As many of you already realize, there’s more to advertising your site, brand, or genuinely “hilarious” YouTube video than just posting a note on Digg. No, if you want your media project of the future to be a true success, you’ll have to do more than hang out at social hot spots. Mastering the basics (and possibly the intermediate level) of search engine optimization is always a good thing to do. Making sure that you understand the “ins and outs” of various browsers, hardware platforms, and programming languages doesn’t hurt, either. Still, there is even more that you could be doing to draw new faces to your site. And what is this magic fix that I speak of? Viral advertising.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Is he crazy? I can’t pull that off! It’s too expensive and time consuming!” Now before you call the nice young men in the clean, white coats to take me away, hear me out. Not everyone who sets up a viral campaign is trying to pull off a J.J. Abrams style Alternate Reality Game or is trying to sell a badly put together ring tone to teenagers. In reality, most viral marketing campaigns are rather small, low-key affairs that deliver their pitch to prospective users with a minimal amount of trouble or annoyance. Simply put, it’s targeted advertising done right.

To prove the ease that I speak of, we will engage in our own campaign. Yes, that’s right. The Free Line is going viral. At the present moment, our campaign will rely heavily on SMSDelivery, a handy little service that allows us to create text message campaigns for free. Everything we do — our successes, our failures, and so on — will be reported here. Before we call it a day, allow me to answer a few questions.

So … which plan are you going for: free or paid? – Free, of course. We wouldn’t be able to call ourselves the Free Line if we actually paid for things like this. It’s against the rules.

I want to get in on the action. What do I text where? – Our account is still firmly in the “setup” phase right now. According to the official website, it sometimes takes as long as two business days to get things working properly. As soon as we get a number, we will definitely pass it along to you.

…And there you have it. Be sure to come back Monday for part three of “Web Programing for Smart Phones.” Until then, we bid thee adieu.

The search through our “virtual basement” — also known as the wiki — is almost finished. Needless to say, it just gets stranger and stranger from here…

Service #1: Broong

Website: http://www.broong.com/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Office_and_Productivity_Software
Service: Social note taking
First Impression: “I am not familiar with the thing that I’m seeing.”
Ease of Use: N/A — Just type in your email address and your set.
Positives: It’s a community bulletin board that just happens to be online. Broong also has one major advantage over said “message boards” of old: each user gets five gigs of storage space for free. It’s hard to go wrong there.
Negatives: It’s a community bulletin board that just happens to be online.
Overall: 7; “It really is a nice service. It just looks a little odd.”

Service #2: Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG)

Website: http://www.gnupg.org/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Security%2C_Spyware%2C_and_Viruses
Service: Security
First Impression: “Where did it go? I honestly cannot find it on my system.”
Ease of Use: -4; “What’s going on? What is it doing? Why do I have to type a message?”
Positives: Well … it probably is a really, really powerful privacy protector. Too bad that we could not figure out how to use the darn thing. We may or may not have to compile it ourselves.
Negatives: This is honestly the most difficult, most cryptic program that we have attempted to run in Windows. Case in point: once we finally found the root GnuPG file, it told us to “type a message.” We still have no idea what that means.
Overall: N/A, as we didn’t have a chance to do anything of merit.

Service #3: Websnpr

Website: http://www.websnapr.com/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Web_Apps
Service: Online screen capture
First Impression: “Aww … that’s cute. It’s tiny!”
Ease of Use: N/A; All you have to do is type in a web address. The actual service does the rest.
Positives: It’s different.
Negatives: We are still trying to figure out what purpose this application serves. Who out there would exactly want a small little “snapshot” of their favorite website, anyway? Wouldn’t it be more productive to actually, you know, go to the website in question?
Overall: 6; “It’s a well put together program. We just do not see the point.”

Service #4: MixedInk

Website: http://mixedink.com/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Social_Media
Service: Collaborative news
First Impression: “What’s with the logo? It looks like the ‘I’ is giving the ‘M’ a back breaker.”
Ease of Use: 8; “Setting up your account is easy. Posting your opinions is even easier.”
Positives: It is incredibly simple to use. It makes the likes of Digg and Reddit look like the Gnu Privacy Guard by comparison.
Negatives: It seems as if most the topics are about politics. While that’s great for political junkies, it’s bound to annoy everyone else within earshot.
Overall: 6

Service #5: Domainr

Website: http://domai.nr/
Wiki Link: http://www.freelinereport.com/wiki/Website_Creation
Service: Domain naming service
First Impression: “There’s a domain search service out there that isn’t ‘WhoIs?’ Neat.”
Ease of Use: 9
Positives: The results given by the service can be very creative at times. A search for the “Free Line Report,” for example, netted us such gems as “freel.in/ereport,” “freeline.re/port,” and “fr.ee/linereport.”
Negatives: …On the other hand, some of the suggestions can be a bit “odd” for daily use.
Overall: 9; “It’s entertaining.”

As we have established before, we live in a society that is growing increasingly dependent on information. When things work the way that they are “supposed” to work, no one complains. When several major “news sources” come up dry and ultimately bring nothing new to the table, however … things seem to break down fairly quickly. It is at this point that we in the blogging community try to make something — anything — interesting and unique. A few days ago, the major tech sites were all abuzz about the Chrome operating system and the surprising success of Bing. Today, on the other hand, the sites were overflowing with stories about several “minor” Twitter updates and a merger of two companies that, quite frankly, no one has ever heard of. If you got lucky, you just might have “stumbled” upon a discussion about Steve Ballmer or the various health issues facing Steve Jobs. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes or Lenny Briscoe to notice that their just might be a problem here.

The obvious solution to this “problem,” of course, is simply to turn off our monitors, put down the keyboards, and wait for something to happen. Be it right or wrong, life does not exactly work in that way anymore. So we fill the void with various media sources, hoping that it will fill the “dead space” of a slow news day. Some watch Brock Lesnar beat poor Frank Mir until he cries on YouTube for the five hundredth time. Others go to TMZ in order see the “forgotten” footage of Michael Jackson’s hair catching fire. Still others figure out a way to watch the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court hopeful Sonja Sotomayor. While all of these activities do give us our “media fix,” they are about as productive as watching paint dry. One can only watch a former professional wrestler insult everyone within earshot, burning hair, or politicians yell at each other for so long before going completely insane. So we decide to go back to work on our pet projects, hoping that one day it — and by extension, we — will become successful enough to be covered the likes of Michael Arrington and Henry Blodgett on a slow news day.

And therein lies what makes this moment in time different than the media controlled dystopia of Max Headroom: power. We are ultimately in control of the content given to us, not some cryptic television network run by Charles Rocket and Jeffery Tambor. The New York Times doesn’t decide what news is “fit to print,” we do. While it’s great to scope out The Drudge Report or Mashable for new things to read and/or learn about, it is more important in our society to “create” that next big idea. So we work on our blogs and fiddle with our various web 2.0 applications, all with the hope that our contributions will turn the “information tide” our way. This is our time, and we will make damn sure that we get every last second out of it. Biz Stone did it. Tim Brenners Lee did it. Now it’s our turn.

…And there you have it. On the behalf of everyone at the Free Line, we sincerely hope that you have enjoyed our three-part series about the future, media, and everything in between. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for more of that web 2.0 news you can use. Until then, we bid thee adieu.

If there is one thing that everyone knows about, it’s advertising. No matter where we look, there always seems to be a thirty-second television spot, billboard, or conveniently placed Coke can within eye shot. While that sort of bombardment does have the tendancy to be annoying at points, it could always be worse. We could be living in the media obsessed dystopia of Max Headroom. In the series, advertising is present in three unique, highly diverse ways. On today’s installment of Twenty Minutes into the Future, we will take a look at three techniques and discuss how each are being used in today’s culture.

Technique #1: The Cheviot Method

Championed By: Ben Cheviot (George Coe), founder and president of Network 23.
Thesis: People first, ads second.
Explanation: According to the “Cheviot Method” of advertising, it is imperative to remember that it isn’t robots and/or lemmings watching these ads. It’s people. If “advertiser A” uses their predetermined ad time to insult the viewer, or if they try to do to much, the viewer is less likely to return. If such behavior keeps up over time, the viewer will simply “give up” and simply stop caring about your product or service. By treating people like people, not only do you get the viewer to care about the product, you make hem more willing to investigate other products or services that have your name on it.
In-Show Result: Network 23 is consistently number one in the ratings.
Real-World Example: Anyone who tows the Free Line concept practices this advertising method.

Technique #2: The Grossberg Method

Championed By: Ned Grossberg (the late Charles Rocket), the president of Network 66 and Cheviot’s mortal enemy.
Thesis: People exists to buy things, so they might as well be buying those things from us.
Explanation: When this particular advertising method is employed, the consumer essentially becomes secondary to the items that are being shown on the screen. Although the company involved might see a initial spike in “audience participation,” the numbers will actually be lower overall. To compensate for this, the advertiser/network is forced to employ a variety of gimmicks in order to coerce people into coming back for more. In the show, these gimmicks ranged from ridiculous (“Watch 66 in your sleep! You can do that now!”) to horrifying (one second long “blipverts” that had a nasty habit of making fat people explode) to the downright bizarre (a reality show about the life and times of super genius infants).
In-Show Result: Grossberg is made to look like a fool on a fairly regular basis; network ratings go down sharply.
Real-World Example: Any company labeled as an “evil corporation” has been accused of using this advertising method at least once in their existence.

Technique #3: The Zik Zak Method

Championed By: A fairly mysterious, multi-national corporation called “Zik Zak.” While it is implied that Zik Zak makes everything from furniture to prescription drugs, the company’s main products are soft drinks and fast food.
Thesis: People?! Who cares about people! Buy our stuff and quit complaining!
Explanation: People who employ this kind of advertising structure simply do not care about anyone or anything other than their product. It really doesn’t matter if people get “inconvenienced” or even find themselves in a sticky situation. They still bought the product. The “in-world” example of this tactic is the NeuralStim, a “free bracelet” that caused people to crave cheeseburgers. In the case of our hero, Edison Carter, the bracelet made him nearly die from overspending.
In-Show Result: The “faulty” bracelets cause Zik Zak to nearly go bankrupt.
Real-World Example: In a fictional TV show, it’s called a “NeuralStim.” In the real word, it’s called “malware.”
Special Note: During my research, I ran across three very different organizations that call themselves “Zik Zak.” Please keep in mind that the comments above only apply to the fictional corporation, not to the these real-life entities.

Our Advice: The “Cheviot Method” is the only way to go. As I said a few days ago. These are your people. Never forget that. Your customers (and everyone else, for that matter) will thank you in the long run.

Anyone who lived through the late 1980’s ought to remember Max Headroom, the hyperactive, pseudo-CGI “head in the box” portrayed by actor Matt Frewer. The Max Headroom character was everywhere in those days, from music videos to ads for Coca-Cola and seemingly everything in between. What many people don’t remember, however, is the science fiction program that bared the character’s name. This was not the lovable, wacky Max that called Cinemax and England’s Channel 4 home. This Max exists in a world where the major television networks are in charge. Because of this, such every day items as the off switch and the mute button are deemed to be illegal. Televisions are everywhere, including bathrooms and junk yards. Simply put, no one could ever escape the grip of the mass media, and the people like it that way.

Working within the confines of this odd, “Network-meets-The Matrix” world is Edison Carter (also portrayed by Matt Frewer), ace reporter for the highly-rated Network 23 and the “basis” for Max Headroom. It is his mission to bring his viewers the truth, no matter the situation. In the show’s fourteen episodes, Emerson and company does everything from thwart a sentient supercomputer to blowing the lid off of a dangerous subliminal advertising scheme run by Bill Maher, using nothing more than quick thinking and a heaping helping of brutal honesty. The viewer, both physically in the show and otherwise, are constantly reminded that the world is a better place thanks to people like Emerson Carter and his “computerized” alter ego. As long as there are people fighting for the truth, there really is nothing to worry about.

In many ways, we are approaching this basic existence, only with a different concept serving as our vice. Instead of thriving on a flashing picture, we are addicted to information. I don’t just mean the “TMZ/Perez Hilton” style celebrity gossip columns. I mean anything. Pick your topic — President Obama, professional wrestling, U2 — and I bet there is someone, somewhere talking, tweeting, or blogging about it at this very moment. We need to know about what is going on, and we need to know it now. Take the recent “best of seven” series between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic for example. Five years ago, we would have had to wait two to three days to hear former Laker Shaquille O’Neal talk about his former team. Thanks to Twitter, we heard it minutes after the Lakers cliched the NBA title. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that this kind of “instant feedback” can become addictive.

Now despite what some might be thinking, things really aren’t all that dire. Our world isn’t based upon the idea of two-way television sets or networks that can make commercials so compact that they make people’s heads literally explode. We’re simply talking about the delivery of information, not a re-creation of 1984. It’s human nature to want to know what is going on around us. Exploiting that desire, on the other hand, is something else entirely. It all comes down to priorities. Those who put more effort into their advertising than their content are more likely to alienate their audiences than the people who put their “product” front and center. By ignoring the very thing that got you into this very situation to begin with, the writer/blogger/YouTube “star” is actually sending a message that your fan base’s mouse click means more than their physical presence. Who cares if the content is good nor not? You clicked the link. It’s your loss.

While it might seem like a good idea now, turning your audience into a group of mind-numbed automatons randomly clicking things will not help you become a success in the long run. The trick, if you want to call it that, is to adopt what I like to call the “Edison Carter” approach to content creation and maintenance. It all breaks down to three basic principles:

1. Your users are more than just a group of random mice clicking a white box. They’re people. Your people. Always keep that in mind when developing your content.
2. Stay genuine to your cause.
3. Stay open to the needs and concerns of your user base.

Do this, and the world just might become a better place. If you don’t, well … let’s just say living in an “off switch-free world” is not anyone’s idea of a good time. Be sure to come back tomorrow for part two of our three part series. Until then, this is Brad Fallon signing off for Network 23 the Free Line.

Throughout the year-plus run of the Free Line, wonderful viewers and readers such as yourself have left little notes of wisdom at the bottom of our posts. While all of these comments have been read and discussed, none of them have really received a proper response. This ends now. On today’s award winning episode, we take a dip into our “comments” section to see what you, the reader, has to say.

Web2.0Confused writes:

“There has been increasing interest in http://a.nnotate.com/ http://www.showdocument.com and http://www.bubbl.us, could you recommend a similar, more ‘classier’ version of this programme? I feel they looks rather childish etc for global businesses.”

That we can. For traditional meetings, we suggest looking into Scriblink. Like GoToMeeting and Zapproved, it makes meeting online a completely painless proposition. Unlike those, however, it’s free. 2Collab is also a nice little “sharing” service, but it’s more geared to academic research than inter-office communication. If you’re looking for something a bit more “inventive” however, it would be in your best interest to check out Adobe Buzzword. For those unaware, Buzzword is an online word processor that allows other users to critique, edit, and touch up your work. It’s not exactly pretty to look at, but then again, it doesn’t have to be. Simply put, Buzzword gets the proverbial job done, and that’s all that matters.

In response to our piece about the popularity of Twitter and Digg, George Zlatin writes:

“Interesting that Twitter is becoming more popular than Digg. It seems like all the social media sites are fads. They all die down after a while. Interestingly enough, Google is still around…and more popular then ever.”

Apples and oranges. Google, like all traditional search engines, is extremely passive. To the average user, it appears to be nothing more than a dozen links on a page. That sort of thing has been around for over fifteen years now, and is not showing any signs of slowing down. Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Digg, are most definitely “active” services. They thrive on human interaction. As with all things of that nature, people are bound to get bored and stop paying attention. The key is to evolve with the times. As you probably realize, this is easier said than done. Just ask the folks at Yahoo. (The once popular Yahoo Chat service has definitely seen better days, for example.) Whether Biz Stone at Twitter and Kevin Rose at Digg can avoid those pitfalls and maintain an interesting, long lasting service remains to be seen.

In response to our Firefox Fest ‘08 article, Anonymous writes:

“I tried to get Niche Watch Tool as well as Personas, but both said they were for older versions, not 3.0.1.”

No problem. Just do the following:

1. type “about:config” into the address bar. Ignore the warning message, as you won’t be doing much editing.
2. Right click. When the menu appears, select “New,” then click on “Boolean.”
3. Type (or paste) “extensions.checkCompatibility” into the text box and press okay.
4. If the default value of your new addition is “true,” double click on it. It must be set as “false.”
5. Repeat steps two through four, replacing “extensions.checkCompatibility” with “extensions.checkUpdateSecurity.”
6. Restart Firefox.

That’s all there is to it. It’s completely safe, and works almost every time.

And we’re back! For most of us, social media services such as Digg, Twitter, and Facebook are reliable, dependable, and perfect for day-to-day use. Still, there are moments that we yearn for something a bit different. That’s where we come in. On today’s episode of Showdown, we take a look at five social media services that take “odd” to totally new and unexpected heights.

Service #1: Adocu

Website: http://adocu.com/
Service Type: Microblogging
Mainstream Equivalent: Twitter
First Impression: “After the microblogging experiment, I found that it’s actually fun. This, however … this is weird.”
Weirdness Factor (Out of 5): 3; It’s odd, but strangely intriguing.
Why It’s Weird: Adocu is the first in what is bound to be a long line of “nanoblogging” services. Naturally, a word such as that could mean different things to different people. In the case of Adocu, “nanoblogging” means one word and one word only. Obviously, you can type more than one word, but said words will not have any spaces between them.
Positives: Despite it all, it is an interesting idea.
Negatives: We cannot stress this enough: it is only one word. What can you really say with just one word?
Overall (Out of 10): 6

Service #2: Stumpedia

Website: http://www.stumpedia.com/
Service Type: Search engine/Wiki
Mainstream Equivalent: Google, Yahoo, Live Search
First Impression: “I can’t find anything!”
Weirdness Factor: 4
Why It’s Weird: Stumpedia tries to set itself apart by relying exclusively on user additions. If a user didn’t add it personally, it isn’t there.
Positives: They get points for trying something new. While it isn’t much now, it’ll be something special in a few years time.
Negatives: Quite simply, there’s absolutely nothing on it. A search for the Symbian mobile phone OS, for example, only gave us one result — a MySpace page featuring a user named Symbian. The same search in Google netted us 290,000 results. Yahoo delivered 7.52 million results. A search for “Nokia” got us a few more (read: nine) hits in Stumpedia, while the same search in Google and Yahoo produced 360,000,000 and 692,000,000 entries, respectively. To say that there is a disparagy between the engines is an understatement.
Overall: 2; “There really isn’t anything that you can do with it.”

Service #3: GreatSchools

Website: http://www.greatschools.net/
Service Type: School choice
Mainstream Equivalent: Word of mouth
First Impression: “The more I look at it, the more it makes sense. People want something like this.”
Weirdness Factor: 3
Why It’s Weird: GreatSchools takes a tried-and-true American concept — comparing your child’s education to those in other school districts — and makes it a web 2.0 application.
Positives: Barring full-on school choice, this site is the closest parents will get to being able to choose a public school for their children.
Negatives: Non-parents, or parents whose children are already grown, will not get any use out of this service. While looking up your old high school is a fun way to waste five minutes, it’s not something that you would do all of the time.
Overall: 8

Service #4: Kiva

Website: http://www.kiva.org/

Service Type: Money exchange
Mainstream Equivalent: PayPal, Green Dot, established financial institutions, friends and family, etc.
First Impression: “What’s this one again? That money laundering one?”
Weirdness Factor: 5
Why It’s Weird: “Social money lending” isn’t something that you see on a regular basis.
Positives: It’s an interesting concept.
Negatives: Neither of us necessarily felt comfortable offering up funds to strangers. The first page of listings, for example, read more like the master list of email scams than a sincere plea for funds. We’re not saying that giving money to the less fortunate is a bad thing. We just believe that there are just safer ways of going about it.
Overall: N/A, as we’re not exactly sure how to go about rating something like this.

Service #5: NowPublic.com

Website: http://www.nowpublic.com/
Service Type: Social news
Mainstream Equivalent: Digg, Yahoo Buzz, Reddit
First Impression: “So many stories…”
Weirdness Factor: 4
Why It’s Weird: Unlike the other social news sites, NowPublic doesn’t expect you to link to and vote on articles from other sites. They expect you to write your own. External photographs and video clip are accepable, but the words that accompany them must be your own.
Positives: Despite our reservations, we must concede that this is a truly unique idea.
Negatives: In many ways, NowPublic is like Wikipedia — interesting, but too inherently biased to be considered an trustworthy news source. While it’s nice to have a variety of opinions available, it can be rather annoying when all you want is the news of the day. Other stories, although thoroughly researched, are the literary equivalent to the “fuzzy animal” human interest stories that are commonly found on the six o’clock news. No matter how well-written a piece about Area 51 or the Easter traditions of the White House might be, it doesn’t deserve to be next to a story about the economy.
Overall: 7; provided that you look at the site as a live experiment dealing with the emerging concept of “citizen journalism.” As an actual hard news source however, we give it a 3.

…Before we draw the curtain on today’s post, we have a question: What does Vince McMahon, the radio program All Things Considered, Dr. Spock, to-do lists, and those personality quizzes found in psychology textbooks and Cosmopolitan all have in common? Find out tomorrow as we continue our trek through the land of the odd.

Google has started to add advertisements to its news search engine. According to published reports, the new advertisements only appear when the conditions are right. A search for Apple, for example, received one ad, while Facebook results appeared ad-free. Many within the industry say that the ads, which are nothing more than a small AdWords box on the right hand side of the screen, were a long time in coming. “Google needs more ads,” says tech industry blog Network World. “[A]dding more screen real estate probably seems like a logical way to do that.”

Moving more towards the “social” end of things, Digg is planning to broaden its horizons a bit. The undisputed king of the social news frontier has secretly been working on a toolbar that would bring several different social tools together into one easy-to-use package. In addition to the traditional “Digg it/Bury it” function that users have grown to love, the toolbar allows users to perform StumbleUpon-esque “random moves” with ease. It also shortens each web address to its bare minimum, similar to TinyURL. The actual release date for the Digg toolbar, as well as the reaction of its competition, is unknown at this time.

Elsewhere, Box.net has released something special to go along with its file storage service — a word processor. Called Web Documents, the new web app allows users to create and edit a variety of documents without ever having to leave the comfy confines of Box.net. Thanks to a variety of partnerships and licensing deals, bringing your newly minted files to the likes of Twitter and Picnik is an incredibly simple thing to do. The only real drawback the service has lies within the service itself. Despite its big aspirations, Web Documents seems better suited for “lighter” work, such as note taking or a quick edit job. Still, once you can get past its shortcomings, Web Documents is a nice service to have on hand. The Web Document service is available now for all Box.net users.

As you have probably guessed, there is no new edition of Browser Extension Friday this week. Still, that doesn’t mean that the world of web browsers are taking a holiday from the Free Line. According to a few reliable sources, a secret options menu has been discovered in the beta for Safari 4. The hidden menu activates a ton of interesting options, including the ability to reactivate the famous “status bar in the URL bar,” move the page tabs to the top of the screen, and turn off Google Suggest. Sadly, since these options involve doing a little bit of editing in the Terminal prompt, Windows users are unable to work with these changes at this time.

And to finish out the week, allow us to present you with something a bit different. As most of your know, a big component to success is creativity. With that, we bring in the proverbial “Exhibit A” — Pizzashare. Pizzashare is a new social service that uses Google Maps to show you where the pies in town reside. In addition to its map capabilities, the service allows you to vote for your favorites. Next to the contact number and address sits a share button. If you’re a fan of the parlor in question, hit it. The more votes (“shares”) it gets, the bigger the on-screen bubble gets. An interesting combination of originality, GPS, and pepperoni, Pizzashare is great for the times when all you want is that perfect slice of pizza.

On yesterday’s action-packed episode of the Free Line, we reported that Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was contemplating charging corporate users to use his service. Well, it turns out that it was much ado about nothing. According to Stone, who claims he was merely “thinking out loud” when he made those comments, the plan was one of “many” that had been discussed over the past year. “We are still very early in the idea stage,” he writes. “We don’t have anything to share just yet despite a recent surge in speculation. When we do, we’ll be sure to let you know.” He also reiterated that Twitter will remain a free service. Says Stone: “What we’re thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services.”

In other news, advertising during the Super Bowl has really payed off for Hulu. In the days after the game, overall site view have gone up an amazing 259%. To those within the industry, the popularity of the site is unsurprising. “Hulu is building quite a bit of buzz and brand awareness,” says Nielsen Online’s Brandon Eshman. “The Hulu ad influenced buzz and reinforced its core message: it’s about content AND convenience.” The ad, which features actor Alec Baldwin as an alien who spreads the word about Hulu’s superior “mind softening” qualities, is still receiving airplay on many Fox and NBC/Universal-owned stations.

Elsewhere, scammers and malware peddlers have found a new home for their underhanded dealings — Digg. Several unwanted comments have been appearing in various stories as of late, each proclaiming that they have an “exclusive” video of a celebrity acting stupidly. These links, of course, take the user to the usual array of horrible programs and viruses. Moreover, these links are not coming from what the site would consider to be a new user. Instead, the scammers are hijacking the accounts of respected users in order to create the illusion of trust. As always, if the link looks shady or the description appears to have been written by a hyperactive twelve year old, then it’s probably a good idea to ignore it.

Moving to the oft ignored (by us, anyway) hardware side of things for a moment, it seems as if the Author’s Guild isn’t exactly pleased with Amazon’s new Kindle 2 eReader. The problem stems from the Kindle’s new text-to-speech feature, which can turn the average novel into a ready made audio book. According to union executive director Paul Aiken, those who use the feature instead of buying the audio book are essentially participating in a rudimentary form of piracy. Many with in the industry question Aiken’s claim, saying the Kindle’s text-to-speech system is no different than just reading the work aloud. Amazon has yet to comment on the allegations.

And finally, we are sad to report that the Palm OS is no more. Once considered to be one of the fastest rising stars in mobile computing, the veritable OS had taken a dive in the past few years thanks to the popularity of the Windows Mobile platform, Blackberry devices, and the iPhone. The proverbial death knell came in January, when Palm announced that they will be using their Linux-based Palm webOS on their upcoming “comeback” phone, the Pre. Despite the loss, the little OS that could will always be remembered as the platform that introduced both geeks and business people to the joys of mobile computing. It may be gone now, but the Palm OS will never, ever be forgotten.

Aside from a few second-rate impressions of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, the one big piece of popular culture to come out of the 2008 Presidential Election is the Obamicon – an Andy Warhol-esque painted photograph of Barack Obama with the word “hope” underneath. Well, not everyone finds the photographs to be amusing. The Associated Press, which holds the copyright to the original image, says that conceptual artist Shepard Fairey unfairly stole their picture and should pay the news organization a glorified “license fee.” Representatives for the artist say the image is covered under a variety of Fair Use laws, similar to the pictures of Andre the Giant used in his famous “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” pseudo-propaganda campaign. “Fairey’s purpose of the use for the photo was political … [T]his will certainly count in favor of the poster being a fair use,” intellectual property attorney Robin Gross told the AP. “The poster [will not] diminish the value of the photo. If anything, it has increased the original photo’s value beyond measure.” Although a deal is supposedly in the works, neither side has yet to make an official announcement.

In other news, the folks behind Digg are doing their part to curb spam. The social news site has added a new warning message, gently informing violators that it’s time to take a little break. “Digging too fast is lame,” the pop-up states. “How about reading some stories instead?” The user is then given a “time out” period, which essentially bans them from posting anything for a fixed, albeit short, length of time. The “time out” periods are set to get longer each time an errant user is greeted with the message. The new warnings were supposedly put into place to “reign in” a handful of “power users” who tend to use their influence on the site as a way to push their own agendas and beliefs. The system is said to be the first in a line of new anti-spamming measures designed to counteract cliques, bullying, and other unseemly, high school-style shenanigans that have started to overwhelm the news service.

Elsewhere, modern rock outfit Jimmy Eat World is taking a rather interesting tactic in promoting their new tour amongst their fans. Instead of opening a traditional forum, the band has turned to Twitter for inter-fan communication. Each show has its own page and label, making it easy to separate individual Tweets and users. By using Twitter, fans can now actively chat with each other in a variety of places, including at the show itself. The chats are up and running now.

Switching gears a bit, extensions are finally coming to Chrome. To start things off on the right foot, Google programmers have made a list of Firefox-based tools that they want to see on the browser, including former Free Line favorites AdBlock and FoxyTunes. Many within the industry believe the new tools and features will introduce the browser to an entirely new audience. In a survey conducted by CNET, for example, 19% said that avoid using Chrome primarily due to the lack of addons and extensions. Expect to see the new slate of addons sometime this May.

In celebration of the announcement, we proudly bring you Browser Extension Friday: Let’s Piggyback Google edition. As the name implies, these are extensions that will be coming soon to Chrome, but already exist in some shape and form in Firefox.

• Flashblock -Block all Flash and Flash-related content with ease.
• DownloadThemAll! – Add a “turbo boost” button to your downloads.
• FlashGot – Download videos, music, and images at lightning fast speeds.
• Forecastfox – Get the up-to-date weather forecasts from Accuweather.com.
• Web of Trust – An easy-to-read security monitor that protects the user from phishing, malware, and virus attacks.
• GooglePreview – Add thumbnail sized preview images and popularity statistics to Google result pages.