by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Jack Dorsey, the chairman and co-founder of the popular microblogging service Twitter, shared far more than his site’s 140-character message limit when he offered himself up to a public psychoanalysis.
As part of an exhibition at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, Mr. Dorsey subjected himself to a Jungian analyst.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s latest effort to call out what it considers violations of copyright and trademark law comes in the form of a mock-awards page, complete with “honorees,” called the Takedown Hall of Shame.
The tech-advocacy group highlights a handful of cases it calls “the most egregious examples of takedown abuse,” usually involving businesses or organizations that cry foul–or issue takedown notices–even when their copyrighted materials are used in accordance with fair-use laws.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The success of private-sale sites like Gilt Groupe, which holds daily members-only sales of off-season luxury items, have led to imitators hoping to emulate the success of a business model that’s catching on with recession-strapped consumers.
Private-sale sites let shoppers experience the cachet of owning luxury items without paying full price.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
This Is Why You’re Fat, a Web site for food gone awry, is holding a photo competition in which contestants visit New York street vendors and shoot themselves with coronaries-on-plates.
It’s not a contest for the faint of heart. For a site whose tag line is “Where dreams become heart attacks,” each food truck will create an appropriate contest dish, like chocolate cupcakes with bacon shavings.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Studies have already shown that chatting on a cellphone while driving is just as dangerous as driving drunk.
While several U.S. states have enacted hands-free cellphone laws for drivers, New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission is going a step further by proposing harsher rules for cab drivers who violate the commission’s decade-old rule against all cellphone use. The current regulations include cabbies who talk while wearing a hands-free headset, but the TLC says it’s tired of the ban being violated.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Grammy judges will be listening to the upcoming award nominees online, thanks to a partnership with Yangaroo, a Canadian media-distribution start-up.
The company’s technology encrypts music files with a watermark and lets record labels share them securely with radio stations and other destinations. The watermark allows Yangaroo to identify each person who has downloaded a track, so if a song is leaked, it can trace its origin.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Looking for obnoxious chauvinism? There’s an app for that.
Pepsi’s Amp energy drink issued an apology for its new iPhone app, called Before You Score, which drew outrage from some female consumers who deemed the application sexist.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
A new celebrity site has launched a campaign to get Tracy Morgan, a star of NBC’s “30 Rock,” on Twitter.
The site, OMGICU, encourages visitors to send their celebrity sightings, and Mr. Morgan is its most-seen subject. Its founder, Hugh Dornbush, on Tuesday created a second site, Twacy.org, to convince the comedian to get to tweeting.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
When it comes to social-networking sites, women are more plugged in than men, according to data analysis by Brian Solis, president of Silicon Valley public-relations firm Future Works.
Mr. Solis used Google Ad Planner to determine the gender breakdown of users signed up for the most popular social-networking sites and found that in most cases, women outnumbered men. “The point of interest that’s worth review and discussion is that in social media, women rule,” he wrote.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
With Google releasing 100,000 invites to test the beta version of the much-hyped Wave, one enterprising blogger decided to capitalize on all the buzz surrounding the new messaging and collaboration tool by selling his invite on eBay.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Despite growing concerns about online privacy on social networks such as Facebook, marketers at the Social Data Summit in New York on Thursday professed enthusiasm for social media marketing.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
IRex Technologies threw its hat into the increasingly crowded U.S. e-reader market Wednesday with the launch of its new device, the DR800SG.
The DR800SG will cost $400 and features an 8.1-inch screen and 3G wireless connectivity with carrier Verizon. In a retro move reminiscent of the Palm Pilot, the e-reader comes with a stylus pen to navigate the on-screen menus.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The French National Assembly on Tuesday approved a draft “three strikes” law that would allow authorities to cut off Internet access to piracy offenders.
The measure, which France’s Senate passed in July, was narrowly approved by the parliament with a vote of 285 to 225, and is viewed as a compromise to a similar law that was rejected for being too harsh.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Fancy new smart phones and laptops may generate more buzz, but the desktop PC remains the workhorse of the office. Bosses who outfit staffers with mobile devices, however, may be able to wring more work out of them, according to a new Forrester study.
by Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
A year after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, former workers keep in touch with each other on a niche social network called Forever Lehman. Strangely, it was founded by an ex-Bear Stearns employee.
Sanjeev Naraine spent eight years at Bear Stearns, most recently as a global vice president of videoconferencing.
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."
We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.
That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.
Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.