Perhaps it’s a sign that the site is reaching more mainstream popularity levels, but Twitter is fast becoming a haven for spammers. Accounts include semi-naked girls with just one link to an affiliate site to brands that use the service for nothing more sending direct messages to other users with a sales link.

As all WebProNews readers are probably aware by now, Bankaholic, a blog run by 22-year-old Johns Wu was sold to BankRate.com for $15 million, a price some people find shockingly high, but enough to change a man’s life dramatically. We’ve covered this inspirational story extensively since we first learned of it.

One part I like about this digital revolution is that it takes a lot of the pretentiousness out of publishing. One part I dislike about this digital revolution is that it takes a lot of the pretentiousness out of publishing.

One of the things that social media is great at is soliciting and distributing user-generated video. 

After writing several posts on SEO and the Presidential candidates, I started thinking, what would I do if I ran for President of the United States, in terms of online presence and search marketing.

BusinessWeek magazine has a piece about user-generated content and how it’s old and busted now — people really want professional content, apparently.

About a week ago, Idearc announced that Superpages.com had introduced more user-content features.

Web developers and designers for huge companies and niche sites alike are all jumping on the social media bandwagon, realizing that social networking, user-generated content, video-sharing and Widgets are more than just ways to kill time in the office; they can be incredibly effective in growing and increasing audience engagement.

Search and word-of-mouth are by far still the most effective means of advertising and driving website traffic, according to a new survey, but it may not be time to sing the dirge for print just yet.

Historically, in the brick-and-mortar world, we’ve had courts to settle disputes. Online, there are terms of service agreements and invisible judges determining, usually at the behest of the loudest and largest mob, who is guilty of crossing the line between conscious protest and hate speech.

It didn’t take long for user-generated content to translate to user-generated profit. But as the giants have their weird litigious and incestuous thing going on both in the courtroom and in the boardroom, YouTube users aren’t just getting the shaft, they’re getting mud kicked in their faces.

One thing you can count on in a user-generated world is passion, and threats to leave because of changes. Another thing you can count on is that they probably don’t mean it, and there’s a good chance their anger’s misplaced.

The proliferation of cellphones and other devices have carved away some of television’s lead as the electronic gadget of choice for media consumption.

They may not have meant for the association, but globs, lube, gunk and goo came to mind, which, if you stretch the metaphor, seem to be the yin to Gloob.tv’s yang. The operators (well, spin-meisters) of the site assert that searching for video on YouTube "doesn’t have to be like digging through a trash heap…"

The CW – the other network you probably don’t watch – is giving us a new reason to check them out this fall. Not that it’s original, just that it’s primetime and that means something, right?

My best friend is an extremely gifted film talent. But he hated Hollywood, hated the hoops young aspirants had to go through, hated having to play ball, so he left Hollywood and came home to be an English professor. It’s really too bad online video hadn’t taken off just yet.

The rise of the social network has caused the rise of other, perhaps predictable, things: copycat networks; and investor curiosity. Blame MySpace and Facebook. Blame (or congratulate) Hi5, known, apparently, everywhere but the US, for extracting $20 million out of venture capitalists.

Google seems pleased to announce that European regulations on broadcast video content will not apply to search engines, user-generated content, or YouTube.

It looks like eMarketer is afraid of the impending UGC creator shortage. That, or they’re crying wolf.

One of the hottest marketing trends of late is to get your customers to create your next ad campaign for you. It worked for Doritos and their Super Bowl ad contest, but sometimes it can backfire, as Chevy can attest to.

I’m pretty good at spotting spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, but this is something that I wouldn’t ever have noticed: Wikipedia’s logo contains two goofs.