Nevertheless, in the case of this wedding video, Sony (copyright owners of Forever) chose to capitalize on the clip's success rather than blocking the file. They added a simple pop-up overlay that offers users a chance to purchase the song from iTunes or Amazon. According to YouTube, in the last week, the year-old song has risen to #4 on the iTunes charts and #3 on Amazon.

To Google's glee, Sony's success in working with users is likely to inspire other copyright owners to rethink their past actions with DMCA take-down notices. And this would be a welcome change for many. Take downs have shown a history of hurting user morale, reducing valuable community content and decreasing channels of monetization for content hosts. In the case of the wedding video, while it's obvious that Sony made money, YouTube has likely earned profit from AdWords as well as referral revenue from Amazon and iTunes.

Because Sony left the wedding video up, the community continues to receive free hosting and feedback, the copyright owners profit from their licensed goods, YouTube earns new revenue, and the remix community continues to proliferate. Since last week, some of the remixes and re-creations include the Divorce Entrance Dance, a WIS-TV anchor version and the couple's own appearance on the Today Show.

1. Bandcamp: RWW reviewed Bandcamp earlier and dubbed this service the "MySpace Music Killer". The company offers bands the chance to upload liner notes, album arts and links to their materials through an online DIY store. In this case, interactivity is not bundled with the album downloads, but rather found in a link on the site.

2. Songbird: Songbird is the open-source Mozilla-based music player that offers users a chance to listen to albums while also viewing information about artists through various in-browser plugins. Songbird offers the basic functionality of an "interactive album" with lyrics and album art; however, fans can also add extensions to trade mix tapes, publish their playback histories to Last.FM and publish their listening history to Twitter.

3. Songkick: Songkick is a concert recommendation engine with a music history component. The site allows users to upload concert-related photos, liner notes, poster art, videos and even ticket stubs. The community is a live music wiki updated by those die hard fans who've not only attended the concerts, but also documented the experience. For Bob Dylan alone, the community has uploaded information on 2788 past concerts in 767 cities.

Apart from their interactivity and great social components, one thing that BandCamp, Songbird and Songkick have in common is the fact that they are not Apple. While each of the services are wonderful in their own right, Apple's potential commitment to interactive albums can set an industry-wide precedent on how albums are released. By providing listeners with liner notes, videos and background information, fans may find themselves connecting with their music on a whole new level.

Band history, politics and cultural context can affect whether or not we part with our money. I'm going to take a wild guess that Hasidic Jewish reggae artist Matisyahu's highest download numbers don't come from Muslim music fans. And do you think Radiohead's name-your-own-price In Rainbows album would have made as much money if the group wasn't known for its activism?

The interactive album tells us where artists have come from and how they're using their voices outside of the music. A number of services provide the delivery framework for the information, but only Apple provides direct access to mainstream audiences. Regardless of whether or not the independent labels follow suit, these new band dossiers give us the social narrative we need to make informed choices as consumers.

Even though Joost does not rely on its P2P architecture anymore, the video quality is still high, especially in full-screen mode, but it does not rival that of the 'HD' offering of ABC or Vimeo.

More Social

Joost has also added a wealth of social features to its site. You can now easily share videos with your friends on Joost and join one of the newly established Joost groups. Also, everything you watch is stored in your 'JoostFeed,' which you can choose to make public. If you really do not want your friends to know that you have been watching Brittany Spears videos all night again, you can also turn on a 'Stealth Mode.'

Because of its reliance on a plugin, however, Joost does not offer the ability to embed videos yet. We assume that this feature will be available once Joost has moved over to using Flash.

Too Little, Too Late?

Overall, we think it was about time for Joost to move to the browser. However, a lot of what Joost set out to do in 2006 has already been done on the web. Its biggest competitor is probably Hulu, which has content deals with almost every large TV network and is slowly adding more HD content. Joost will have a hard time competing, unless it can sign up a similarly large number of quality content producers.

What Does Infovell Do?

The engine scours through open-access repositories of information like PubMed Central and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Claims, but it also allows access to scholarly journals such as those from Oxford University Press, SAGE, Taylor & Francis, Annual Reviews, Mary Ann Liebert Publications, and more. The culmination of these billions of pages currently unindexed by other engines, gives you access to content in the areas of Life Sciences, Medicines, Patents, Industry News, and other reference content from expert sources. In addition to just functioning as a search engine, Infovell can also deliver breaking news alerts which are automatically sent to your email, PDA, or any other device you choose.

It May Look Boring, But It's Not

In the demo (see video below), the team from Infovell showed how their engine could be used for researching a medical condition - something that many people try to do today using Google, but with little success. Generally, web searches only return results to sources of general information like the Mayo Clinic results, WebMD, or online support groups. To be able to research something by reading through the actual journal articles that the doctors have access to would be a huge step towards democratizing the world's knowledge.

Why Can't Information Be Free?

Unfortunately, that knowledge is not being set free with Infovell. Instead, the service will exist behind a pay wall, which once again puts the power of information into the hands of those that can afford its access. Although expected, it's disappointing to see that this service will be yet another source of critical information which most people won't have the time or financial resources to use it. Case in point, if someone needs to research a medicinal condition in that much detail, it's a sure bet that they have doctors' bills that are a bigger priority than a subscription fee to a search engine.

Why isn't anyone building a Google for the Deep Web? If Infovell is offering a collection of scholarly information and putting a price tag on its access, why can't someone else build a similar collection and wrap ads around the service to monetize it? We love the idea of this type of service, but would would rather see a bigger effort to open up the unindexed web and deliver it to the public for free.

Infovell will be available for a 30-day free trial, starting September 22nd.

There are many different types of bloggers in the world today - new media journalists, "journalers," video bloggers, and others. One of the types - "diaryists" - record their innermost thoughts and feelings in a way that's very much similar to how people (yes, usually girls) once recorded their thoughts in small books kept under lock and key and stuffed beneath their mattresses.

Of course in this day and age, the thought of actually putting pen to paper seems like something from a bygone era. But the urge to create a diary hasn't been abandoned - it's just that the format has changed.

There are a few sites today that allow you to go private easily. LiveJournal and Vox cater more to the journaling crowd than WordPress does, for example, but there are many smaller sites like www.opendiary.com, www.mydeardiary.com, www.webbookdiary.com, and www.digitalexpressions.nu, that provide an online diary application.

Unfortunately, outside the larger blogging communities like LJ and the like, the quality of the online diary offerings is somewhat lacking. The digital scrapbook site, Kronomy, kicks it up a notch in terms of being a more modern tool than those previously mentioned sites above, but it's more focused on letting you share your digital, multimedia memories. And other sites like Our Story, Story Of My Life, dandelife, and My Family are more family-focused than private. None are really a quiet hideaway on the web for true diary writing.

Introducing Diary.com

But now online diaryists and diaryist wannabees can rejoice - there's a new site that's tailored just for them. With a big focus on privacy - it is your diary after all - Diary.com is a great starter blog for the little (over)sharers of Generation Z who are at the perfect age to begin their very own start blog, err, diary, right now.

Entries can be up to 1000 words max or you can paste in the URLs for photos or videos found elsewhere on the web. The site then displays the video or photo embedded in your diary. Amazingly, even just pasting in the URL of a YouTube video manages to post the video into the diary - no messing around with embed codes here - it's dead simple. Click the thumbnail of the video and you'll go to the permalinked page for the entry where the video can be played - all without having to leave the diary.com site.

Gen Z's First Lifestream

Diary.com isn't really very blog-like at all though. It's more like a lifestream than a blog, which furthers solidifies the argument that lifestreaming is encroaching in on blogging's territory. Here's a whole generation whose first blogging experience will be more like a FriendFeed sharing experience than an attempt at long, thought out writing. In fact, Diary.com's format is more like a cross between FriendFeed, Twitter, and Tumblr combined. It's like FriendFeed because of its multimedia capabilities and stream-like look and feel, but the structure also resembles Twitter with its entry box at the top and posted items below. Of course, the idea of posting multimedia along with text is a lot like Tumblr, except this Tumblog is for your eyes only - no peeking.

Shared Diaries

Private diaries aren't the only feature of the site at Diary.com. On today's social web, there is a desire to share with friends, so in addition to supporting private diaries, the option to create a shared diary is available, too. A shared diary can be sent to anyone you choose - you simply enter in their email address and share. You can create multiple shared diaries and they're available from a drop-down at the top of your screen. It's easy to envision the shared diary option used as the digital age slambook, filled with naughty observations about fellow classmates.

Conclusion

Although Diary.com isn't doing anything dramatically new, it's taking some of the best features of the social web sites we grownups know and love and simplifying them for use by first time bloggers/lifestreamers. It's worth noting that the Diary.com folks seem to think their demographic extends beyond kids - they suggest their shared diaries can be used for anything from travel diaries to baby diaries, for example. We suppose they're right, but we're betting that their best customers will be a bit younger than that.

Here on RWW, we've pulled together a huge list of Hurricane Gustav links for your reference. Below you'll find links to weather sites, mobile web sites, links to various news and governmental sites, links to social web sites, and links to those using Twitter to report the storm.

• BehindtheWeather.com - a huge collection of links put together by Charlie Anzman of SEO and Tech Daily
• Accuweather.com
• Wunderground - Weather Underground
• Stormpulse.com
• MSNBC site for Gustav
• National Weather Service page (NOAA)

Mobile

• Mobile Resource Guide which links to an iPhone version, a mobile version, and a Gustav Widget for your blog
• National Hurricane Center Mobile Website

Other Links

• LiveNewsCameras.com - a lot of Live News broadcasts
• Maroonspoon.com/wx/gustav.html - Several media players showing coverage from four Louisiana news stations
• http://www.dotd.la.gov/press/traffic_cameras/no_cameras.asp - Louisiana DOT Webcams
• http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Breaking+News/Tropical+Storm+Gustav - UK based NewsNow with over 30,000 global sources. Page auto-refreshes every five minutes.
• Texas's Division of Emergency Mgmt links
• FEMA: Hurricane Gustav
• NOAAWatch Hurricane Gustav
• Red Cross Online Newsroom for Gustav
• Earthcam's New Orleans cam
• MSNBC Hurricane Tracker
• Gustav Pets (animal rescue resources)
• Tracking Hurricane Gustav in Google Earth
• The Hurricane Watch Net (amateur radio)
• HAMweather Hurricane Gustav Track/Projected Path

Social Web

• FriendFeed Hurricane Room - http://friendfeed.com/rooms/hurricane 
• With Sweetcron, Sean Percival quickly deployed the Hurricane Gustav aggregator. It pulls in data via Twitter, Google, Flickr, YouTube and a few others.
• Mahalo has a Gustav page
• Gustav Information Center (GIC) - Ning social network for Gustav coverage
• Wikipedia page for Hurricane Gustav
• A gustavwiki page
• IRC channel - #interdictor to coordinate volunteer efforts
• A blogger using Utterz to share news
• Two gadgets for iGoogle
• USA Today Weather Guys who blog and post their tweets on their site
• Hurricane Gustav Digital Support Brigade (Facebook)
• New Orleans Metblogs
• Voices of Gustav (displaced evacuees) - WordPress blogs
• Hurricane Gustav on NowPublic
• Socialmedian's page
• Boing Boing Gustav Online Resources
• NewsCred topic page
• Ustream.tv - Hurricane Gustav From Luling, Gustav from Slidell, Crosby Tubs Gustav

Twitter

• CNN reporter named Rick Sanchez has been making heavy use of Twitter, even asking on air for Twitter users to send him information from the hurricane zone. His reporting is extremely good and the Twitter convos have even made an appearance on the Twitter homepage
• Tweets from NOLA.com - the New Orleans Times-Picayune
• Tweets from the Red Cross
• Tweets from Lafayette, LA
• Chicago Tribune reporters - http://twitter.com/GustavReporter
• USA Today Weather Guys' tweets
• Twitter stream from the Beaumont (TX) Enterprise-Journal
• Millsaps College in Jackson MS is in the path of the storm
• A government Gustav Twitter feed
• Ernie the Attorney's tweets from New Orleans
• Mark Mayhew, in New Orleans
• Twitter-based info via search results for hurricane + gustav 
• Twitter-based info via search results for just gustav

]]>Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/hurricane_gustav_on_the_web_reference_guide.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/hurricane_gustav_on_the_web_reference_guide.php Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:06:14 -0800 Sarah Perez On the same day that Apple announced that iTunes had surpassed Wal-Mart as the number one music retailer in the United States, MySpace announced that it had joined with three of four major labels (EMI isn't on board yet) to launch their own iTunes killer. As they did previously for Amazon, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony BMG have agreed to let MySpace sell music DRM-free. But the big question is: Why just the majors?

It's true that MySpace owes much of its success to its popularity with musicians, and the service could certainly be a game changer. Search for almost any major musical act in Google and you're almost certain to find three things on the first page of results: the artist's official page, the artist's wikipedia page, and the artist's MySpace page. With it's position as the current generation's MTV, the potential for MySpace to serve as a serious hub for music sales is believable. And as we noted in February, chief rival Facebook has a long way to go to catch up with MySpace in the area of music.

But MySpace doesn't just cater to the major acts -- much of the appeal of the social network is in the ability to connect directly with local, long tail acts. That's where its true roots lie. As Matt Rosoff writes on CNET's Crossfade blog, "major label acts are a small part of the MySpace experience... MySpace is the ultimate long tail site for musicians, where bar bands and small-town heroes can appear in the same context as the biggest bands in the world."

What we're looking for next from MySpace is to extend the functionality of their music store to every musical act using the site. That would certainly be a game changer and would make it easier for small acts to build awareness and cultivate their "true fans." In essence, it would make it simple for any small band to put out their work on the web's label: MySpace.