On 1st of March next year (2011) there is going to be a major shake-up for how online advertisements are to be handled in the UK. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is due to begin regulating this area and will be in a position to remove any ads that don’t meet their specifications. If you live in the UK or intend to advertise to people in the UK, this change is going to have an impact on how you do things. It means that the ASA will have the ability to remove any misleading or offensive ads – in fact they can remove anything that they don’t like.

Those people who currently make a living advertising online have not had to worry about regulation too much up until now. This has meant that anybody could advertise almost anything they wanted. There is no doubt that many ads have been extremely misleading and some are little more than scams that have hurt people financially. The ASA aims to tackle this in order to protect citizens in the UK. This is something that will be welcome by a lot of people but others will worry that it is a further example of increasing interference by governments on the web. In places like Britain there is an outcry when other countries interfere with what is available online; yet they seem to have qualms about enforcing their own censorship.

If this forces advertisers to be more careful about what they are saying it is probably going to be a good thing. Many of us are fed up with advertisers providing misleading information and conning us into purchasing things that aren’t what the claim to be. It will be interesting to see how this all works out but we will have to wait a few months to find out.

Last week the social media world was shocked by the video of an English woman throwing a cat into a bin. The video was posted on YouTube and this woman became the centre of a media uproar. Now a week later and another movie has just appeared on YouTube showing a girl throwing puppies into a river in Bosnia. In fact this new video makes the ‘cat bin lady’ seem like an upstanding citizen. The outcry in the social media world has come quickly and strongly; in fact the response has been so extreme that the admin at Reddit is warning about social media users forming ‘lynch mobs’.

It is believed that the girl’s brother filmed her disposing of the puppies into the river. They both have managed to hide their identity so far, but the brother has posted that they did this heinous act in order to ‘protect their health’. At the moment there are hundreds of thousands of people across the social media world attempting to establish their true identity and it seems like only a matter of time before this happens. The response to the act has been even more extreme because of the glee on the girl’s face as she attempts to kill the puppies – she is not the kind of person you would probably want to meet in a dark alley.

It is worrying that people are willing to torture animals and then post it to YouTube – we really do live in a sick world. It would make you wonder if there is going to be more copycat acts; people looking for a bit of attention. There is no doubt that posting a video of yourself torturing animals would be a sure way of gaining at least five minutes of fame – sad but true.

Many long term users of Digg are currently in revolt against this social media site. It is being called the ‘digger revolt’ and it has come about due to recent changes made at the website. These changes mean that the site can no longer be controlled by a small group of users, but instead intends to be more inclusive. This change though has made a lot of regular users angry about their loss of control and they are currently attempting to harm the website in revenge.

The digger revolt does not involve any physical violence; Kevin Rose has not needed to go into police protection – at least not yet anyway. The revolt is more about trying to lure other users away to other social media sites like Reddit.com and posting articles critical of the new Digg. The protesters want things returned to how they used to be. At the start Digg was blocking a lot of the protest but it now seems to be just letting it flood the website; it is not nice to watch and is sure to damage the reputation of the site.

This current revolt is fascinating to watch and just goes to show how much power users have on a website like Digg. Maybe those in charge of social media sites like FaceBook should sit up and listen – if they push their users too far they too could be looking at a revolt. In this instance you have to feel a bit sorry for Digg though, they are only trying to improve the website and make it a bit fairer.  Digg had turned into an almost exclusive group of users who seemed to dominate everything – in some ways their current revolt can seem a bit childish; like a baby throwing their rattle out of a pram.

A train loving cat called Lilou decided to go on a solo mission to Dublin this week. To do this she hopped on a local train and eventually ended up at Pearse Street station in the city. The clever cat managed to evade ticket inspectors, but upon arriving in the city realised that she had nowhere to go. Meanwhile her owner realised that she had disappeared and became frantic. The lost looking cat came to the attention of staff at Pearse Street station – they were at a loss about what to do with her until a clever idea began to hatch.

Most of us these days are fans of social media and the staff at Pearse Street station were betting on this. They began tweeting about the discovered cat. It seemed like a long shot but it actually worked. To further help with the discovery of the owner they were able to use close circuit TV to find out where the cat had jumped on the train. This information along with a photo was all that was needed for their Tweets to be effective. Later that day they owner and cat were reunited. The staff even gave the cat a photo-ID travel pass so that she doesn’t need to bunk the trains in future.

This type of story is always nice to hear and it great to hear how social media continues to improve our lives. It is just so useful to be able to contact a lot of people quickly and share information. This will likely not be the only time that social media will be used to reunite people with pets. It has even been used to reunite missing people with their families and friends. With so much bad news in the world it is always great to hear a story like this one.

Privacy fears have driven a group of New York University students to create a new alternative to FaceBook. Diaspora is due to be launched in September and this will be an open source social media site that not only intends to equal FaceBook but eclipse it.  You have probably heard all the recent hysteria about FaceBook reaching over half a billion users, and this might have people believing that Diaspora is facing an impossible task if it wants to compete. The reality is though that there are probably many people who would jump ship if they were going to something better. Most of us are not happy with the current privacy issues and are just putting up with it.

The money for the creation of Diaspora has all come from donations; they managed to get over $100,000. This money has all been put to good use and we expect to see the fruit of these efforts in the not too distant future. Once it is released it will be up to the user to decide what content it will include – this puts privacy back in the hands of the user. For those of us who have concerns that FaceBook is getting a bit above itself we will be watching with interest.

I’m eagerly awaiting the release of Diaspora but find it hard to even guess what type of impact it will have. Maybe it will just have novelty value for a few weeks and people will hardly take any notice of it. On the other hand though, this could be something that really gets big and will prove to be a serious challenge to FaceBook. If this does happen then we can probably expect that those good folks on FaceBook will need to take their user’s privacy concerns a lot more seriously.

In the past it was possible for people to get away with all types of evil acts. The sad fact is that it is possible to do lots of bad things without breaking the law. That is why it is so nice to see the wicked woman who stuck a neighbour’s cat in a bin is getting the attention she deserved. Apparently she hasn’t broken any laws, but few would doubt that she deserves some type of payback. Luckily her wicked ways were caught on a close-circuit camera and are now being viewed across the social media world. It is doubtful that even a person this nasty will be able to escape at least a bit of shame.

Mary Bale has achieved a level of celebrity that few talented people manage in their lifetime. Her only claim to fame is that she likes to stick people’s pets into bins. This sorry excuse for a human being claims that she did the dirty deed because she thought it was funny; the fact that the cat was left there for over fifteen hours means that most people don’t see the funny side. Her later comment that ‘it was only a cat’ isn’t helping to lower the amount of outrage felt against her.

As soon as the video of Mary Bale’s actions hit YouTube there was an outcry and this led to protesters appearing at her door. The police have needed to intervene because of the threat to her life. Some people do seem to be taking it to extremes and it is good that the FaceBook page that wanted her killed has been removed. Maybe this will warn people that random acts of cruelty can be punished even if you are not breaking the law – most serial killers start off by torturing pets.

A new website called mideastyouth.com has been created to allow young Muslims to have their say. Many of these young people feel that they are being treated very unfairly by the media in the west and so aim to use social media as a way to redress the balance. It is hoped that this new website will encourage Muslims to join in the debate and will hopefully increase their participation in other social media outlets. This approach makes a lot of sense because it is only by people talking to people that we can get past the media filters that create distorted pictures of other groups.

The recent carry-on in New York with a proposed mosque near the old site of the Twin Towers shows just how much misunderstanding there is between Muslims and the rest of the world. The media has to be viewed as paying a huge role in this recent hysteria and at present the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is probably the lowest it ever has been – at least since the crusades anyway. The only way to get beyond these misunderstanding is by encouraging communication; something that the media seems to fail miserably at doing.

I think the problem with many groups in the world is that we just don’t understand one another; we fail to see our common humanity. One of the great benefits of social media is that it breaks down barriers and allows us to see where each other are coming from. Hopefully in the coming months we will get to hear what young Muslims have to say and this way there will be less need to rely on stereotypes. There is little doubt that Islam had been demonised in recent years, but hopefully the tide will turn in the not so distant future.

There are rumours circulating at the moment that Apple might be releasing a new type of computer monitor. This will be something that stays on your desk like a standard monitor in one position, but you can then turn it on its side and you have an iPad. The reason for these rumours is in regard to a patent that Apple filed a couple of years back; it contains the blueprint for just such a device. This is all very exciting and it would definitely revolutionise the world of computing.

I think that a problem a lot of us have these days is that we just have too many gadgets. We have our laptops, our home computer, and our mobile devices. If this new type of iMac could be used as a portable iPad it would be wonderful because it would cut down on the number of devices we need to own. Let’s face it, Apple now almost owns the world of technology so we might as well just turn to them for everything.

If anyone could create such an exciting device as a computer monitor that can turn into an iPad it is Apple. In fact the technology is probably fairly straight forward. There are few people who would doubt that such a device would be popular; in fact it would likely assure Apple’s domination. It would also give those of us where were a bit deflated by the problems surrounding the iPhone 4th generation to have something new to look forward to. It would be nice to think that such a device would reach our stores within a couple of years. Personally, I can’t wait to hear more information about this new iMac – of course it could all just be a rumour.

There is little doubt that there are many powerful people who would be quite happy to shut up the found of Wikileaks, Julian Assange. He has been the cause of a few headaches for high officials and this means that there are probably people who would do willing to go to extreme lengths to stop him causing more trouble.  This is why the recent shenanigans in Sweden seem very suspicious. Last Friday he was accused of rape and there was an arrest warrant put out for him; this was followed the next day by the removal of this accusation. Now Assange himself is claiming that this is all part of a carefully orchestrated smear complain.

You wouldn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to smell something fishy going on here. Wikileaks has already released a ton of information that many government officials would like to keep quite. They are likely terrified about what else is going to appear on this website. There are many people who would be very happy to see Assange have his name muddied. He doesn’t even have to be convicted because if you throw enough mud you can be sure some of it will stick.

Wikileaks is one of the prime examples of how the internet can benefit all of us. Those of us who are tired of being misled by governments, or being treated like children who don’t need to know anything, welcome the website.  If this website is making some secretive government types nervous, then so much the better.  On the other hand, it could well be that Assange has broken the law and if this is the case he should be punished – it all just seems a bit convenient though. It will be interesting to see how this story works out.

There have been many predictions that TV is soon going to be replaced completely by social media – I’ve made such claims myself. The reality in the UK though does not seem to be backing this prediction up. The latest research from OFCOM suggests that we are actually watching more television than we did five years ago – it is up 3%.  Apparently the average person in the UK is watching almost four hours of television a day.

How could this be possible? How could the use of social media be sky-rocketing and our TV usage also be increasing? Do we have a lot more time on our hands? I suspect that many of us just have the TV on in the background and don’t really pay that much attention to it; I know that is the case with me. It has become a habit to switch the TV and it is more background noise than anything else. Even when there is a programme I want to watch I still have half my attention on my Twitter page. So maybe these figures from OFCOM are a bit misleading. Sure we may have the TV on even more than in the past but does that mean that it is going to stay that way.

I still feel that TV is on the way out; it just can’t compete with what is available on the web. I’m sure that the day will come when I forget to turn the box on and that will be that. I don’t really think that I’ll miss it; I’m sure this will be the same for most people. We might not consciously stop using television; maybe we’ll just forget about it. I know that every time I do go and look for something to watch on the TV I’m almost always disappointed and go back to the web.