Archive for March, 2007

Top 20 Social Networking Websites

Friday, March 16th, 2007

According to Hitwise, these are the current top social networking sites. They also found that total traffic to social networking sites was up 11.5% from the previous month. I’d say that’s some positive growth!

Rank Name Domain Market Share
1 MySpace
www.myspace.com		 80.74%
2 Facebook
www.facebook.com		 10.32%
3 Bebo
www.bebo.com		 1.18%
4 BlackPlanet.com
www.blackplanet.com		 0.88%
5 Xanga
www.xanga.com		 0.87%
6 iMeem
www.imeem.com		 0.73%
7 Yahoo! 360
360.yahoo.com		 0.72%
8 Classmates
www.classmates.com		 0.72%
9 hi5
www.hi5.com		 0.69%
10 Tagged
www.tagged.com		 0.67%
11 LiveJournal
www.livejournal.com		 0.49%
12 Gaiaonline.com
www.gaiaonline.com		 0.48%
13 Friendster
www.friendster.com		 0.34%
14 Orkut
www.orkut.com		 0.26%
15 Live Spaces
spaces.live.com		 0.18%
16 HoverSpot
www.hoverspot.com		 0.18%
17 Buzznet
www.buzznet.com		 0.18%
18 Sconex
www.sconex.com		 0.14%
19 MiGente.com
www.migente.com		 0.11%
20 myYearbook
www.myyearbook.com		 0.11%

I found it interesting that they don’t consider YouTube a social network, because that would certainly be on the list.

Posted in Social Networking, Studies | No Comments »

Is YouTube Encouraging Schoolyard Violence?

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Back in my day, a good schoolyard fight could have as many as 25-30 viewers. There was hooting and hollering and those who didn’t get to see it were told about it the next day at break time.

Today, that same fight is being posted on YouTube, and most are getting thousands of viewers. When your schoolyard brawl video is viewed by an audience the size of your average NBA game (bad example? :) ), there’s a greater incentive to go for that extra face punch when you know the cameras are rolling.

How many of these schoolyard fights are taking place SOLELY for the online fame and glory that comes with it?

A quick YouTube search for school yard fight shows just a small sample of what’s available for viewing online.

Here’s the source article – A schoolyard fight involving 20 kids at Cumberland High School in Syndey, Australia. Here’s news coverage of the video.

Posted in Cyber-Bullying, Fights, Students, YouTube | No Comments »

What happens on Facebook Stays on Facebook … Not Really.

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Found this on digg – A chilling compilation of potential privacy exploitations. Definitely makes you think twice before filling in all of your facebook profile information. Some of the connections they make are a little far fetched, but it gives you an idea of what could potentially happen to your personal information.

Check out the disturbing flash movie and then digg the story.

Posted in Education, Facebook, Privacy | No Comments »

Another Day, Another Pedophile

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Kevin Millsaps, a 23-year-old man of Staatsburg New York was arrained yesterday for committing sexual acts on two young girls he met on MySpace. One girl was 12 and the other girl was only 11 years old.

A quick MySpace search turns up a MySpace profile that fits the bill (Kevin Millsaps – 23 – Staatsburg). You can view the alleged scumbag’s profile here: http://www.myspace.com/xcaliba

Source article

Update: Found Kevin’s mugshot in the following article that appeared shortly after his arrest in January.  View the article and mugshot here.  It also has more details on his case.

Posted in MySpace, Predators, Rape, Underage | 1 Comment »

12-Year-Old Girl Solicited for Sex

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

… By a 25-year-old man by the name of Patrick Lee Kenney. Fortunately, the young girl’s mother was monitoring her MySpace activity and discovered graphic pictures of Patrick on her daughter’s computer. She then got police to pose as her daughter and arranged a meeting. Patrick Kenney showed up and was arrested on encouraging child sex abuse and attempted rape charges.

This story fortunately has a happy ending because mom was keeping an eye on what her daughter was doing on MySpace. All the legislation in the world can’t replace good old fashioned parenting.

I found out about this article on MyCrimeSpace but the original article is from the local newspaper in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where the crime took place.

Posted in Busted, MySpace, Predators, Underage | 1 Comment »