinton has posted a question on Yahoo! Answers to find out what Americans’ experience of health care is. Six days in there were 37,583 answers!

Technorati Tags: social media

eWeek quotes wireless consultancy InCode’s (optimistic) top predictions for 2007:

• Social networking goes mobile. Sites such as MySpace and Facebook will add mobile users to their business model, and similar services will gain popularity with professionals and older users.Mobile TV. It’s just now making its first entries into the mobile device market, but it will become a primary driver of revenues.
• Cheaper and more flexible multifunction devices. Look for 3G devices but with more functionality, higher speeds, and prices below $99.
• GPS will become the location technology that the wireless industry actually uses in 2007. While many phones already have GPS support, applications that use that capability will blossom.
• Internet Big Names will play a major role in IP Multimedia Services for mobile devices. An inCode study found that while these services haven’t taken off as expected, this may be because users don’t understand what they do. Expect to see names like Yahoo and Google on your mobile device.
• China and India will become the hot mobile device markets, and as a result, mobile devices and services will focus on those markets first, rather than the United States and Europe as in the past.
• Mobile advertising will boom. Be prepared for ads with your text messages and elsewhere on your 3G phone, targeted just for you.
• Home entertainment will become part of the wireless world. This will include music and video downloads over both high-speed data connections and Wi-Fi. You will be able to play music, watch television or meet other data communications needs with your wireless device. This will be especially important in emerging markets, according to inCode.
• Users realize that security is important. 2007 may be the year that hackers really make a move on the mobile device universe. Virus attacks, data loss and theft will become major concerns, and companies will finally need to pay attention to the risks from mobile devices.
• Enterprises will embrace mobility. Companies will incorporate mobile devices throughout the corporation and will start to depend on wireless access to data as a routine practice. Some companies may completely replace their wired telephone infrastructure with wireless devices.

Technorati Tags: mobile, predictions

In a widely anticipated move YouTube confirms it will share ad dollars with users who upload video. Is this the beginnings of the business model which the world’s biggest video site was searching for? Scoble celebrates the move and suggests the move could catch on….

Technorati Tags: video