Big time Oprah fan MG Siegler on TechCrunch noticed that Oprah will start twittering today (being Friday). He puts it together with Evan Williams’ tweet yesterday and the fact that Ashton “1 Million Followers” Kutcher is her guest. She’ll most likely send her first tweet on the air, and then the failwhale will haunt us for some time, probably. After all, Oprah tends to have some people watching, so expect a huge signup rate the coming days.

Facebook plays democracy and lets you vote on the new terms of service, after the debacle some time ago. A good move, but do you really have that much of a choice?

You will have two options on the ballot, as shown below: 1) the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), which incorporate feedback from users and experts received during the 30-day comment period, or 2) the current Terms of Use, which were developed by Facebook and did not go through an outside comment period.

The vote is open until April 23, 11:59 am PDT. Read more in Mark Zuckerberg’s blog post and on Techmeme of course. read more

Committee to Protect Bloggers reports that TinyURL has been blocked in Saudi Arabia. The URL shortener service is not the only option out there for your shortened URLs, but it is the default one for Twitter, so if you want to reach the Saudi followers you’d better use another service. I should also link the Facebook group that wants TinyURL unblocked, but I doubt it’ll do any good, at least not with a mere 19 members.

Over at the Philippine blogosphere, a certain John Candare has been labeled as a “serial cat killer” with his post on his Multiply site (in the PH, Multiply is one of the more popular social networks in conjunction with Facebook and Friendster). The original post was deleted, but for posterity’s sake, Rico from Technogra has found the cached version:

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All the news and personalities that we see using Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace makes us think that everyone is into it. The Harris Poll, however, revealed that half of Americans (51%) do not use Twitter or have a MySpace or facebook account. Just under half (48%) of adults have either a MySpace or Facebook page with 16% of adults updating their page at least once a day. Only 5% of Americans are currently using Twitter.

The nationwide survey of 2,220 U.S. adults surveyed online between March 31 and April 1, 2009 by Harris Interactive also revealed that:

• Three-quarters of those aged 18-34 years old (74%) have a Facebook or MySpace account but this quickly drops off the older one gets. Just one-quarter (24%) of those 55 and older have an account;
• Tweeting is also slightly more prevalent among the young, but not by much; 8% of 18-34 year olds use Twitter, 7% of those 35-44 use it, 4% of those aged 45-54 and just 1% of those 55 and older;
• While men and women use Twitter at the same levels (5% each), women are more likely to have a Facebook or MySpace account (52% versus 45%); and,
• There is also an educational difference in usage of social networking sites. Two in five people with a high school degree or less (40%) have a Facebook or MySpace account compared to 55% of those with some college and 52% of those with at least a college degree.

Google has announced that several new features have been added to the Blogger Dashboard to make it easier to post blog entries from mobile devices.

At least for users in the US, the mobile service supports SMS, MMS and email posting from a registered mobile phone. It’s also possible to set up a new blog from the phone.

Of course, some advanced mobile phones (such as the iPhone) make it easy enough to add to Blogger using the standard web interface, but it’s useful to have alternative ways of getting content onto a blog while on the move, and even on smartphones, sending a text or email can be quicker and less fiddly than using the built-in web browser.

Blogger Buzz

I love this story, it is so incredibly “publishing 2.0″ and “blogosphere spirit” to me. A bunch of laid off journalists from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a now online-online publication, have started a non-profit online news site called Seattle PostGlobe. This from the Seattle Times story:

Seattlepostglobe.org has little money — about $3,000, with another $3,000 pledged. “We’re working as volunteers now,” Murakami said.

The site expects to rely to a great extent on reader donations. Murakami said the goal is to get 8,000 people to pledge $10 a month to help pay full-time, part-time or freelance staff.

Ads will also help, of course.

As you can see, Seattle PostGlobe is a pretty straight-forward, bloggish and everything. Just the way we like it.

This is interesting. The Daily Kos looked at where their stories originated (both primary and secondary sources), and found that newspapers were the main most common source. Not very surprising given the type of blog The Daily Kos is, but still.

Newspapers: 102 primary, 21 secondary
Blogs: 83 primary, 19 secondary
Advocacy organizations: 77 primary, 9 secondary
Television network: 69 primary, 14 secondary
Online news organizations: 54 primary, 5 secondary
Magazines and journals: 36 primary
Political trade press: 28 primary
Research/polling: 20 primary
Wikipedia: 21 primary, 8 secondary
Educational (.edu): 15 primary
Government: 14 primary, 5 secondary
Campaigns: 13 primary
Books: 6 primary
AP and other Wire: 5 secondary
Radio: 4 primary

Read the full thing, with something of an analysis, and take to heart if you will.

Twitter is fast becoming a place where you can let your fictional characters (and brands) come to life, with minimal effort should be noted. The latest to join in is Shamu, the killer whale of SeaWorld fame.

Bio I live at SeaWorld. I’m a large, athletic, black and white marine mammal. I’m not THE star of SeaWorld, I’m A star of SeaWorld

Follow @RealShamu if you like. Personally, I think the concept is more interesting than the tweets this time around.

In my article, “What Changes Your Mind About Leaving a Blog Comment,” I talked about some of the issues around debating where and when to leave a blog comment on a blog that hosts information or opinions you don’t support, or is filled with blog clutter, a clue that something isn’t right. About how your comment may be seen to support the blog, and impact your reputation by association.

As I wrote that post, I looked back over all the WTF Blog Clutter articles in the series and realized that many of these issues are ones that impact my willingness to comment on a blog. Sure, they impact my ability to even read the blog, let alone return and tell others, but they also impact my willingness to endorse a blog with a comment.

I started thinking about all the blatant, subjective, and even unconscious reasons that prevent me from leaving a comment on a blog. Here are some of my self-discoveries, most of them associated with various aspects of blog clutter. I’m sure you have more you can add, but these are big clues that this is a blog that doesn’t deserve my participation. read more