We'd all like to get to know our neighbors and improve the places we live, in theory—but it's frustratingly hard to connect in person, especially compared to the one-click ease of a friend request on a social network like Facebook.

This is where hyperlocal social networks come in—modern, friendly services that fit into our jumbled Twitter-Tumblr-Reddit-Instagram world. 

There's been failure after failure in this space, from Backfence in 2007 to AOL's money-losing Patch network to NBC's shuttered Everyblock service, which closed in February.

Finally, though, there's a credible contender: the newly well-financed startup Nextdoor, based in San Francisco.

Nextdoor writes in its mission statement—which comes in the form of a poem—that "we believe technology is a powerful tool for making neighborhoods stronger, safer places to call home" and "we believe strong neighborhoods not only improve our property value, they improve each one of our lives." Amen to that.

So how does it work?

The Hyperlocal Facebook

Signing up for Nextdoor was the most unique social network sign-up process I've encountered. Where LinkedIn is concerned with your professional identity and Facebook wants to know who your friends are, Nextdoor is chiefly concerned with your home address. That's meant to limit each neighborhood's network to people who really live there.

There are several ways to verify your address. You can use a credit card (you're not charged). If you have a landline phone, Nextdoor's automated systems can call you. A current Nextdoor user can invite you or vouch for you. Or you can have a postcard sent to your mailing address. I chose the last option.

The postcard was in keeping with the design of the site: simple and clean, and mostly white with a splash of green. It was one more statement that Nextdoor really was a local network.  

Checking the real-life mailbox for a website was a novel experience, and the increased security made me feel more comfortable sharing information about my immediate vicinity. (I never got into Foursquare because of the privacy concerns.) 

GigaOm writer Mathew Ingram wrote that theses barriers to entry could be the key to Nextdoor's future success, and I'd have to agree.  It may slow down signups, but it makes you feel better about your interactions with Nextdoor users.

Nextdoor promises only your neighbors—those with verified addresses or proven connections to other residents—can see your posts. That should come in handy if you want to post your phone number in a message about your dog or cat being lost. Privacy concerns haven't been completely eliminated, however: Nextdoor displays where your neighbors actually live on a map. 

The site's main function is to share news and information, sorted by seven categories which range from Review (for local businesses like Yelp) to Crime & Safety. Neighbors use these categories to post about yard sales, a meeting, or news affecting the neighborhood. Other site options include private messaging with your neighbors, a master list of all the neighbors who have signed up, and a calendar of events. It's a good way to keep in touch with what is important to your neighbors. 

A disclosure here: I may be more interested in local matters than the average digital citizen. I worked for various Patch sites covering the Chicago suburbs, as well as the Windy Citizen, a hyperlocal news aggregator and forum operator. I've also organized neighborhood cleanups and other local activities. But even if they don't take it to my level, I feel like many people are interested in their neighborhood. They just need better tools to get involved.

Like most fledgling networks, Nextdoor's main problem right now is the lack of active users, though my neighbors have been slowly signing up for the network as word spreads. In my Chicago neighborhood, many were former users of Everyblock, which was based in this city. But by the numbers, most people haven't used any hyperlocal website. A 2011 Pew Internet study found most people—even those under the age of 40—still rely on TV news or newspapers for local information.

Even experienced users like me seemed daunted at having to rebuild their hyperlocal social-media experience all over again on Nextdoor. Some of the community organizations that got their feet on Everyblock—garbage cleanup groups, neighborhood beautification associations and anti-gang activists, among others—have dedicated Facebook pages.

Facebook Groups might seem like an obvious way to organize locally. Yet because it depends on existing social connections, it's not a great way for neighbors to discover each other. Nextdoor's address-verification system could give it an edge over broad-purpose social networks in this regard. 

Creating the Perfect Hyperlocal Social Network

Everyblock's core strength was its automated data streams. Public records  like building permits and restaurant inspections were automatically indexed into a stream along with newspaper articles, blog posts and Flickr photos for each neighborhood on Everyblock. At the time, this was groundbreaking. But Everyblock took too long to add in contributions from users to capture those offline word-of-mouth conversations where a lot of local news is transmitted.

Right now, the content on Nextdoor is user-generated. But since there aren't many users, the conversation often isn't there. That's discouraging for new users who sign up. 

The perfect local site would weave automated feeds and social conversations to create a lively experience right off the bat. There's a delicate balance where an urban streetscape tilts from loneliness to liveliness. Nextdoor could be on the cusp.

Photo by Ken Lund

In an effort to compete with Amazon, Walmart is reportedly considering crowdsourcing its online package delivery. While that might save the retail giant the cost of gas and maintenance for its own delivery fleet, it could also open up the mega-retailer to potential lawsuits and a ton of puzzling questions.

Reuters reports that the plan is still at “an early planning stage” as there are “numerous legal, regulatory and privacy obstacles.” So don't expect to see anything for at least another year or two.

What we know about the plan so far, though, is this. Walmart customers could disclose their home addresses and then, while at a Walmart store, sign up to deliver packages to folks who live along their route home. The delivery recipients would be Walmart's online customers; the retailer is making a big push to deliver goods ordered online directly from its stores, hoping to do so more cheaply than Amazon.

These volunteer deliverypeople would get a discount on their Walmart purchases — enough, supposedly, to at least cover their gas costs.

So let's give Walmart some points for creativity, as this certainly isn't the sort of idea you'd normally expect to bubble up out of Bentonville. Still, the nightmare scenarios are easy to imagine. Let us enumerate a few:

1. What happens if the person delivering the package takes a shine to whoever the package was delivered to? Perhaps a future couple will meet this way, but so could a stalker and his or her unknowing stalkee.

2. Will there be a way to do background checks on who will be delivering your package to you? Would people be disqualified from delivering packages if they had a criminal record?

3. What prevents the designated delivery person from "losing" (i.e., keeping) a package instead of delivering it? Would Walmart have to track this thief down?

4. Would crowd-sourced delivery folks ask for tips? Will tipping the Walmart customer become as commonplace as tipping the pizza delivery boy?

Walmart hadn't responded to a request for comment by the time we published. We'll update if and when it does.

Update: 

Yahoo’s first major acquisition since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO could be the French video site Dailymotion, of all things. If the talks pan out, Yahoo will be joining a long list of companies hyped up by the booming digital video industry. And if anyone can upset Google’s hold on online video, it’s Mayer.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting Yahoo wants to buy as much as 75% of the French site, valued at roughly $300 million, in an apparent bid to diversify Yahoo's revenue stream.

"One of the challenges in Yahoo's business is that we are primarily domestic and we don't have enough of our business running it from an international basis," Mayer said at an analyst conference in February. More than 70% of Yahoo’s $5 billion in revenue is from the U.S.

Dailymotion, the twelfth-most trafficked video site in the world, was already looking for an U.S. partner, so it could potentially be a match made in heaven.

But Yahoo and online video? Really?

“It's interesting, or should I say 'telling' that as Yahoo! seeks to reinvent itself, it's first real, bold step (other than a somewhat yawn-inducing homepage redesign) is to try and capitalize on video” Jay Miletsky, the CEO of MyPod Studios, the StumbleUpon of curated online video, wrote in an email.

“I think after Google + failed to make any real splash, Yahoo! wisely decided to skip trying to launch the next pretender to the Facebook throne, and looked to video as the best opportunity for improving their brand among Web users,” added Miletsky.

AOL was able to rebrand itself as a media company, so it is certainly a transition that can be made. AOL, which used to provide Internet to households, now owns the Huffington Post and operates a slew of hyperlocal news sites through its Patch initiative.

Yahoo could feasibly rebrand itself with a strong online video portfolio, too. Its Yahoo! Screen program is already a step in that direction.

Original series like the critically acclaimed Burning Love and Anthony E Zuiker’s Cybergeddon are a higher quality than any of YouTube’s offerings. This year's Streamy Awards noticed, giving both series trophies.

Yahoo's original programming targets a much older audience than YouTube's teen and tween demographic, which gives the company another edge in the online video sector.  There's even a technical advantage to be gained: The only thing that prevented me from watching Yahoo! Screen content over the last couple of months (namely to watch Tom Hank's animated original Yahoo series, Electric City) was their bad video player. If Yahoo acquires DailyMotion, that obstacle dissolves.    

It will take time for these talks to firm up, and have the two companies' operations integrated. But if this is indeed a match made in heaven, there will be a major new content player on the scene, diversifying the growing video realm even more.

Feminist media critic and video blogger Anita Sarkeesian raised $160,000 in Kickstarter funds last summer after she publicized the online bullying she endured upon announcing the project. Earlier this month, to much fanfare, Sarkeesian finally delivered the first installment of her controversial Tropes Vs Women in Video Games video series.

But Sarkeesian hasn't yet explained why that video still fell more than six months behind schedule — it presumably wasn't because of a budget shortfall — nor offered any accounting of how she's spent the funds she raised. Is it sexist of me to ask about the money?

The Story Thus Far

For those unfamiliar with the online drama to date, Sarkeesian’s feminist video essays critiquing pop culture — sometimes scathing, sometimes lighthearted — regularly disturb the darker side of the Internet. Her Kickstarter project, which focused almost exclusively on sexism in video games, so perturbed a large group of male gamers that they organized and harassed her relentlessly online.

These charming fellows didn’t stop at social media harassment, death threats or comments about how happy they would be if Sarkeesian died. They took the time to put up their own crowdfunded Indiegogo project devoted to mocking Sarkeesian’s own, even though it later disappeared without a trace. (The group insists the project is still on, despite acknowledging that its page was pulled while Indiegogo reviews it.)

Even more damning, they made a video game about punching Sarkeesian in the face. The angrified dudes who thought they were defending their favorite digital pastime openly referred to their online harassment campaign as “a game.” Sarkeesian, in her TED Talk about their hate campaign, dubbed them “a cybermob.”

It was this cybermob that caught the attention of the press, which shared Sarkeesian’s project beyond the gamer community. Sympathy money poured in, much as it did with that bullied Michigan bus monitor, and Sarkeesian reached her fundraising goal in days. She received more than 25 times her proposed $6,000 goal from people like this self-identified radical feminist who wrote on Tumblr recently:

I like and play video games, but they’re not a particular passion of mine, and I never would have donated to that project. However, I donated $20 after the vicious backlash that involved creating a video game where you can beat the shit out of Anita Sarkeesian.

Is Transparency Too Much To Ask?

Which brings me to Sarkeesian’s finances. I raise this subject with some trepidation, because Sarkeesian's critics have twisted it into photoshopped tweets about Sarkeesian spending $1000 on new shoes, complaints that she’d donate to charity if she were really a good person and blog entries wondering if Sarkeesian got a nose job. (Her nose looks the same, men. I checked her older videos.)

When you get past the vitriol, their main criticism is that the production quality of Sarkeesian’s videos hasn't increased.

In a Kickstarter update issued days into the original campaign, Sarkeesian herself raised this issue, writing that she’d like to use the extra money “to really bump up the quality and the professionalism as much as I can,” possibly by buying a light kit, a better computer, a microphone, editing software and other pricey gear.

Sorry, angry male gamers. Sarkeenian has apparently been as good as her word. The quality of her videos has increased, particularly in terms of sound quality and, evidently, via use of a light kit.

So the haters are wrong. But how much could Sarkeesian's production upgrades have possibly cost?

A good midrange light kit should set you back between $400 and $1,800, while a crazy good desktop that can edit video can go for as much as $5,000. A high-end professional video camera would be another five grand. (A Hollywood-style camera, which she was apparently not going for, would go for $20,000 to $50,000.) The most expensive editing program around, Adobe Premiere, is $400, as is a good microphone. Tally all that up, and it's still less than $15,000.

Show Us The Money

What happened to the rest of the $160,000?

Answering this question would certainly knock down the only legitimate point made by Sarkeesian's online stalkers. Much more important, though, a good financial breakdown of Sarkeesian's Kickstarter project would also help women video bloggers, who struggle with sexism every day on YouTube, better understand the financial costs of creating a successful video series. (Actually, it would be helpful for anybody dreaming of a career on YouTube).

Disclosing her finances should, in theory, be easy, especially now that Sarkeesian hired a producer. As a popular media figure, she has the power to bring some transparency to what can otherwise be an awfully murky business.

Kickstarter in general is a hard nut to crack. According to Kickstarter's own data, more than half of all projects -- or 56% -- fail to get funded at all. Only about one project in nine raises twice its funding goal. YouTube is also difficult to master. Sarkeesian is skilled at both, having raised a sum in the low six figures on Kickstarter and netted more than a million YouTube views for her first video in 11 days.

When popular viral video maker Freddie Wong — who also ran a successful Kickstarter campaign last year — released an infographic outlining the cost of his first web series, Video Game High School, he was lauded by the DIY video community. Wong wrote on his company’s blog:

We believe that the future for content-creators such as ourselves lies in being able to source project money from an audience and deliver on those projects in a timely and cost-effective manner. However, we realized to do this effectively, we must be completely open and honest about the money we spend and how much things cost. Simply put, we cannot expect our fans to support us financially if they have no idea how much things actually cost.

So show us how it was done, Anita Sarkeesian. Not because I don't believe you did it, but so that others can follow in your footsteps. And if you had to spend that money on flights to give TED Talks, doing research or licensing fees for game footage — or even to pay for therapy  as a result of the harassment you endured — I want to know that, too.

Sarkeesian did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

Updated on March 19, 11:57 a.m. PT: Revised figures on Kickstarter projects that failed to fund using Kickstarter data and an academic paper (both linked in the text).

Lead screencap from Sarkeesian's YouTube video Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

Out of all the lines the press uses to describe Google’s interests in funding better content on its biggest social platform, the dominant one by far is: “YouTube is trying to compete with television.”

Right.

Yes, Google in all its infinite wisdom wants to compete with the decades-old giant that is the multi-billion dollar television industry with paltry investments of $100 million or so every couple of months.  /sarcasm

YouTube Cannot Replace TV

The notion is just plain silly - it even made Time Warner’s CEO laugh. But this motif, if you will, continues to dominate the discussion - much to the chagrin of YouTube itself. Whenever YouTube invests in networks or lures mainstream celebrities (or almost celebrities) to start “channels,” which it has been doing with increasing frequency over the last two years, that same line pops up. I am officially sick of it, and YouTube is too.  

2011 was the year marking Google’s biggest investments into video content, and it was this same year that the “YouTube competing with TV” meme was born. Media outlets everywhere served up some derivative of this sentence, including Reuters, which wrote “the Google-owned site is issuing a direct challenge to the television industry.” A direct challenge!  

Can you blame Reuters though, when everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the Hollywood Reporter, was doing the same thing? Hell, I am guilty of it, too.

And it isn't going away. Canada's The Star printed the headline just yesterday: “YouTube aims to compete with TV.” 

No, Canada, YouTube does not aim to compete with TV. How could it?

TV Still Rules

YouTube doesn't want anyone to think it has any intention of replacing television. The company hews to the sentiment first expressed by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes not so long ago - namely, that it's ludicrous to think YouTube's relatively tiny content budgets, ad rolls, and Internet infrastructure could really compete with the giant television industry.

YouTube — realistically — views its place in the entertainment industry as complementaryto television and Hollywood. If you consider things in light of the Life is Like a Jar of Rocks analogy, here the rocks are Hollywood, the pebbles are television, and the sand is YouTube and Web content. There’s plenty of room in the jar for everyone, and no one is trying to replace the others.  

YouTube wants to be the sand to TV’s pebbles in the entertainment jar, everyone. Let’s all write it together so we remember: YouTube is the sand to TV’s pebbles in the glass jar of entertainment.

There's only one problem. No matter how accurate the analogy, rocks, pebbles and sand make for far less interesting copy than the threat of taking down TV. No matter how ridiculous that might be.

Updated: I've rewritten the last section in light of new information. 

Image via YouTube. 

Last week, when YouTube thought no one was looking, it apparently removed 156 million views from Lady Gaga's VEVO channel.

The removal of the views appears to be part of a broad clean up of "botted" views. Botting is the practice of artificially increasing a video's views on YouTube using automated "bots" – a practice that began in December of last year.

Spk Claims YouTube Paid Him To Inflate Views

Since the purging of botted views began this month, a man who goes by the alias of "spk" and claims to be a former YouTube employee has come forward to claim he was paid to bot videos for VEVO. This allegation is particularly controversial, as it comes on the heels of Google investing in a minority stake in VEVO.

Spk claims to have a sprawling empire of bots that inflate views on various video games such as Diablo 3 and social media services including Twitter and reddit, but he got his start on YouTube. His original views bot was so successful, spk claims, that Google approached him and asked him to bot videos for VEVO back when the music conglomerate first started putting content on YouTube.

In a Skype chat with ReadWrite, spk alleged he was originally hired as a coding and system maintenance employee for YouTube in 2007, but in 2009 was told to bot VEVO videos.

"I had to sit there and bot videos with millions and millions" of views, which he claims he did for "more than 20,000 videos."  In 2009, spk stated, he quit to start his own botting business, which he says currently employs 15 people, including the notorious botting reseller Tapangoldy. "I am doing nothing different, only working for myself now," spk said.

Evidence Of VEVO Botting

YouTube declined to commment on spk's claims of employment or botting, but a company representative did confirm that spk received a large monetary sum from Google for identifying a security risk. And spk, whose real name has been redacted upon his request, is listed on the Google Hall of Fame security site.

Whether or not spk was botting the original VEVO videos, early VEVO content shows signs of being botted. Kanye West's video Heartless, for example, gained 33 million views in one day, according to the chart below, which spk claimed he botted per YouTube's request.

Compare that to Gangnam Style, the most popular video in YouTube history, which never saw more than 3 million views a day.  

All of Britney Spear's music videos that aired before the creation of VEVO were also likely botted. The view chart below shows her 2005 hit Toxic also getting 33 million views in one 24-hour period. 

The views data for The Backstreet Boys and N'SYNC music videos shows a similar story. Lady Gaga's first hit Just Dance, which was uploaded to VEVO after the song had already made the rounds on the radio, television and pop charts, also shows signs of botting. The views removed from her VEVO channel last week were most likely taken from this video.

Why Bot VEVO Videos?

But why would YouTube want to artificially inflate views on VEVO videos. The most obvious reason would be to boost advertising rates. The VEVO channels charge the highest rates on YouTube, presumably because of the the large numbers of views they get. Another reason might be to raise the search ranking of VEVO content and help establish the channels as a music video powerhouse. Higher view counts also mean the video shows up higher in YouTube search, which increases the chance someone looking for a particular song will click on the official video release.

YouTube's view purging suggests it is no longer botting its VEVO content. Newer music videos - like those from Katy Perry, for example - show no signs of botting.

Now that Google is taking a direct financial stake in the VEVO channels, it appears that the practice of artificially inflating video views is being slowed or halted. If spk's allegations are true, though, advertisers may have paid artificially high rates for video views created by bots, not real people. 

What is the 21st Century equivalent of Franklin Roosevelt's famous radio addresses to the nation known as "Fireside chats?" The White House seems to think Google+ Hangouts is it, as the administration is calling its series of video-chat conferences "Fireside Hangouts." 

The first Fireside Hangout under the new administration, as announced today on an official Google blog post,  will focus on the reduction of gun violence, specifically "the White House policy recommendations." Besides Vice President Joe Biden who is leading the Hangout,  guests include two very big names in different corners of the tech industry: Silicon Valley's favorite entrepreneur and writer Guy Kawasaki and YouTube celebrity and businessman Philip DeFranco. PBS NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan will moderate.

(See video of Guy Kawasaki in conversation with ReadWrite Editor in Chief Dan Lyons: Guy Kawasaki On Android vs. iPhone and Guy Kawasaki On Self-Publishing In The 21st Century.) 

Conspicuously absent from the Hangout?

Any community leader or organization that deals with reducing gun violence (like the Chicago initiative CeaseFire, for example). It is unclear how Kawasaki and DeFranco have been affected by gun violence, and their inclusion in this hangout - which is bound to attract digital mobs of impassioned people - reads like as a ploy to get press and increase Hangout attendance among the Technorati crowd.     

The Fireside Hangout on reducing gun violence will take place on Thursday, January 24 at 1:45pm Eastern Time, and viewers can tune in via the White House Google+ page or its YouTube channel.   

Biden image courtesy of Jason and Bonnie Grower / Shutterstock.com.

The 57th Presidential Inauguration falls on Monday, January 21st, this year, which coincidentally, also happens to be Martin Luther King Jr. day.

"It's almost like fate and history coming together," U.S. Rep. John Lewis told the Associated Press. Lewis, the representative of Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, is a civil rights leader who worked closely with King in the 1950s and '60s. "If it hadn't been for Martin Luther King Jr., there would be no Barack Obama as president," added Lewis.

Lots Of Performers

Performers at the inauguration include Beyonce and James Taylor, and the inauguration parade includes guests like Bobak Ferdowski, aka NASA’s Mohawk Guy.

MSNBC estimates that up to 800,000 people will attend the inauguration this year, and scalpers are reportedly charging $2,000 for tickets. For those of us wanting to watch at home through our electronic devices, however, the options are entirely free.

Both Apple and Google are offering free apps for their respective devices, with both companies dubbing them the “Inauguration 2013” app. Apple’s iOS app is available on iTunes, naturally, and Google's Android app can be downloaded through Google Play, and both promise you “a front row seat at the ceremonial swearing-in with the app’s built-in live stream.” Both apps have been reviewed favorably.  

Fox News will be streaming on their site, and CNN will be livestreaming via CNN.com as well as through its apps for iPhone, iPad and Android. Yahoo, meanwhile, has partnered with ABC News for its Inauguration Control Room, which promises not just all day interactive coverage, but commentary from a bunch of unusual pundits, including Buzzfeed’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith, former White House executive chef Walter Schieb and Michael Waldman, a former speechwriter for President Clinton.

Or, if you are so inclined, you can watch the same coverage on ABCNews.com, GoodMorningAmerica.com, on the ABC News mobile app, or on the ABC News YouTube Channel.

YouTube Is Reliable

Speaking of YouTube, while the Google-owned video sharing site has yet to announce its plans for the inauguration stream, it is more than likely a live stream will be available through its Election Hub, or through various partners' individual YouTube channels, which include the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The White House has also set up an Inauguration 2013 channel, and will be streaming here.

As someone who has tried both individual news sites' livestreams as well as YouTube’s, the live stream offered directly on YouTube is by far the most reliable. (YouTube did invest heavily in its livestreaming infrastructure to cover the Olympics, after all.)

NASA will also offer a livestream of the inauguration parade, no doubt highlighting the Mars Curiosity Rover replica that will be rolling along with all the high-school bands and other attractions. NASA will broadcast on Ustream, which served it well during the Curiosity landing.

Photo courtesy of Andrew F. Kazmierski / Shutterstock.com.

Is Google about to make a move to control the distribution of music videos? Well, maybe. 

If YouTube and its corporate owner Google take a stake in music video distributor Vevo, as has been widely reported in the last 24 hours, it would be yet another sign of the tech giant's increasing interest in video content. 

All Things D reports that Google will take a minority stake in Vevo, the source of YouTube's most popular videos. The amount is expected to exceed the $35 million Google invested in Machinima, the videogame and entertainment distribution network, back in May 2012. According to the Guardian, the investment could amount to as much as $67 million.

If it happens, the deal will solidify a shaky, three-year relationship. Vevo is a top traffic driver on YouTube, the largest video site on the Web and second-most-popular video search engine. Vevo, a joint venture between Universal Music, Sony Music and Abu Dhabi Media, threatened to remove its videos from YouTube last July unless Google's YouTube fees were lowered, and even went so far as to pursue publishing arrangements with Viacom's MTV and Facebook.

While YouTube did not respond to requests for comment, the deal would guarantee that Vevo stays put on Google's video service, which should keep the music videos flowing. That's a good thing. No one wants to spend their time watching music videos through Facebook's wonky video player.  

Photo courtesy of YouTube.

Making a living on YouTube is a tough business. It takes real entrepreneurial spirit. Most YouTubers make money wherever they can: from the ads that run on their mostly homemade videos and merchandise (like bobble head dolls).

The big news is that few of the more intrepid YouTubers are making real money by taking their acts beyond of the virtual world and onto physical stages.  And they're actually selling out big concert halls.

The latest case in point: John and Hank Green of the Vlog Brothers' sold-out show at Carnegie Hall last Tuesday night. It drew the kind of crowd that many an indie band would blow up a drummer for. So much so that it caught the attention of the The New York Times. 

Let's hope the Greens possess an "any publicity is good publicity" attitude. The Times described their Carnegie Hall performance as “a goofy variety show” with the “the polish of a really good high school talent night.” (The show, which featured live readings, skits and a few musical numbers, can be viewed here.)

YouTubers In The Real World

John and Hank Green are by no means the first YouTube act to find an audience in the real world. A little more than a year ago, YTF, YouTubers Ryan Higa and six friends - including one American Idol contestant - sold out a concert hall in Hawaii. Higa and company, regularly creating some of YouTube's most popular videos, were given star treatment complete with fawning interviews in the local press, and a “YTF day” declared by the state's governor in honor of the group's show.

Early last year, seven YouTubers including four musicians and popular Web skit writers MeekaKitty, Nanalew and LiveLavaLive, went on a full-blown tour of the United States. I saw their variety show at House of Blues in Chicago, along with a couple hundred or so screaming teens and 20-somethings. Their parents may not get it, but they did.

Photo courtesy of YouTube.

Aaron Swartz was no ordinary man, so it is only fitting that his funeral was as extraordinary he was.

(For more, see The Persecution Of Aaron Swartz.)

Besides the press and speakers and attendees of his funeral - from Internet luminaries like Lawrence Lessig and Tim Berners-Lee and writers like Dan Sinker and Quinn Norton - the service also drew the Highland Park Police Department and some 30-odd fans and members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous. The latter two groups had set up around Highland Park’s Lubavitch Chabad Central Avenue Synagogue to protect mourners from the Westboro Baptist Church, as the religious hate group had threatened to picket Swartz’s funeral. They never showed, perhaps fearing retribution from Anonymous.

Despite the chill, by 9:40am some 100 family, friends and fans - myself included - were already seated in the small synagogue. By a little after 10:00, the room was packed with roughly 350 mourners lining the walls and sitting on the floor.  

Laughter Amidst The Tears

The entire service lasted less than two hours, and while some speakers elicited rueful laughter with amusing tidbits of Swartz's life -  when Quinn Norton suggested he get LASIK eye surgery, for example, Swartz apparently quipped: “no, lasers are supposed to come out of your eyes” -  the mood hovered on the verge of tears.

Two refrains echoed throughout the service: placing the blame of Swartz’s suicide on persecution by the U.S. government, and calling for everyone in attendance continue to fight for the ideals Swartz held dear.

Taren Steinbrickner-Kauffman, Aaron Swartz’s partner of 20 months, opened the service saying, “The night before he died, we shared a grilled cheese sandwich.” She talked about Swartz’s love of cheesy foods and his excitement over the possibility of a $1 trillion coin, before telling attendees that “we must change the world” by fighting for open access and destroying the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act which she said allowed prosecutors to hound Swartz to death.

Wise Beyond His Years

Tim Berners-Lee called Swartz “wise beyond his years” before describing how surprised he was to learn Swartz was only 14 when they first met. Aaron saw “coding as one way to change the world,” said Lee.  “We’ve lost an elder,” he added, before concluding with the hopeful thought that perhaps if we come together and work towards Swartz’s ideals, the world can “compensate for his loss.”

Lawrence Lessig called Swartz “a mentor to elders” and a “wise soul” always asking the question, “How do I make the world a better place?” He joked that the parenthood potion for creating a beautiful and brilliant boy like Swartz was “probably patented,” before breaking down and taking a dig at the Massachusetts prosecutors that he felt drove Swartz to suicide. “Aaron was depressed because God was depressed” said Lessig, who closed his speech with, “All is not okay, but we will make it better” in his name, a reference to an email exchange the two shared years ago.

No Ordinary Waif

Swartz’s defense attorney Elliot Peters, upon meeting his client, was struck by how “small, vulnerable, and waifish” Swartz was, before quickly realizing “this is no ordinary waif.” Peters knew right away Swartz was “something very valuable to protect,” an individual who needed “protection from the government, from stony-faced bureaucrats.” Speaking to Aaron Swartz as if he were alive and in the room, Peters admitted he was disappointed not just in himself  - “my job was to protect you” - but also “disappointed in you because you didn’t give our routine a chance. Protect you we would have.”

He had planned to evoke “the Boston Harbor” and early American revolutionaries in his closing statement at Swartz’s trial, and was confident the verdict would be favorable. “I am disappointed I won’t feel your arms around my neck” in celebratory thanks “when they read 13 not guilty verdicts,” said Peters.

A Father's Love

Perhaps even more moving than Peters' statements were those from his father Robert Swartz, who wavered when he first stepped in front of the crowd, saying, “I don’t know if I can do this.” Through Robert Swartz, we learned Aaron taught himself to read while other children were in nursery school, a feat which “embarrassed” him at the time, and that Aaron dropped out of both high school and Stanford University in his first years to pursue other agenda, like building Reddit.   

“How is it that Aaron did something that wasn’t illegal and was destroyed for it,” yet Zuckerberg is “idolized” and “Wall Street bankers” who ruined our economy “dine at the White House,” wondered Robert Swartz, who went on to describe Aaron Swartz’s characterization as a “malicious hacker” by the U.S. government as “false.”  

“Why are you destroying my son,” he asked through tears, adding his son “was killed by the government, and MIT betrayed all its basic principles... He could have done so much more and now he is dead.” He closed by saying, “We must never stop” trying to make the world a better place.

The Best Way To Honor Aaron Swartz's Memory

Aaron Swartz may have already done that, and not just by others taking up his cause of open access and an uncensored Internet. Just a few days before his suicide, JSTOR opened its electronic doors to offer free but limited access to its database of academic articles, most likely in part because of Swartz's act of protest in 2011.    

Upon leaving the service, I ran into an Occupy Wall Street organizer and admirer of Aaron Swartz: the 50-year-old IT consultant Padraig O’Hara. "I believe the State murdered Aaron Swartz," said O'Hara, who went on to add the "last democratic thing we have is a free, open Internet," which is why he has made it his mission to follow Swartz's footsteps and "help social transformation" through Internet activism. 

A worthy goal for anyone who wants to honor Aaron Swartz's memory.

Image by Fruzsina Eördögh.

Top YouTuber Ray William Johnson has been dethroned as the most popular YouTuber by Smosh, the manic comedy duo comprised of Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla.  It took 6.8 million subscribers grab the crown, which Smosh achieved over the weekend.

Skewing Younger!

The secret to Smosh's success? Make content for viewers under 18. 

Like every YouTube act that has owned the coveted #1 spot, Smosh's YouTube content is decidedly aimed at a younger teen and tween audience. 

Johnson, who riffs jokes on viral videos pre-Tosh.0 and also runs the popular animated channel Your Favorite Martian, has held the title of most-subscribed YouTuber since June 28, 2011.  Johnson’s content is less teen friendly than that of Smosh or Asian vlogger Ryan Higa (Higa held the top YouTube spot before Johnson) but his audience is still decidedly underage.  

Reclaiming Their Throne

Smosh’s ascent to the top is actually a reclaiming of the throne -  the duo held the #1 spot back in 2006, before YouTube became the do-it-yourself micro-Hollywood it is today.

“[C]ongrats to SMOSH for being #1 on youtube” tweeted longtime YouTuber Shane Dawson over the weekend. “[T]hey prove that being a youtuber doesn’t mean you have a short shelf life & thats very inspiring!"

Besides their signature channel Smosh, which averages 4 million views per video (be it a skit or them joking while driving), the 25-year-old Hecox and Padilla operate seven other YouTube channels including the insanely fast-growing Smosh Games (focused on - you guess it - video games), the news and entertainment show SmoshPit Weekly, El Smosh, which is SmoshPit Weekly in Spanish, and Shut Up! Cartoons, which was partially funded by Google as part of its original content initiative. The duo even has their own bobble-head dolls - so you know they must be big time.

Padilla began building Smosh'a new-media empire back in 2002 with the creation of Smosh.com, a Huffington Post-style aggregator of funny Internet stuff. The first video featuring the duo hit YouTube in 2005 and happened to be a lip dub of the Pokemon theme song Gotta Catch ‘Em All. It went viral, with 24 million views (which was huge in 2005) before it was removed for “copyright infringement.”

It's All About The Underwear

Part of Padilla and Hecox’s long standing success on YouTube - besides making content for minors - is heavily related to how they pander to young teen girls, aka fangirls. (Higa and Shane Dawson also appeal to this demographic.) The YouTube community often reacts negatively to women and girls who flaunt their sex appeal, but seems to approve of men dancing around topless in their briefs.

At last year’s unofficial YouTuber's conference - VidCon - Padilla and Hecox’s booth featured them in their underwear. The crowd of girls they attracted was in serious danger of hyperventilating. 

Despite corporate YouTube’s best efforts, viewers under 18 still rule the video-sharing site, relying on it not just for entertainment and music, but for news as well.  Hence, Smosh's dominance.  

Smosh was acquired by new media network Alloy Digital in 2011.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

What do you do if your teenage daughter is addicted to videogames and Internet porn? For one South Korea family, the answer is to enroll your daughter in a horse riding therapy program. And by all accounts, it did the trick.

Horse Therapy

I guess that’s one way to sublimate your daughter’s budding sexual desires. Reports Reuters:

Four months ago, the parents of a teenage South Korean girl were at their wits' end over her addiction to surfing the Internet for pornography.

Kim's parents tried art, music therapy and persistent nagging to try and stem their daughter's addiction.

When none of these worked, her school suggested the Riding Healing Center, a therapy organisation that uses horse-riding to cure emotional and behavioral disorders, which it believes are an underlying cause of internet addiction.

And the equine therapy worked! Kim used to send seven hours or more on her computer, but now her mother says she “barely goes on the Internet,” and when she does, “she makes a promise to me first about how long she will play on the computer.”

Fun With A Living Thing

Yoosook Joung, a Doctor of child psychiatry at Samsung Medical Centre, explained to Sky News the horse riding worked not just because it is "a very fun" physical activity, but also incorporates "a living thing" which ends up forging an "emotional connection" that can "help overcome Internet addiction."  

It is unclear if giving dogs and cats to those suffering from Internet addiction, which Korean government data estimates affects 680,000 children (or 10% of the total population under 19), would work as well as horses.

Besides this horse therapy program, which plans on building 30 additional facilities by 2022 to meet "rising demand," South Koreans have used anti-depressants as treatment for Starcraft 2 videogame addicts, and specifically for minors, instated a "Shutdown Law" that prevents anyone under the age of 16 from playing on the Internet past midnight. This Shutdown Law, however, is easily circumvented by teens like Kim who admitted to playing on the Internet all night long whenever her parents were away by using their accounts instead of hers.

Internet Addiction Is A Worldwide Problem

South Korea isn't the only Asian nation restricting minors' use of the Internet; Thailand banned the use of cyber cafes for minors from 10pm to 2pm in 2006, and the Philippines did something similar way back in 1999. The popularity of cyber cafes has waned given the accessibility of personal computers and smartphones, but the appeal of the Internet has not.      

Internet addiction is a buzzword in the United States as well, but a simpler solution - compared to giving everyone horses, anti-depressants or banning Internet usage at certain times for minors - would be education about the effects of being on the Internet for, say, seven or more hours a day.

Basically, the idea is that there is more to life than the Internet (gasp).  Dancing therapy, for instance, is successfully combating Internet addiction in teen males in China. 

Image courtesy of Lana K/Shutterstock.

Kids will be kids, it seems. And these days, that apparently means perpetuating hoaxes on Twitter and joking about cutting themselves on social media. The hashtag #cutforbieber that trended globally on Monday is just one more sign of boredom and ennui in the digital age.

First things first: No teen girl has actually cut themselves in an attempt to get Justin Bieber to stop smoking marijuana after photographs of him smoking a joint at a party were heavily circulated over the weekend. It was all a big, fat hoax - except for the part about Bieber getting high.

Anatomy Of A Prank

The hashtag, created by Internet pranksters, was concocted on early Monday morning on 4chan’s /b/, a forum whose users are typically characterized as male teens.

“Tweet a bunch of pics of people cutting themselves and claim we did it because bieber was smoking weed” wrote the Anonymous user (link NSFW) who started the hoax. "See if we can get some little girls to cut themselves."

Members of the forum then discussed ways to make their newly created Twitter accounts appear authentic, which included suggestions to follow each other and Justin Bieber, how to write like a teenage girl, as well as what photos to use: Don’t use old photos that "are clearly recycled... use something you have saved off here... and goog[le] reverse search it to make sure."

The stage was set, and the Twitter-o-sphere, full of actual female Bieber fans that regularly trend Justin Bieber-related hashtags, ate it up. The hashtag #cutforbeiber began trending globally around 3pm Eastern Time, reports the Daily Dot, and was still trending by early morning Tuesday. By early Monday evening, the notorious trolling group GNAA had claimed responsibility for the prank, but that didn’t stop the hashtag from spreading to Tumblr.

By 2am, #cutforbieber had been mentioned more than 350,000 times, according to Twitter analytics site Topsy (below), and various YouTube celebrities had vlogged about the trend.

The three most popular photos of young women’s arms cut by razors or knives (link NSFW) currently circulating are in fact fake, initially spread from the Twitter accounts belonging to Internet pranksters. All other photos circulating either originated in the 4chan thread listed above, associated with Twitter accounts listed in the 4chan thread or are from known Twitter pranksters. (The forum users appear to like the name "Amanda," possibly a twisted reference to Amanda Todd, the British Columbia teen who committed suicide in October 2012) Another giveaway the Twitter accounts are fake - besides obvious signs like being recently created and using pictures and following users listed in the 4chan thread - some of the fake accounts also follow the content aggregator site 9GAG, the archnemesis of 4chan (and Reddit).

As for the global reach of the trend, a majority of young people not associated with 4chan used the hashtag to remark on how confused or concerned they were or how stupid they found the hashtag, believing their young peers were actually cutting themselves. Others filled the hashtag with photos of themselves mocking the trend by either threatening to cut their hair or their pets, cutting paper, smearing ketchup on their arms or cutting marijuana plants. All the teens and young 20-somethings mocking the trend then stirred Twitter outrage among concerned users who then furthered the longevity of the hashtag well into the night.

The End Results

The young trolls set out make fools out of "Beliebers" by getting a teen girl to actually cut herself, but said teen girl never materialized. Thankfully, no one was that stupid, though this isn't the first time the group has attempted to bait Bieber fans. 4chan’s /b/ recently tried to get Beliebers to shave their heads with a Bieber cancer hoax, but no teen girl believed that hoax, either. It seems teen girls are not as gullible as 4chan believes.

Both 4chan’s /b/ and Beliebers have been called the scum of the Internet, with both communities stereotyped as composed primarily of minors - 4chan being predominantly male, Beliebers female. The days of teasing or pulling the hair of the girl you like have transformed into today's digital shenanigans.

No doubt one day members of both groups will grow up and find each other through online dating sites like OK Cupid. Until then, it looks like the rest of the Internet will have to put up with their underaged idiocy, be it in the form of pranks, worldwide trending hashtags about Bieber, or in this case, the unpleasant combination of both. 

Image courtesy of Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.

Oh, the horror! Google is so evil it's making everyone use its stupid social network.

As the Wall Street Journal pointed out earlier this week, Google+, the social network all about the circles, is now inescapable.  Besides Google employees being forced to use it (and now bitching about using it to the Journal), YouTubers, companies, restaurant reviewers - anyone, really, that wants to maintain a presence on the Internet - has to use Google+ in some capacity. Heck, anyone who signs up for Gmail gets connected to Google+.

And because it is so inescapable - we’re not going to stop using Google products any time soon -  it’s about time digital citizens bucked up and learned to accept Google+ and all of its weird Circle-y, ad-free ways.

After all, there are some benefits to using Google+. Besides being ad-free, Google promises to never sell your individual Google+ information to advertisers, and by using Google+ you make the ads we all see across other Google properties better. (At least that's what Google claims.) So, yes, we have to put up with email integration and having to sign into the service to write restaurant reviews, but that doesn't mean using Google+ has to be all doom and gloom.

YouTube Leads The Way

Perhaps we should take our cues from YouTube, the video-sharing mega-site and community that was the first Google property to begin Google+ integration in late 2011. Sure, users kicked and screamed via online protestations just like all the other Google service users are doing today, but it seems that after all the fuss, many YouTube users actually kind of like Google+.

Jamie Spicer-Lewis, a young up-and-coming cartoonist on YouTube with more than 24 million views of his works, doesn’t like that he has to enter his Gmail address instead of his username to get into his YouTube account, but “other than that it seems functional and useful.”

Spicer-Lewis doesn’t actually use Google+, though, except for Google Hangouts "with my mother because she has a ChromeBook and can’t get Skype." 

Artist, teacher and YouTuber Merrill Kazanjian thinks Google+, particularly Google Hangouts, is "historic." Kazanjian says he has held several  Google Hangouts on his YouTube channel and some of them have received "more than 2,000 comments from artists from all around the world." 

"The impressionists had cafes in Paris," writes Kazanjian, and "YouTube artists have Google+ Hangouts."

Cameron Magruder, a sports vlogger (video blogger) and winner of YouTube’s Next Vlogger competition in 2012, thinks Google Hangouts will be "a major player in the next 3-5 years especially within colleges and universities."

Magruder actually likes using Google+, and writes that it reminds him of “Twitter when it first started” because "none of your friends are on it so you have to seek out conversations." With fewer people involved, Magruder writes, he is more attentive to the people he is following so he can respond to everyone. "I expect it to change in the coming years... especially as Facebook ramps up on more ads," adds Magruder. (And as more people give up fighting Google+ integration, no doubt.)

Gaining More Visibility

The most obvious reason YouTubers are using Google+ is, of course, the fact that their profiles now show up on the top right hand side of the screen.  "Google shows no signs of changing course and from a user perspective there are a lot of upsides to integration," writes Michael X, the founder of YouTube analytics site VidStatsX, such "as better discovery and promotional opportunities."

Better "discoverability" and promotional opportunities equates to what shows up first in Google search: a YouTube user's Google+ profile. Companies and anyone living online would be wise to do this, too. Why waste first-class advertising space, after all?  

Michael X admitted in an interview that he strongly dislikes Google+, but adds that given how forcefully Google is making everyone use the service, "it's best just to give it time and make the best of the integration."

So take a hint from the YouTube community and stop with all the complaining. Embrace Google's wacky social network already. There is nothing you can do about it, anyway. 

Oh, and if you need more inspriation, check out this Queen parody about Google+: 

Back in October, 26-year old British artist and taxidermist Adele Morse sold her badly mangled fox on eBay for 330 pounds ($536, or 16,000 Russian rubles). The fox died of natural causes, and the job wasn't perfect... but he has character, Morse wrote in the eBay post, complete with multiple photographs of the failed attempt. 

Soon after, Morse found her inbox flooded with messages from Russia. Her old side project had become an Internet celebrity and meme almost over night, now known as the "drug-addicted (or Stoned) Fox."

As the Russian news broadcast below explains, the Stoned Fox has ripped the Russian Internet (specifically the Russian social network RuNet) apart, with the newspaper Metro even declaring it the winner of the Internet in 2012. 

Besides the hundreds of Photoshopped photos now populating the Russian Internet, Stoned Fox has made his way to YouTube, where he rides the properly taxidermied Cat Copter, the pixelated poptart kitty known as Nyan Cat, or barks like a dog barking like a chicken. 

Even the press secretary for Russian politician Alexei Navalny, Anna Veduta, is a fan of the Stoned Fox, as a photo of her wearing it on a t-shirt caused a mini-press scandal in late November.  

Months later, students at Moscow State University are now raising money to fly Morse to Moscow as well as buy the original Stoned Fox for a Stoned Fox meme exhibit in the Center for Contemporary Art "Winery" wing in 2013.  So far, students have raised 25,000 rubles for the project, which has gained national interest.

 Meanwhile, the buyer of the actual Stoned Fox is now asking for 40,000 rubles ($1,326) - which is a bargain considering some are calling the Stoned Fox a national treasure.      

2012 saw a lot of great new web series from surprising new sources. For what seemed like the first time, tech companies invested big money - and pulled big names -  into original online video programming.

In this digital programming horse race there was one clear, seemingly from left field, winner:  Yahoo. Specifically Yahoo! Screen, the company’s version of Google’s original programming initiative.

Yahoo! Screen’s web series had high production values, famous names and compelling, relevant writing. In an interview with USA Today back in July, Vice President and Head of Video for Yahoo Erin McPherson called the digital projects “online digital blockbusters.”

The “online digital blockbusters” however, failed to get the same marketing push most Hollywood blockbuster movies receive, so chances are you've probably never heard of them. This is not a problem unique to Yahoo; YouTube, Hulu and Crackle have also all failed to get the word out on their great web shows. (It is also possible one factor limiting the spread of Yahoo's original programming is the inability to embed their videos anywhere.) Regardless, this list is the best of the best, the true hidden gems of Internet content.  

Electric City (Yahoo Screen)

Created by Tom Hanks, who also stars as the leading man (and deadly assassin), this animated post-apocalyptic sci-fi series is thoroughly entertaining and ambitious.  Like most web series these days, there was also an interactive component, and like modern society, everyone is obsessed with electricity - except in this world, it is scarce. Also, the series is not really for little kids: Hank's character snaps a criminal's neck in the first episode, after said criminal beat his wife.  Nominated for a 2012 Streamy Award as "Best Animated Series."  

Cybergeddon (Yahoo Screen)

Anthony E. Zuiker, the same guy who created the hit TV show CSI, has tried his hand at a web series, and it's good. Cybergeddon is a pertinent, fast and fun cyber-terrorism thriller the New York Times called "better than your average TV-movie."  (I'd say it is way better.) The series is again not for children, and is a sly advert for Norton Internet Security. Nominated for four 2012 Streamy Awards; Best Male and Female Performance in a Drama, Best Ensemble Cast and Best Branded Entertainment series. 

Burning Love (Yahoo Screen)

Ken Marino stars in this "Bachelor" parody, meaning he lives in a house with a bunch of women and tries to narrow down who his contractually obligated bride will be based on superficial - sometimes absurd- criteria. The series was just signed for a second and third season, so you know it found an audience, despite Yahoo's marketing shortcomings. Not for kids. Nominated for five Streamy Awards, including Best Male and Female Performance, Best Ensemble Cast and Best Comedy.

Battleground (Hulu)

Hulu's first foray into scripted television is a mockumentary, in the style of The Office, about a dark horse political campaign for a Democrat in Wisconsin with a corrupt past. The comparisons to The Office stop there, however, and the film crew actually plays a pivotal role in the series by driving a major plot point. Not for kids, either. Nominated for two Streamy Awards, for Best Male and Female Performance in a Drama. 

Video Game High School (YouTube)

Created by Freddie Wong and Co (Rocket Jump), this web series was actually not part of Google's original programming initiative - with Wong raising funds successfully through Kickstarter. The series is a first for the seemingly self-taught film-maker, and comes close to being a romantic comedy. The action-packed series takes place in an alternative reality where video games are treated as a mainstream sport complete with TV commentators, and students are recruited to top schools based off their gaming skills. (So yes, this series is for a younger crowd.) Nominated for two Streamy Awards; Best Ensemble Cast and Best Production Design. 

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (YouTube)

This re-adaption of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has gotten favorable reviews from outlets like Wired, Gigaom and USA Today and the cast was a hit at last year's VidCon, but the series has struggled to break more than a million views on its first episode. (The series is rather niche in its appeal, after all.) Cast members also behave like real Internet citizens, with their own Tumblr, Lookbook and Twitter accounts, giving the audience that transmedia interactive experience that is so hot right now.  Created by Hank Green and Bernie Su, the duo hasn't ruled out adapting other classics for YouTube in the future. Nominated for five Streamy Awards including Best Writing; Comedy and Best Interactive Program.

Seven Minutes in Heaven (Yahoo Screen)/Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (Crackle)

Both series are interview shows; SNL writer Mike O'Brien interviews various celebrities in a small closet and then tries to kiss them leading to a hilariously awkward exchange, and Jerry Seinfeld drives around in classic or unusual cars interviewing various comedians on a coffee run.  

Geek and Sundry/Nerdist (YouTube)

Both Felicia Day (Geek and Sundry) and Chris Hardwick (Nerdist) were funding recipients in  Google's original content investment, and the King and Queen of geek culture have diversified their channels offerings to include something for well, every nerd. Both Geek and Sundry and Nerdist offer a variety of shows for every day of the week: Geek and Sundry has Day vlogging on Monday and Space Janitors on Tuesday for example, while Hardwick has shows like All Star Celebrity Bowling, Neil Patrick Harris' Puppet Dreams and Star Talk with Neil Degrasse Tyson.   

MyMusic (YouTube)

This quirky mockumentary about the music industry was created by YouTube community favorites the Fine Brothers, and features a heavy set of Internet celebrities as well as pop culture and Internet references  - one character is based off 4chan phenom Boxxy, for instance - and has a bit of a Portlandia feel. The show also has various components including a regular music news component, and all characters have associated online Twitter profiles much in the way of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Nominated for nine Streamy Awards, including Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Comedy Series.

Lead image courtesy of YouTube.

T’is the end of the year and all across YouTube, videos - primarily music- are being scrubbed clean of fraudulent views. Except one set of channels. VEVO, the one with a special partnership with YouTube, has remained untouched. Obvious VEVO power-play much, YouTube?

YouTube has long had issues with botting - the practice of paying for fake views, much in the same way people buy fake Facebook likes or fake Twitter followers. In a bold move before the Christmas holiday, the Google-owned site stripped billions of views from the channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and RCA Records. Hundreds of examples of music-related content were removed as well.  

Tallying Up The Fake Views

The music channel with the most fraudulent views removed was Universal Music Group, with the tally coming out to just over 1 billion (1,015,813,000), according to third-party analytics site SocialBlade. Sony BMG lost a little over 850 million views, while the RCA channel dropped 159 million.

As first reported by the Daily Dot, this year-end cleaning of fake views also hit hundreds of other non-musical YouTubers, which led many to wonder in related Google forums whether this was the work of a bug. In a forum post, YouTube confirmed users had violated the Terms of Service item 4 section H, which states: “You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots."

YouTube did not respond to the Daily Dot’s requests for comment on the removal of views and videos from Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and RCA Records, nor did they respond to ReadWrite’s. Tech blog Tom’s Guide however, got a confirmation from Google that the music channels had indeed violated the ToS. 

Claims Of Bias

Netherlands-based web celebrity and gamer Athene Wins - who is a bit of a YouTube watchdog - called the take-down of fake views from certain channels “biased”  in a vlog addressing Daily Dot’s article, given that he believes botting has also occurred on VEVO channels.  

“They’re just making sure all big labels and artists are forced to go with VEVO,” says Athene Wins, who points out Chris Brown and Britney Spears VEVO channels were untouched as far as the removal of botted views.  

“Don’t tell me that you are going to be botting views for Chris Brown TV” but you “stop botting” at Chris Brown’s VEVO,” he added.

The removal of botted views on only certain music channels does look suspicious, but the comment the Daily Dot received from Universal confirmed they have been focusing on pushing content into their VEVO channel, instead of their original YouTube channel. VEVO, after all, charges very high ad rates.  

It is also possible that the millions of fake views on Universal Music Group, Sony BMG and RCA Records was done to make channels appear more popular than they were, since they were created in 2006, before the music video conglomerate VEVO (which includes Universal, Sony BMG and RCA Records talent) launched in 2009. Reddit, for example, relied on fake users to make the site appear more popular than it was, when it first started out.  

YouTube's funneling music into one central distributing network, VEVO, also makes sense for simplicity, as all music on the site can then be under one umbrella. This re-organizing of music content also means VEVO is staying on YouTube; back in July VEVO threatened to leave the Google-owned video sharing site unless they lowered their fees.

Keeping the botted views on VEVO (if they do in fact, exist), then, makes sense from a business investment standpoint. Inflating the VEVO traffic keeps a nice justification going for those VEVO channels' high ad rates, all the better for everyone's bottom line.

It’s Christmas Day and amidst the running tots and stress-inducing in-laws, you sneak away for a few moments to... well, check up on work. Nothing too extensive, probably: You draft a few emails, check the progress of some projects and maybe send a few text messages

It used to be that unless there was an emergency or you worked at certain kinds of jobs - at an airline perhaps, or a Chinese restaurant - big holidays like Christmas meant you were off the hook for work. But in today's 24 x 7, always-connected world, many digital workers can't seem to tear themselves away from work even for one day. Whether or not they're really needed.

I am guilty of this very pathology, and odds are, you are too. 

Who Was Working?

I put the question of working on Christmas to Twitter, and found plenty of kindred spirits - especially among writers. LA Weekly Web editor Jake Swearingen wrote “[b]ecause dipping Internet traffic means you gotta hustle up PVs [page views] even more than usual.”

Declan Skews, a writer in the UK, tweeted some truth about our 24-hour news cycle: “The flow of information never stops. It's easy to fall behind if I don't read a lot everyday (and write at least a little bit).”  

Fredric Paul, ReadWrite's own managing editor, admitted to checking his email, and so did Jenn Sheppard, the publisher at the nonprofit Florida Trail Riders. Sarah Bennett, who runs the hyperlocal news site Long Beach Post, wrote that if she doesn't check her email and "write the stories, no one will!"  

It isn't just writer types: Alex Clote, the co-founder of Cloze, a start-up filtering your electronic communications, wrote he "carved out an hour to catch up after Santa came" because "even on a holiday there are responsibilities."

What Were They Doing?

Working on the holidays has become so common, business intranet service Bitrix24 found 17% of its users (which service employees from companies from like Xerox and Toshiba to Volkswagen and Vogue Magazine) checked in or did some light work on Christmas Day (and 12% did so on Christmas Eve).

According to Bitrix24, holiday working tasks broke down this way: 47% sent instant messages, 11% shared documents and 9% engaged in “task tracking.” Owners of mobile devices were more active than the average Christmas worker, with Android users beating out iPhone users by a small margin: 21% of Android users clocked in some light Christmas work, compared to 19% of Apple faithful.  

Knowledge workers clocking in over the Holidays were led by North Americans: 22% of users tracked by Bitrix24 were in the United States, 20% in Canada, and 17% of our cultural cousins in the United Kingdom did too. Only 6% of Italians bothered checking their emails.

Why Were They Working?

The big question, of course, is why are so many folks logging in when they're supposed to be logged off?

For some people, the answer is that they had no choice. Something truly had to be done that day. For many others, though, work might be an escape from too much family togetherness. And for various reasons, some workers might not celebrate the day or have anything better to do. But the biggest reason is that it's become so darn easy to work on holidays and other supposed personal time. Given our smartphones and mobile devices, we can work almost anywhere, any time.

For me, as a writer covering the intersection of technology and society, I can’t just shut off that part of my brain just because it is a holiday. Besides, I actually like working, and given the numbers it's clear that many others feel the same way. 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

The latest target for our collective online ridicule:  lonely, sometimes pudgy, men who can't get dates due to their misogynistic tendencies.

Men who have labeled themselves (not ironically) as "nice guys" on an online dating site have unscrupulously been gathered together in a new Tumblr called the "Nice Guys of OK Cupid." These unsuspecting rejects from the online dating site have become the modern day face of sexism and rape-culture, or at the very least, homophobes and men who hate being "friend-zoned,"  - basically, men who are not so nice after all.  

Besides wondering why they can’t get dates after writing most girls they know are "shallow bitches" or "whores" who always fall for "jerks," "douches" and "assholes" instead of them, quite a few of the men answered the OK Cupid question about sexual obligations with "No is really a yes in disguise."

And their sexism is an Internet hit! Well, more like the Tumblr itself, which besides getting thousands of notes on each post has now been covered by everyone from New York Magazine, Huffington Post, Gawker’s Jezebel, and even the New Statesman. As Laurie Penny postulated on New Statesman, these men’s "worst nightmares have come true: all over the world, ladies who don't even know him are laughing at him."

Nicely Shaming Nice Guys

As far as public shaming goes - a trend that has become quite fashionable these days - Nice Guys of OK Cupid is pretty tame: the real names of the men are not listed, nor are their addresses. (So no one is harassing them on their Twitter or Facebook or prank calling them - yet.)

Unlike other instances of public shaming, the aim of this project is not clear either;  people upset by Lindsey Stone’s middle-finger photo wanted her fired (and set on fire), Gawker wanted school officials to know about teens racist online postings, and Hello There, Racists! wanted racists to be humiliated -  but what does Nice Guys of OK Cupid want?

To humiliate these men, or warn women browsing OK Cupid to stay away from them? While the former seems more likely, humiliating these men will not help them change their behavior, or even help them understand why their behavior needs to be changed in the first place.

"There has to be an answer to these guys that isn’t just pointing and laughing... Are we ever going to be able to have a conversation about consent, about respect, about fucking, and maybe even about love, that doesn’t descend into bullying and invective?," Penny wrote. 

Probably not.

The Old Internet Story

The Internet has been harassing people for various reasons since its first public inception, and making the leap that Internet has enabled bullying through pseudonyms is not a far-fetched claim.  Cyberbullying, or public shaming, can sometimes be referred to as Internet vigilantism, which gained considerable momentum on 4chan’s /b/, the same message board that spawning the online activist collective Anonymous. This form of online ridicule has moved beyond the confines of 4chan’s /b/ - sometimes referred to as "the asshole of the Internet" - and is now mainstream with writers like Buzzfeed’s Matt Buchanan who argue public shaming is okay so we can exact "moral rectitude" - whatever that means -  on sexists and racists. We are all qualified to be judge, jury and executioner, apparently. 

If the Internet is indeed getting nicer as Nathan Heller theorized last month in New York Magazine, why is public shaming now so mainstream? In a prior interview, the online troll and writer Jon Hendren speculated the rising trend of outlets shaming online deviants has legitimized the practice for readers and casual Internet users. Think: If the media is going after sexists, racists, and sexual deviants, we can too.

The coverage Nice Guys of OK Cupid received - a Tumblr which we can all agree makes fun of low-hanging Internet fruit without offering much context - would certainly make its author feel validated.  But how many cycles of shame will it take before we all get the clue about glass houses?