Somewhere around this date, every month, we look at the stats from various web analytics companies, and check how the most important social media and social networking sites are doing. And don’t get us wrong: these stats can be biased (Compete, for example, is US-biased) and they can be wrong (sometimes they will report a fall or decline in traffic even when the reality is quite the opposite).

But when we see a trend that goes on for four months, there must be something to it. And that’s exactly what’s been happening to Twitter: according to Compete, it has flatlined for the last four months, showing absolutely no growth as far as uniques, visits, or rank go. And it’s not just Compete: Quantcast paints pretty much the same picture, and Twitter CEO Evan Williams has recently admitted that their traffic has

It’s been more than a year since Bill Gates stepped down from day-to-day operations at Microsoft to focus on his philanthropic efforts through the Gates Foundation.

In that time, Gates has traveled the world (in the past week alone, he’s been in China, India, and today, New York), strategizing the best use of his enormous fortune and that of his foundation, which, also includes $31 billion of Warren Buffett’s money.

Tonight at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Gates shared a progress report of sorts in an interview with Matthew Bishop of The Economist, which also included some broader questions from the audience.

What Gates Is Trying to Do

Rather than spread his money over dozens of causes, Gates is focusing on a few specific issues, where he hopes his hands-on approach and vast resources will make a significant difference. In his case, those causes include providing necessary medicine and equipment to help stop the spread of disease, finding vaccines for the likes Malaria and AIDS, and improving education, both in the US and around the world.

As for how he measures the success, at least on the healthcare side of things, it’s pretty

I don’t really think it’s just me. In the face of astonishingly obvious economic benefits, and a fairly obvious set of “how-to’s,” I think the main reason we don’t collaborate is simple. Simple fear.

There are two simple approaches to lowering fear. One is to mitigate risk. The other is to stop being so fearful. The first one is getting most of the press; we need more of the second.

Is it fear that prevents people from collaborating?  I might see that link in the claim that "if the boss doesn't do it, then we won't" - fear of upsetting the cart or not following the leader.  Charles gives the example of wanting to maintain credit - a particular problem in a world that places so much emphasis on individual achievement.  I don't suffer from this kind of fear, do I?

If I don't do something, even though I understand the claimed benefits, then I either don't know how to do it, or I have an underlying concern that isn't addressed by the wondrous benefits.  A fear.  Overcoming that fear takes some effort / willingness on my part.  But it also if there is acknowledgment of the

Just over a year ago, Apple launched the iPhone App Store, giving countless developers the ability to create dynamic apps on the iPhone mobile platform. And while over 100,000 apps have been created already, it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses between Apple and 3rd party developers. Multiple iPhone app bannings, inconsistent app rules, and the Google Voice controversy have all left a bad taste.

It took long enough, but finally Apple’s taking steps to rectify the situation. A few days ago, Apple began to give developers a long overdue feature within its Dev Center website: the ability to track the status of apps submitted to Apple’s store.

The new system is straightforward: when a developer logs into the Dev Center, he or she can see bulletins and status updates that discuss the app’s progress through the app store approval process, including “In Review,” “Waiting for Review,” and “Ready for Sale” updates. It also timestamps each

While PCs have been able to use Google’s Chrome browser for some time now, the rest of us Macs have been waiting patiently for a proper, non-developer build that we too can use. That day may be coming very soon.

CNET is reporting that recent discussion in a Chrome mailing list points to an early December launch. We could be just weeks away from a beta version of Chrome for Mac.

The Google group update in question is light on details, but by requesting that developers update to support Browser Actions, it also suggests that a December launch date for a Mac version is fast approaching.

Google Chrome’s product manager, Nick Baum, writes:

“The extensions team has been working hard to get BrowserActions ready, and
they’re already working great on Windows and Linux. We’ve noticed that many
of you have updated your extensions to take advantage of the new UI. We’d
like to encourage the rest of you to do so as

Why?

Sure you will get lots of success in sense-making and sharing by facilitating the use of grassroots tools that are bottom-up just like email (but better than email).

BUT, is the use of new tools enough to catapult into a new way of working…it will take a long time to hit that tipping point.

Even if we do all the right things like facilitate, understand human behaviour, create and nurture conditions for participation, have an enterprise-wide concept…I don’t think it’s enough.

We need a complementary top-down shift to a new culture of working, as I said in my last post, a move from a competitive to collaborative organisation.

NOTE: I’m referring to within the walls of an organisation. I’m yet to think about this concept industry-wide ie. companies collaborating, rather than competing…a new type of capitalism I guess…got many links on the natural enterprise, but no time to read them

What do I mean by top-down?

I mean how are we

Although it’s not yet live to everyone, a new Xbox LIVE Dashboard Update that adds social networking integrations with Facebook, Twitter and last.fm is currently in preview mode to beta testers and will go live to the public in short order. Perhaps trying to play catchup with Microsoft, Sony apparently has plans to add its own Facebook integration to the company’s flagship PlayStation 3 console in a coming firmware update.

Website Scrawl apparently found screenshots buried deep within a publicly available section of Sony’s European website showing off some sort of native Facebook integration, as evidenced by a Facebook settings subsection located in the User Accounts section of the PS3’s cross-media bar (XMB) main navigation interface.

Unfortunately it’s not terribly much to go on, and when pressed, Sony refused to comment on the leaked shots and Facebook integration rumour. However the screens do come from a legitimate Sony source, and it seems highly likely that they’d want to get in on some of the social media action considering they’re working diligently to portray the PlayStation 3

Uh oh. It looks as if Twitter is being plagued by another DM spam attack. We’ve received a few ourselves, and plenty of Twitter users are taking to the medium to express that they too have received inordinate amounts of spam messages via direct messages. A quick search of “dm spam” on Twitter is yielding a bevy of results.

The DM spam attack, presumably being spread by hacked Twitter accounts, contains unknown but dubious content, and we advise you to avoid clicking on anything that appears suspicious. Be on the look for tweets like, “hi, did you do this quiz thingy.”

Should you believe that your account has been hacked, we recommend changing your Twitter password immediately.

We’ve notified Twitter of the recent plague of direct message spam, and

We already know well the dangers of Facebook: not only can it get you robbed, but it can land you in jail, whether thanks to careless profile updating at the scene of the crime or a bout of unwise poking.

Now it appears the upside is Facebook can keep you out of jail as well. Nineteen-year-old Rodney Bradford’s Facebook update at 11:49a.m. on October 17 was accepted as a suitable alibi after he was arrested in connection with a mugging in Brooklyn. The district attorney subpeonaed Facebook, who verified that the status update was created from a computer at the address of Mr. Bradford’s father in Harlem, where the accused indicated he had been at the time of the robbery.

After Facebook’s location confirmation, the charges against Bradford were dropped. Lawyer John Browning, who specializes in social networking and the law, said it is the first case he

Movie studios are none too happy by the growing decline in DVD sales. So, what’s their solution to the problem? Target the cheap movie rental companies like Netflix and Redbox and force their hand into delaying new movie rentals after release, which would give consumers no other choice than to purchase the DVDs.

According to PaidContent, Redbox, the kiosk distributor, is fighting back with lawsuits, but Netflix is ready to deal.

CEO Reed Hastings is apparently trying to barter with the studios and, in a recent earnings call, has been quoted as saying, “if we can agree on low enough pricing for delayed rental, it could potentially increase profits for everyone.”

Another source is reporting that Netflix would delay rentals by a period of one month in exchange for paying 50% less for movies from studios. While we think this is a terrible idea for both Netflix and consumers, the Video Business article makes an excellent point about why the movie distributor can afford the one month hit, while Redbox

The official Twitter Retweet rollout started last week, but yesterday Twitter ramped up the rollout process in order to give more Twitter users the native retweet feature. The semi-controversial new feature started popping up everywhere, and CEO Evan Williams took to his own blog to explain the why and the how behind the change.

Today, however, it appears as if there’s trouble in the Twittersphere, as many users noticed earlier in the day that the retweet button had disappeared from their homepage. Now, we have confirmation from Twitter that the feature has been temporarily disabled.

Here’s what the Twitter Status blog had to say about the matter:

“We’re working on a few problems related to the ongoing rollout. These should be resolved quickly and it will be back on for those who had the Retweet feature previously. And we’ll then continue the

Open Web Awards Nominations will remain open until 11:59 pm ET on Sunday, November 15th. Submit your nominations here.

Social media has not only transformed how we communicate with each other, but it has even changed how we, as consumers, interact with brands, companies, and agencies. The old forms of customer service and customer relationships have been challenged by the direct and open access that Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media services have sparked.

That’s why the #OpenWebAwards for Brands, Startups, Companies, and Agencies are so intriguing. It provides us a chance to recognize the companies that are leveraging social media in extraordinary ways. This year’s honors in the Brand category are diverse, including Best Brand use of Facebook, Best Corporate Blog, Best Brand Use of Twitter, and Favorite Social media Gadget.

Luckily for you, there are a ton of

One of the keys to Firefox’s continued success as a browser has been its support of browser extensions. Always looking to expand its extensions library, Mozilla introduced an experimental program called Jetpack in May, which allows developers to create add-ons for Firefox, even if they have limited programming experience.

Extensions are built using CSS, Javascript and HTML, which means that more people can build them and install them without restarting the web browser. What Mozilla is ultimately planning for Jetpack isn’t clear, but we’d place a wager on some of the technologies making their way into Mozilla’s future mobile browser.

Today, Mozilla has launched the Jetpack Gallery, which will make it easy for users to find and try out Jetpack add-ons created by the community.

In the six months since Jetpack’s introduction, the Mozilla Labs team has put a lot of work into beefing up Jetpack’s API and

When we first wrote about Elizabeth Lambert — the New Mexico soccer player whose physical behavior on the field was caught on tape, subsequently posted to YouTube, and resulted in an indefinite suspension — the YouTube clip was nearing one million views.

Now there are more than 150 clips of the incident online, and just six days after being posted to web, they’ve amassed a total of more than 10.2 million views and 24,000 comments.

Interestingly enough, Visible Measures, a video analytics company, claims that the Elizabeth Lambert clip rose to viral status faster than both JK Wedding Dance and Balloon Boy.

The chart above