A judge in Milan, Italy has convicted three Google executives over a video uploaded to YouTube in a case, which could have serious implications for social media and ultimately, the web in general, at least in Italy. The video, uploaded back in 2006, featured a group of school kids bullying an autistic child. Google says it worked with Italian authorities to help ID the person responsible for uploading it, and the uploader and other participants from the video were sentenced to community service.

Now, in 2010, Google executives David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes(3 out of 4 defendants) have been convicted for "failure to comply with the Italian privacy code." They were all found not guilty of criminal defamation.

Should these Google execs be held accountable? Comment here.

"In essence this ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload," writes Matt Sucherman, VP and Deputy General Counsel - Europe, Middle East and Africa on the Google Blog. "We will appeal this astonishing decision because the Google employees on trial had nothing to do with the video in question."

This is a case of a business being held accountable for user-generated content. Isn't the entire web generated by users? What if Google's search engine (algorithmically) indexed something illegal. Should company execs be penalized, even if they comply with authorities' requests for removal of such content? Ask yourself these questions:

-  What if YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. had to shut down because it couldn't control the things users post?

- What if every blogging platform had to do the same?

- What if you went to jail for comments posted on/> [...]

Sat Feb 27, 2010 16:30 pm

Friday is the last day of New York Entrepreneur Week which upon its completion will have featured over 100 speakers from across the globe sharing their thoughts, advice and experience with attendees, but interesting stories have been surfacing around the event since as early as last week. A guest post on the event's official blog by Janine de Nysschen, a business consultant and endorser of change dynamics, raises the interesting truth that women play a very small role in startups and venture capital, but as her passion might indicate, she feels this trend is changing.

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It's true. Though there are significant exceptions, we seldom here about female CEOs launching startups and receiving boat-loads of venture capital funding, heaven forbid it be from a female venture capitalist. But it's not just a startup problem, its a problem that persists in the majority of business fields; business is an industry that was only a man's game for a very long time, and women are still playing catch up. However, de Nysschen thinks there are factors about venture capital that make it less appealing to the businesswomen of the world.

"The truth is that VCs invest in a stereotype, and that right now, the stereotype of high risk-tolerance, abnormal work ethic and business acumen seldom comes in the female form," says de Nysschen. She also says that a lot of VC deals are formed from existing relationships in the communit/> [...]

Thu Apr 15, 2010 13:10 pm

In case you were wondering, Twitter is not killing blogging. No matter how many times this is said, there is still this notion out there that blogs aren't needed when you can simply express what you're feeling to the audience who is interested through Twitter (or Facebook or other social networks). The fact of the matter is, yes - you can do this with Twitter or Facebook, but blogs exist just the same, and the blogs and social networks frequently complement one another.

Social networks drive traffic to blogs. Blogs drive followers to social profiles. If a reader is interested enough to read your blog on a regular basis, there is a good chance they are interested enough to follow you on Twitter, and likewise if they care enough to follow you on Twitter, they may be interested in what you have to say on your blog.

At SXSW recently Scott Rosenberg, author of Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters said when he told people he was writing about the history of blogging, he got two very different responses. One was along the lines of "Blogging is dead. Why do you want to write about that?" The other was more like, "A history of blogging? How can you write a history of it when it is still so new?" Rosenberg's anecdote represents the diversity of perspectives around blogging.

Another perspective is that blogs and Twitter are like different kinds of paper. Asking, "Should I use a blog or use Twitter?" is like asking "What kind of pa/> [...]

Thu Mar 25, 2010 15:25 pm

You've probably heard that ReadWriteWeb has just announced the 2010 Mobile Summit, which – judging by last fall's real-time web summit – is going to be a bang-up event. (With Kaliya Hamlin facilitating, how can it be otherwise?)

This one's in honor of the summit... and in honor of all of us for whom ubiquitous connectivity means you're never really 100% present in physical space.

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Oh, sure, it has its drawbacks - the car accidents, the walking into parking meters, the wedding that got called off because you just had to Twitpic a photo of the moment to your tweeps, which was awkward as you were the bride.

But let's admit it: We're part of the hive mind, and we're proud of it. Onward to Mountain View!

More Noise to Signal.

[...]

Sun Mar 07, 2010 13:45 pm