By Adrianne Jeffries 7/26/11 1:54pm

Can I See Your ID

The pseudonymity debate as bingo, by geekfeminism.org.

Anil Dash, Caterina Fake and Google+ Stand Up for Pseudonyms

Google+ and Facebook are pushing users to use their real names everywhere on the web for their convenience and the convenience of the owners of the sites they’re browsing. The trend has clearly been a boon for sites like the Huffington Post, which can get 11,000 comments rife with inanity and raciscm on a single politics story. But we’re starting to get real pushback from–more than just 4chan’s Chris Poole–as more sites force users to comment using their real identities. After Google+ pissed a bunch of people off by deleting profiles that didn’t use real names, Google’s vp of product, Bradley Horowitz, announced today that users can now list “other names” on their Google+ profile and be found by search that way. Read More

By Ben Popper 7/12/11 12:49pm

Internet Art

New York Tech’s Love Affair With the Animated GIF Grows via Anil Dash

Did you know that silent films are now the most popular form of entertainment in America? No, not through some awful retro-hipster resurgent of Nickelodeans or Netflix’s repeated suggestion that we add Buster Keaton to our instant streaming queue. It’s the slow but steady growth of the animated GIF, an almost vestigal file type from the early internet era that has become the medium of choice for quick, viral communication of humor, sports and even art.

That’s according to Anil Dash, who did a little back of the envelope calculation based on Tumblr’s page views and the site’s GIF-happy users. If just one in 20 of the 180 million Tumblr posts a day contains an animated GIF, and you factor in all the other sources of GIF goodness like 4chan and B3ta, nearly 3.3 billion people will watch one of these short, silent animations each year. Read More