This past weekend I was moderating a panel at CommunityNext, a smart event focused on everything about online communities coordinated by Noah Kagan.

The event was a fun gathering of extremely smart folks from some of the hottest online communities today – and panelists/speakers shared many great thoughts on topics ranging from how to be more awesome, to the genesis behind HotorNot.com.

For some time now, I’ve wondered if my destiny is to destroy the Silicon Valley. I grew up here, the weather is nice, but I’ve watched it change time and again into a massive marketing function too expensive to live in.

A California blogger becomes one of the latest to be dragged into court after an inflammatory blog post. A brief tale about tracking down a spammer, which also held the accused personal contact information, won Jerry Baker a defamation lawsuit. The case also illustrates the potential pitfalls of Internet research.

Last week we posted about the rise of Billboard 100-like lists on the Internet. One of the lists we pointed to in that original post was Todd Andrlik’s (And for short) The Power 150. We caught up with Todd just before the weekend to get more details on how/why The Power 150 came to be

Bite: First off, tell us how you came up with the idea for The Power 150.

The monetization of Wikipedia has been the subject of much debate, and even a little venom spitting, for the past several months. With reports surfacing that funding for the user-edited encyclopedia may be running out, will Wikians finally embrace an ad-supported business model?

According to Alexa, Wikipedia is the twelfth most popular site on the entire Internet. Within six months, however, the entire site could be non-existent.

About.com, a producer of original content has added 500 new videos to the site, expanding its online video initiative. Visitors to the site will have more choices in, and better access to video content which covers several of the site’s key channels including: Home, Autos, Computing and Gadgets, Food, Health and Parenting, in topics ranging from simple how-to’s to specialized themes.

We all know that one-way links from authority web sites are essential if your link building efforts are to be successful. But what does it take to get those authority sites to link to you? Well, you’ll probably guess that it is not easy – quality links don’t materialize from feeble or automated requests. To get those ever so valuable links you’ve got to adopt the right mindset – the principles that show link targets you mean business and that you’re worth linking to.

LG Electronics has 64,082 employees, a chairman and CEO who goes by the name “S.S. Kim,” and almost 50 years of corporate history. It also has a new “strategic mobile partnership” with Yahoo to distribute the company’s services on some phones.

Reports are surfacing throughout the blogosphere concerning the ever-growing recesses of Google’s supplemental results. Now more than ever, sites that were once highly ranked in the main index are beginning to find themselves in the confines of the supplemental index.

Some have likened Google’s supplemental index to a virtual refuse pile, an online prison where all sorts of outdated web content are doomed to a fate of obscurity for all time.

The US online dating market continues to grow but faces a slow down in the number of users paying for access, according to a study by JupiterResearch. European online dating sites are growing as well and are attracting new users. Revenues will double from 243 million euros in 2006 to 549 million euros in 2011, according to the JupiterResearch online dating forecast.

Outspoken atheist Nick Gisburne claims that the staff of Google-owned YouTube deleted his account simply because he posted a selection of Quran quotations, among other religious criticism. In a video he released on February 8th, he states:

The Chairwoman of Wikipedia foundation, Florence Devouard, is interviewed on video by Nicolas Charbonnier and part of her speech at LIFT is online in the last third of his eight-minute video. On screen is a slide showing Wikipedia’s growth, which is one context behind why Wikipedia needs more funds/donations to keep up in the future. When your service is doubling every few months in near-exponential growth you need to think about how you’re going to pay for future servers and pay for more bandwidth.

Via LostRemote, Barack Obama launched a social network campaign site. From the blog:

Compounding YouTube’s recent rows with copyright holders, YouTube’s biggest backdoor competitor, MySpace, announced a pilot program developed with Audible Magic to block copyrighted video from being posited in the community.

What do you do if you are a known search engine marketer who doesn’t shy away from ruffling feathers of the search engine optimization community and said community decides to have a competition in your name in an effort to …

On Monday, Time and TV Guide will separately announce partnerships with Brightcove, a prominent online video distributor, aimed a developing proprietary platform to offer video content to subscribers of both magazines.

One of the Time’s primary goals is to significantly boost the video content on Time.com and eventually for its other publications, which include Fortune, Money, Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly.

Jason "I love SEO" Calacanis brings to light, news that Wikipedia has only enough funds to last 3-4 months. He believes that a few hard-core Wikipedians are being stubborn, by not considering advertising on the site.

Orb Networks, a software development firm has announced a new service called MyCasting, which allows users to share Internet videos from their PCs to mobile phones, by text message links. User can watch videos from popular sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, Google and Yahoo.

"Demand for Internet video on the PC is insatiable with more than 100 million streams daily on YouTube alone and many of those streams are being forwarded and shared virally via email and IM," said Joe Costello, Chairman and CEO of Orb Networks.

Last week, when Viacom demanded the deletion of some 100,000 videos submitted to YouTube because of copyright infringement, it may have been just the beginning of larger, defensive measures.

Viacom is the media giant that owns cable properties like Comedy Central, MTV, and Spike. Unlike many record labels like Sony, BMG, and Warner, who apparently struck some kind of arrangement with Google, Viacom appears set on absolute control over its content, free promotion or not.

One of the things I spend quite a bit of my time doing is helping clients and prospects understand the difference between a "regular" website and a social network. I spend a lot of my time arguing in favour of "social media", in the belief that a social media approach is at the heart of what we call "Web 2.0″ and is closer to how humans naturally function in "real life".

Brian Clark recently linked to a 51 page Michel Fortin PDF which was against writing long copy salesletters.

It is a great read for any web marketer. A few highlights:

Last November, Universal Music Group sued Bolt.com alleging various instances of copyright infringement. It appears that the two sides are nearing a settlement agreement that will see Bolt hand over several million dollars in damages as well as agree to pay future royalties on uploaded content that contains music from Universal Artists.

When it comes to making travel arrangements 37 percent of consumers choose to go online and use a suppliers Web site directly while 20 percent of consumers use online travel agency Web sites. Still 43 percent of consumers say “It depends” which option they will choose according to a survey by market research firm eVOC Insights and RelevantView.

At YouTube, You can say pretty much whatever You want, as long as it’s not about Islam. If that’s not true, YouTube user Nick Gisburne begs to differ after his account – his entire account – was deleted for its "inappropriate content." What exactly did he say? Well, nothing really. He let the Koran speak for itself.