The University of California-Riverside has launched an online prediction tool to measure how the weak U.S. economy influences people’s online behavior.

The "Web of Misery" is an online research project that invites people to predict how much traffic will increase to sites focused on topics surrounding economic distress, such as religion, guns, substance abuse and gambling.

The University of California-Riverside has launched an online prediction tool to measure how the weak U.S. economy influences people’s online behavior.

The "Web of Misery" is an online research project that invites people to predict how much traffic will increase to sites focused on topics surrounding economic distress, such as religion, guns, substance abuse and gambling.

The University of California-Riverside has launched an online prediction tool to measure how the weak U.S. economy influences people’s online behavior.

The "Web of Misery" is an online research project that invites people to predict how much traffic will increase to sites focused on topics surrounding economic distress, such as religion, guns, substance abuse and gambling.

 Before the end of this sentence you will have to make a choice between the blue pill and the red pill, for as soon as we step over the period we will enter an alternate reality and it will not be easy. Lawyers are looking into virtual worlds like Second Life, studying whether the environment is suitable for regulation and asking who has "metaphysical jurisdiction."

You’ve probably seen more than a few “used to be” towns; they “used to be” supported by coal, steel, or some other industry, but became troubled as times changed.  Now, although things are nowhere near that bad, some onlookers are questioning Microsoft’s role in Seattle.

So, I guess if there was one thing we could all conceptually agree on, it would be that the link, in all its iterations and forms, has become the accepted currency of the social web — especially in the context of blogging.

We’ve speculated doom, as is our nature some say, doom for the real world, the digital world, and most pointedly and assuredly for social networks. But social networks are an easy mark – in the beginning they depended on kids.

In a nutshell: Economics, economies and economic theory have all been based on economics of scarcity.