Two days ago, several of the popular Hitler Downfall parody videos were pulled from YouTube because owner Constantin Films claimed they infringed on the copyright. YouTube indirectly responded on its blog today by encouraging its users to dispute the takedowns through a process it already has in place for situations like this.
YouTube’s only direct reference to the Hitler parodies was a hyperlink from the word “parody” in the blog post, but it’s clear given the timing that the Downfall takedowns were the reason YouTube …

According to comScore qSearch, Americans conducted 15.4 billion “core searches” in March 2010, with Google accounting for 65.1 percent search market share.
What is a core search? It is search on one of the five major search engines, including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.
Why is this significant?
If you look at core searches in March, …

It can save you money. It can make calls where AT&T’s signal is weak, like indoors. It can turn an iPod Touch into a full-blown cellphone.
And it can ruin the sleep of cellphone executives everywhere.
Line2 gives your iPhone a second phone number — a second phone line, complete with its own contacts list, voice mail, and so on. The company behind it, Toktumi (get it?), imagines that you’ll distribute the Line2 number to business contacts, and your regular iPhone number to friends and family. …

Gaming developer Storm8 has been sued for allegedly collecting phone numbers of iPhone users who downloaded the company’s popular games from the iTunes app store.
“The wireless telephone numbers of users’ phones are not used or necessary to play any of Storm8’s games, yet Storm8 has written the software for all its games in such a way that it automatically accesses, collects, and transmits the wireless telephone number of each iPhone user who downloads any Storm8 game,” states the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Lynwood, Wash. resident Michael Turner.
Turner alleges that …

Web publishers and blog owners have a new toy to play with: Facebook announced Monday that it has launched new “share” buttons with counters, much in the manner of Digg’s iconic buttons and the third-party TweetMeme app for Twitter sharing.
Plus, there’s more: Publishers installing Facebook share buttons can also get data back related to how many times that link has been shared, how many users have hit the thumbs-up “like” button or commented on shared versions of the story on Facebook, and how many people have clicked back to it …

A report in the U.K.’s Sunday Telegraph that Deutsche Telekom AG is considering buying Sprint Nextel sent the U.S. carrier’s stock surging on Monday, up 11% this afternoon. Citing unnamed sources, the article said the company could make a bid for Sprint in the next few weeks.
The merger would give fourth-ranked carrier T-Mobile and third-largest Sprint a combined 78 million U.S. mobile customers and position the new entity as a more formidable competitor to Verizon Wireless and AT&T. At least one analyst welcomed the deal as beneficial to the entire …

Well they got that link because they were the best site out there. That was organic. It is a naive view of marketing to assume that if you are the best people will notice you and people will care. It is not enough to be the best…you need others to say that you are. If anything the web is making most people more driven by self interest – rather than lending a helping hand.
Worse yet, due to the anonymous nature of the web (and other automated technologies), we are bombarded …