The frequency with which scandal erupts around a misjudged tweet or an offhand comment, caught on someone's iPhone and uploaded to Youtube, suggests that social media practically entraps people into such costly blunders with its pretty user interfaces and seemingly inconsequential virtual nature - and then the real world mess catches up with you. Last week for example, an English footballer was sacked by his club after posting a homophobic tweet in response to a TV show he was watching. I picked that example at random from my memory, but there were at least three or four others just from last week here in the UK (Ed Miliband, Diane Abbott, Tom Harris, Wojciech Szczesny etc).

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we know better than ever what people are thinking - perhaps even to a detrimental degree - wherein thoughtless comments which people might not otherwise say in the company of others, get instantly shared with thousands. I'm not, however, here to debate the philosophical implications of all this. Instead, I'd just like to give a quick example where this insight into public figures' real thoughts can be quite illuminating.

Rupert Murdoch has recently joined twitter and has been using the service to share his views on SOPA (which he supports fully) and piracy (which he doesn't). His recent comments have now been excellently 'storified' by journalist and blogger Jeff Jarvis, who breaks down Murdoch's rants against Google and Barack Obama (in the wake of today's setbacks for SOPA) and illustrates the fundamental problem facing Murdoch in the internet age: he doesn't understand the web.

Ok, so this is hardly news (there was the small matter of Murdoch's News Corp. running Myspace, then the world's most successful social network, into the ground) but nonetheless, since usually his personal views reach us in a highly mediated form via his spokespeople, his media outlets and his press officers, we've never really had as direct evidence of Murdoch's web views as we have now.

The point is that, while we should be wary of reading too much into 140 character tweets, what is clear is that Murdoch personally does not display a huge degree of enthusiasm for the innovation that publishing industries are being forced into by the web and would prefer to merely port existing (but increasingly outdated models) over to the web - and protect them with prohibitive legislature.

Look at those tweets and ask yourself - would you invest in the man who wrote them if he came to you asking for funds for his web start-up business? Does he seem like someone who is gonna do something clever or new online?

The answer probably would be no. Murdoch doesn't need your money anyway (he has plenty of it already in all likelihood), but what his recent tweets illustrate, for me at least, is that he is involved with the web purely out of necessity and hasn't developed a massively sophisticated view of how the internet works. If I wanted some creative ideas and fresh views on the online publishing landscape for example, I probably wouldn't call him.

1. It proves that many people will happily watch ads - and not just when they're cut into their favourite TV shows but, if the ad is good enough, actually seek it out as something to watch in its own right. So, that worry advertisers have about people pressing the mute button and going off to fix a drink or empty the dishwasher should not be exaggerated: if the ad is good (i.e. intriguing, entertaining, funny) enough, people will press un-mute or return to the room. And we're not talking about just a few advertising aficionados here - some of these Youtube clips have amassed 45 million views in around one year.

2. Some of the ads are also rather long (by TV standards) hitting upwards of two or three minutes (one is seven-and-a-half minutes long) - and yet they have been resounding successes. Again, the adman worry of short attention spans is slightly wide of the mark - attention spans are short only if the ad does not warrant attention...

3. Generally the ads rely on principles of what works well on Youtube - but not necessarily on TV (though there are some that are just standard TV versions in there as well). So, for example, clips in which someone performs something incredible or astounding - which generally get great viewing figures on Youtube anyway - also work well for ads. Hence we have Roger Federer doing a great tennis trick (Gillette), rally driver Ken Block (DC) with some staggering automotive stunts and footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney with impressive football tricks (Nike).

4. However, there are also some ads which don't rely on such big budgets but instead on some quirky innovation or comedy. The ad for correction fluid, Tippex, takes this to some very smart new heights to create an interactive and very amusing ad which would currently be impossible to do on television. It looks like it cost about $25 to shoot but it's the best ad I've seen in years...

So, there you have it - a great resource for advertisers considering how to approach the creation of a Youtube ad (becoming increasingly attractive when you consider the possibility of reaching millions of interested viewers for free - how much would that cost on television?) and one which gives a pretty good insight into what currently works and why, refreshingly also proving that a good idea can be as effective as a mega-celebrity endorsement.

The UK government's communications minister, Ed Vaizey, announced yesterday that he believes ISP's should be able to discriminate against certain content providers which place high demands on bandwidth. This could then see providers forced either to pay a charge to ISP's to ensure that their service is given adequate support, or face the prospect of having users' experience suffer due to bandwidth choke (i.e. performance that is slow, jerky etc) - this is where the question of traffic management becomes one of net neutrality.

Now this certainly makes sense from point of view of most ISP's - they would enjoy the luxury of an added means of maximising profit by reducing the costs to them of provision and, with data transfer costs representing a key challenge for ISP's in recent years, this decision would see shares bounce impressively.

However the problem is that users' have already had to face increased costs from ISP's as a result of the way the internet has changed in recent years (advent of streaming services and so on) by virtue of the rapid increase in costs of unlimited data contracts. These days some sort of monthly allowance seems to be much more the norm, whether in the case of mobile or fixed domestic broadband services. So users' are already paying in one way for the colossal surge in the quantities of data which people wish to send and receive via their connections - no more cheap unlimited data contracts, instead we have cheap 10 GB/month (roughly the average) contracts or expensive unlimited ones.

This industry move seemed quite sensible to most and indeed reflected what was happening in related areas (such as mobile phone contract provision where, again, cheap unlimited contracts which could be found a few years ago are gone) and was largely accepted by consumers. So why this further step towards abandoning net neutrality from the UK government?

Well, I'm afraid that the bottom line is simply that - for ISP's. Vaizey's proposals would be welcomed with open arms by telecommunications companies, who would see profits increased, but few others. Let's now go through some of the counter arguments:

1. The move would damage innovation.

This seems likely to be the case - or, to be more precise, the move would tilt the 'playing field' in favour of established providers of data-intensive content (video and audio streaming services for example). The reason would be that while ISP's would be unlikely to offer slower access to established services - such as iPlayer for example - they could more easily get away with side-lining lesser known start-ups since this will be unlikely to turn users to an alternative provider. The problem is that Youtube was once one of these lesser known start-ups, so imagine how different things would be if its growth had been stifled by a rules change such as the one Vaizey is proposing.

For this reason the announcement is very puzzling to me, especially considering the government has paid a lot of lip service to the digital economy which it hopes will lead Britain to a more successful economic future...

2. The proposals would damage freedom of speech.

This is slightly tenuous, but not entirely invalid. After all, it would simply bring the internet closer in line with print publishing for example, where anyone can launch their own content - assuming they have the capital required to do so. Of course this isn't entirely democratic - but it is already the way most other media technologies operate (television, print etc). The internet has, since its inception, been much more open and accessible than this and was for that reason celebrated by many as a much more democratic platform. To lose this would harm freedom of speech no doubt - but only to the extent that we already tolerate it being 'harmed' by the barriers to content provision existing in most other media sectors.

The second aspect of this objection is that the proposal would set a precedent for ISP's to have permission to 'manipulate' users' vision of what is out there online - which is essentially a mild form of censorship (even though it would here be economically, and not politically, motivated). Is this a dangerous precedent to set? Are we forsaking something which we should cherish? It's hard to see the UK suddenly ending up with a 'great firewall' system akin to China's massive web censorship programme - but even a small step towards this is a big issue.

3. The changes will damage the principle of web neutrality.

This would certainly be the case if ISP's decided to charge content providers more in order to ensure their services run properly. Imagine for example the scenario whereby major content providers like the The Times or The Daily Mail absolutely fly as one company owns both an ISP and some online publishing ventures (because of the News Corp-BSkyB merger), but rivals like the BBC or Guardian chug along. Is that a desirable situation (for anyone other than Rupert Murdoch)?

All in all, it'll take a little time before we know in detail what will happen - but for now the proposals (full speech here) seem rather worrying, and have been opposed by pretty much anyone who understands the internet - from Google to Tim Berners-Lee, Erik Huggers and so on...

For example, last month I discussed an interesting little anecdote from the world of IT recruitment, whereby a UK newspaper had advertised for a SEO expert in the robots.txt file of their website - where, one expects, only someone with sufficient skills for the job would even find it. Not only creative and perhaps even more fun than 'traditional' recruitment methods, the idea surely also benefited the employer in delivering a highly competent batch of potential employees for interview.

It seems like a pretty logical, everyday step in creating a CV (tailoring it to the target job), but in practice it can actually be a very tricky thing to do effectively. It almost goes without saying that, in the realms of the various sectors of the IT industry, the scope for creativity is constantly expanding and it is in the interests of both employers and those seeking employment to be alert to these developments.

For example, last month I discussed an interesting little anecdote from the world of IT recruitment, whereby a UK newspaper had advertised for a SEO expert in the robots.txt file of their website - where, one expects, only someone with sufficient skills for the job would even find it. Not only creative, but perhaps also more fun, than 'traditional' recruitment methods, the idea surely also benefited the employer in delivering a highly competent batch of potential employees for interview. Continuing on from that discussion, today I'd like to highlight another fine example of the way that recruitment practice is being affected by social media, by drawing attention to an excellent CVIV (CV Interactive Video) I've just seen on Youtube from an aspiring PR specialist, Graeme Anthony.

The video begins with Graeme sitting at a table and offering a few words about himself, explaining also how the interactive CV works. Then, once the intro is over, there are a number of options which are presented within the frame ('portfolio', 'skills' etc) as chunky buttons. Click on one of these and you will then be presented with another short video corresponding to that section, before once more being returned to the menu. The whole thing is extremely well executed and my overall impression was that it certainly shouldn't take this guy very long at all to find a job. Judging by the comments to his video, it seems this was the general consensus among all those who had seen it.

The CVIV is especially potent as it has the interactivity of an interview, while also successfully transmitting an impressive amount of information about the candidate's background and skills. In total it clocks in at around eight minutes if you watch/click on all the sections and yet the sheer extent to which Graeme's personality, skills, and training have been defined is not short of what one might expect from the much more time-consuming option of a written CV combined with a half-hour interview. In essence the video is a written CV, combined with an interview, combined with a portfolio (illustrating many new media competencies over its modest runtime).

What's especially interesting is that, even though Graeme Anthony's target job is related to media and PR, his approach could easily be utilised for a wide variety of potential jobs. In any case, when it comes to social media jobs, I expect that such practice should become more and more the norm as the traditional format of recruitment media (the written CV) become something much more complex and varied. For those looking to stand out from the crowd and communicate their skills and personality effectively, the CVIV represents a very useful tool indeed. For anyone confused as to how the thing might hang together, they could do a lot worse than to check the excellent example linked above.

So, with this in mind I decided that it would be nice to present some of the finest moments of World Cup 2010 which, in previous years, would probably have been lost without the aid of today's social media. I guess this is somewhat of a World Cup withdrawal remedy mixed in with a celebration of how social media has changed our experiences of such events (and facilitated just one more 'hit' for world cup fans with a sudden gaping hole in their schedules).

The best place to start is yesterday's excellent post over at Social Times, which offers a lively top 10 videos from the tournament. You have some real gems in there, ranging from wonder goals, to the more weird and wonderful moments such as Maradona insisting he's not gay after misinterpreting a press conference question...

In addition to these great moments, I'll add a few highlights of my own. First of all, two clips of some of the most bizarre training exercises I've ever seen, courtesy of Argentina and North Korea.

Very curious indeed - maybe England could learn a thing or two from this. 'Thinking outside the box' seems more than an understatement. Anyway, swiftly on to trick of the tournament - which didn't sadly happen during a match but came in a training session, courtesy of Spain's Juan Mata.

Finally, something to remember the Vuvuzela by with this enthusiastic Algerian supporter.

As the sheer volume of media out there continues to expand at a frightening rate (and not just relating to the World Cup of course), it's a testament to the sophistication of indexing tools out there (search, 'likes', Digg etc) that we continue to be able to find gems such as those above in minutes, rather than having to trawl through endless TV media archives (which we wouldn't have access to anyway) for days just to find something worth sharing. Basically, the World Cup (like so much else) is a lot better with Social Media. I for one can't wait for the next one :)

Dejan Levi

Google immediately co-operated with the police within hours of learning about the clip - which was then instantly removed, but nonetheless a prosecutor decided to take four former employees to court over the incident, alleging defamation and invasion of privacy. Though acquited of the first charge, three of the four defendents were found guilty of the second, and handed a six-month suspended sentence.

Now - as Charles Arthur points out in his Guardian piece - this carries some quite serious implications for Google's business in Italy, implying as it does that hosting services, like Youtube (or even Google blogger, Google docs etc?) must pre-screen all user-generated content, or risk taking legal responsibility for something which could land them in court.

Understandably the majority of blogs and articles out there have pointed out what a ridiculous ruling this is - and many expect it will be overturned by an EU appeal court as Google will of course be contesting the verdict. However, like the recent Chinese email hacking fiasco, the whole episode threatens the long term operation of Google in this territory - if it is not resolved swiftly and satisfactorily.

Since Youtube has never turned a profit in its five-year existence, it would be highly unfeasable that Google would opt for the extra expense of pre-screening all videos - at the same time it seems unlikely that it will expose its staff to consist threat of legal action by continuing to operate along current policies. Instead it would surely be easier to pull out of Italy instead... setting quite a dangerous precedent for walking away from huge and essential markets.

Of course this all sounds hyperbolic right now, and indeed most expect that it won't actually come to anything so serious as this. However, the whole diplomatic nightmare currently unfolding does evidence just how fragile the operation of even a huge company like Google really is, in the face of precedent-setting individual cases such as this one.

Dejan Levi

The move obviously makes sense for all parties concerned - especially for Youtube, which has yet to turn a profit since Google acquired it three years ago. This added feature (plus the removal of the headache of constant disputes over unlicensed content), should amount to a significantly healthier balance sheet - though there still remains plenty of content for which no deals are in place at the moment. Nonetheless, this marks a huge step forward in Youtube's progress towards reaching its full potential (i.e. blanket online video market domination).

The key thing for Youtube is to reach that tipping point of legal TV content, after which non-participating media producers will have less and less to gain from keeping their content exclusively for their own websites. Naturally Youtube haven't released a full breakdown of the ad revenue-sharing agreement which has been struck to finally appease those such as C4, but presumably it takes into account the fact that current ad revenue is only a fraction of what we can expect to see in the next few years - especially after such changes as this have been implemented.

There are of course plenty of worrying aspects about having such a dominant one-stop shop for all online video content (imagine if Murdoch bought it up for one...), but though such a thing might be possible with Youtube - it is by no means guaranteed, and will take some time before it can be realised regardless. However - there are monopoly worries which will surely creep into consideration, but that is a story for another time (and another year i expect).

What we are  here concerned with today is simply the fact that Youtube has grown legitimately bigger with a great new service, and from a users' point of view that can only be a good thing. Presumably the content will still be ring-fenced according to country access (no C4 show access from outside the UK for example), although if such a deal could be struck as to remove this barrier, then the Youtube's distribution potential would really start to look scary...

Dejan Levi

Think of it as a verbal time capsule of memories - ranging from testimonies of survivors of WWII POW camps to UK miners who recall the strikes of the 1980s, and hundreds of other equally momentous events. In design and layout, the site does indeed resemble Youtube and is thus very straightforward to use. Designed by EtonDigital, StoryVault has already been featured in online galleries such as CSS mania and continues to draw praise for its design.

As the database of videos grows, no doubt the site will start to resemble an extremely valuable resource for everyone from historians (both family and academic types) and those who are generally interested in the workings of memory and history. In this sense the site is doing a fantastic job of tying into current trends in fields of historiography and academia (as well as film-making) which are intensly debating concepts of individual memory and its relationships to history right now.

However, perhaps even more significant is that StoryVault offers users so much more than just this database of video content: like Youtube, it can be accessed without registering to be a member of the social network side of the site, but for those who do choose to quickly register (for free) then a whole new range of options opens up.

The most interesting of these is no doubt the family tree function which allows you to make detailed family trees online and share them with other users - and family members. In this way collaborative efforts to piece together expansive family trees can be initiated - with everyone adding details and info from wherever in the world they are.

So far i can see three very strong facilities that StoryVault provides, and consequently would be very surprised if it didn't go onto to become quite a success once it emerges from the beta testing stage. Firstly, the general resource of good quality (and exclusive) content on a range of historical material should prove a draw for a wide variety of users.

Secondly the interactive family tree creation facility looks like it could enable people to do something many of us consider - but often struggle to get around to due to the time investment required - which is to piece together a comprehensive family tree. StoryVault not only makes this easy - but it also enables collaboration from multiple family members, potentially across different continents.

Finally, StoryVault looks like it offers a valuable repository for the filmed testimonies of family members that might otherwise get lost on outdated video formats, in house-moving chaos or lie in dusty shoeboxes for decades. I for one will be keen to utilise all three - well done so far to both the StoryVault and EtonDigital teams working hard on this great project!

Dejan Levi

The idea is that with content on demand currently revolutionising how we watch video content as entertainment on our computers - there is great potential to extend this too to the screens in our living rooms. Sounds like good sense to me...

Youtube XL features a far more de-cluttered interface than the version we are used to - with no user comments and no other recommended videos boxes for a start, which certainly helps to make it far more easily operable from one's sofa with a tv remote.

However one key issue remains for me and that is pertaining to the quality of content available on Youtube XL. For now the selection of content is identical to that of Youtube standard - which leads me to wonder just how awful some of the shakiest mobile phone-recorded footage will look once it gets shown on the bigger screens Youtube XL caters for.

Having said that though, from inital tests I have been pleasantly surprised to find not as much of a drop-off in quality with displaying low-res stuff on a big screen as I generally expected. A lot of the mid-quality stuff out there actually holds up not too badly when stretched to fit bigger formats - though of course some of the previously dodgy (in terms of video quality) handheld clips are now quite unwatchable.

All in all though a fascinating development, and one that even at this early stage is seemingly leaving users very, very satisfied... good work Google :)

Dejan Levi

1. Sometimes Photoshop scares me - have a look at this Guardian photogallery for example of imaginary wildlife creatures (monsters?), rendered here in stunningly detailed images. The image of the tiger/lizard thing will no doubt be haunting me for a few days...

2. Sendmehome.com - a novel start-up which allows you to track lost and found items across the world. Simply print a sticker tag using the website and register an item. Now if you lose it, whoever finds it will see the sticker and can log on to the site to arrange returning it.

Even more interesting though is that you can register an item, then deliberately leave it somewhere in public, and follow it as it moves around the city (or world? who knows...) I have often wondered about where some old guitar I once gave away is now - or where a book I left on the train could be now... - with Send Me Home I can finally find out.

3. Angry Video Game Nerd - Remeber all those SNES and Mega Drive games you used to love? Watch some pretty funny reviews of them by the AVGN on Youtube - it's amazing how frustratingly bad some of them were, yet I don't remember noticing at the time...

Anyway though a little long (and maybe heavy on the expletives), AVGN is a nice slice of gaming nostalgia and humour, and will probably have you dusting off your old consoles - even though you've just been reminded of how annoying these little games were. Here's the link for the Silver Surfer NES game to start you off - there's loads more up there so have an explore.

That's it - Enjoy!

Dejan Levi