Pink Floyd The Wall - Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb (Gilmour, Waters) 6:49

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone at home?
Come on, now,
I hear you're feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again.
Relax.
I'll need some information first.
Just the basic facts.
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain you would not understand
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

O.K.
Just a little pinprick.
There'll be no more aaaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick.
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good.
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

Kim Kardashian Not Getting Married

The Internet was all abuzz last night with news of Kim Kardashian getting engaged to Heisman Trophy-winning footballer Reggie Bush over the holidays. The eye of the storm was an OK! magazine piece saying the betrothal was a done deal.

And as much as we would love to watch the Kardashian clan go shopping for wedding dresses in season two of their E! series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kim's rep has gone on record: "It's not true."

But you know, if we have learned anything from reality TV in '07, it's that even a fake engagement can be pretty awesome fodder...right, Speidi?!

Source: http://www.eonline.com

One More Night by Cascada

One More Night lyrics

You are all I can remember
After all that we’ve been through
Forever in my heart
Now I’m through
And truth is like November
Still can’t believe it’s true
Too long we’ve been apart

One more night
I wanna to be with you
Where I wanna to hold you tight
It feels so right, tonight
So leave it up to you
And I think the time is right to stop the fight
One more night
I wanna to be with you
Where I wanna to hold you tight
It feels so right, tonight
So leave it up to you
And I think the time is right to stop the fight

Why can’t true love be forever?
Why did my dream explode?
The day you went away
Cause I will keep this spell together
And wish you well of hope
Your girl from yesterday

One more night
I wanna be with you
Where I wanna hold you tight
It feels so right, tonight
So leave it up to you
And I think the time is right to stop the fight
One more night
I wanna be with you
Where I wanna hold you tight
It feels so right, tonight
So leave it up to you
And I think the time is right to stop the fight

Die Rzte - Anti-Zombie lyrics

"In der Hölle ist kein Platz mehr, hat früher immer mein Großvater erzählt. Schon mal was von Macumba gehört oder Voodoo? Mein Großvater war ein Priester in Trinidad. Er pflegte zu sagen: 'Wenn in der Hölle kein Platz mehr ist, kommen die Toten auf die Erde'."
Sie essen alle auf.
Sie fressen alle auf.
Und hast Du keine Knarre,
rate ich Dir: "Lauf!"
Sie sind nicht mehr am Leben.
Sie sind nicht tot.
Wenn ich sie seh', dann seh' ich rot.
Ziel auf den Kopf, keine Gnade.
Sie haben mit unseren lieben Toten nichts gemein.
Du hörst sie schmatzen und hohles Stöhnen.
Ich werd' sie mit 'ner Ladung Blei verwöhnen.
Sie wandern stumpf durch die Botanik.
Nur die Ruhe, bitte keine Panik!
Es muss so sein, Du musst es tun.
Und dann können Sie in Frieden ruhen.
(Ooh) Sie kommen aus der Hölle,
(Ooh) denn da gibt es viel zu viele.
(Ooh) Der Eintritt ist verboten,
(Ooh) Für die lebenden Toten.
Bist Du bereit?
Dann mach sie alle.
Dafür bleibst Du auch am Leben.
Hast Du genug Blei dabei?
Dann sag' ich Dir: "Feuer frei!"
Ob Neunmillimeter oder Maschinengewehr,
schieß doch einfach 'n paar Magazine leer!
Vorsicht sie kommen mit dem Impuls.
Fressen, um zu fressen, um zu killen.
(Ooh) Sie kommen aus der Hölle,
(Ooh) denn da gibt es viel zu viele.
(Ooh) Der Eintritt ist verboten,
(Ooh) Für die lebenden Toten.
(Ooh) Sie kommen aus der Hölle,
(Ooh) denn da gibt es viel zu viele.
(Ooh) Der Eintritt ist verboten,
(Ooh) Für die lebenden Toten.
"Ruhe bitte - Dummköpfe - Ruhe bitte - Dummköpfe, manchmal fragt man sich, ob sich die Rettungsversuche überhaupt lohnen. Lohnt es sich die Menschen zu retten? So wie ich die Sache sehe, ist die Intelligenz bereits ausgerottet und es leben nur noch die Idioten."

Amy Fisher

Overview

Date of Birth:

21 August 1974, Long Island, New York, USA more

Trivia:

Gave birth to her second child, a daughter Ava Rose, on January 26, 2005.

Filmography

Self:

1. "Howard Stern on Demand" .... Herself (1 episode, 2007)
   ... aka Howard TV on Demand (USA)
   - Amy Fisher & Joey Buttafuoco (2007) TV episode (voice) .... Herself
2. "The View" .... Herself (1 episode, 2004)
   - Episode dated 5 October 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
3. "The Early Show" .... Herself (1 episode, 2004)
   - Episode dated 4 October 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
4. "Good Day Live" .... Herself (2 episodes, 2004)
   - Episode dated 4 October 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
   - Episode dated 1 August 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
5. "American Morning" .... Herself (1 episode, 2004)
   - Episode dated 4 October 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
6. "Dateline NBC" .... Herself (1 episode, 2004)
   ... aka Dateline (USA: short title)
   - Episode dated 1 October 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
7. "Today" .... Herself (1 episode, 2004)
   ... aka NBC News Today (USA: promotional title)
   ... aka The Today Show (USA)
   - Episode dated 1 October 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
8. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" .... Herself (1 episode, 2004)
   ... aka Oprah (USA: short title)
   - Episode dated 27 September 2004 (2004) TV episode .... Herself
   

Archive Footage:

1. 101 Most Unforgettable SNL Moments (2004) (TV) .... Herself
2. 101 Biggest Celebrity Oops (2004) (TV) .... Herself - #52: Amy Fisher: 3 TV Movies

Additional Details

Other Works:

Her wrote the book, "Amy Fisher: My Story", with Sheila Weller which was published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. in 1993.

Publicity Listings:

3 Portrayals / 2 Print Biographies

Genres:

News / Talk-Show

Plot Keywords:

Non Fiction / Character Name In Title / Morning Show

Source: http://www.imdb.com

Madonna

Madonna
Born: August 16, 1958 in Bay City, MI
Years Active: 80 's, 90 's, 00's

News:
• Madonna Sings For India
• TV Remakes We'd Like To See, Vol. 1: 'Gilligan's Island'
• Madonna Shows Off Dance Moves In India
More News >>

Biography:
After a star reaches a certain point, it's easy to forget what they became famous for and concentrate solely on their persona. Madonna is such a star. Madonna rocketed to stardom so quickly in 1984 that it obscured most of her musical virtues. Appreciating her music became even more difficult as the decade wore on, as discussing her lifestyle becam... Continue Bio >>

Photo Gallery:

View All Pictures >>

Music Videos:

2007 Jump (live) 2007 Ray Of Light (live) (explicit Language) 2005 Sorry 2005 Hung Up

More Music Videos >>

Movie Trailers:

2007 Arthur 2007 Madonna: The Confessions Tour 2002 Swept Away 2000 Next Best Thing, The

More Movie Trailers >>

Discography:

2007	Confessions Tour [Bonus DVD]
2007	Confessions Tour
2006	Music [Bonus Tracks]
2006	I'm Going to Tell You a Secret
2006	Confessions Remixed

All Releases >>

Filmography:

2006	Arthur and the Invisibles
2005	I'm Going to Tell You a Secret
2004	Madonna: Sex Bomb - Unauthorized
2003	Saturday Night Live: 25 Years of Music

Source: http://www.starpulse.com

Test

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Test or Tester may refer to:

• Test (student assessment), an assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
• Experiment, part of the scientific method, to verify or falsify an expectation with an observation
• test (Unix), a Unix command for evaluating conditional expressions
• Test (biology), the shell of sea urchins and the shell of certain microorganisms
• TEST, an x86 assembly language instruction
• River Test, England
• Andrew Martin or Test, a professional wrestler

People with the surname Tester

This page or section lists people with the surname Tester. If an internal link for a specific person referred you to this disambiguation page, you may wish to add the given name(s) to that link.

• Jon Tester, Democratic Junior Senator from Montana, USA
• Ralph Tester, head of a section at British codebreaking station Bletchley Park

Florida Real Estate

Selling Your Home

When selling your home, most people know of a relative or friend that is a licenced Realtor. In a sellers market buying & selling your home may not difficult, but in a buyers market you need someone that can truly help you sell your home. Our Agents market and networking your home to someone that may not live in your city or town, and looking to relocate from a different region of the country also. Coldwell Banker Referral service reachs out to other customers that may be moving to your location and looking for your home as well as local and regional marketing. Look for the sell edge contact us! Look for help from ColdwellBanker professional Real Estate Agents. Concider it Sold!

Buying Your Home

If you are looking to move within your area or to somewhere unkown to you, we can help you! Are you looking to purchase you new home in a different location? Our friendy professional agents will show you homes that fit your needs so you save time and money. Your Coldwell Banker Agent will be their all along the way to hold your hand in moving to strange area.

Fill the out your contact information and your Referral agent can assit in information in your move. An Coldwell Banker agent will give you information is free of charge. So what are you waiting for? Fill out the contact us form and meet your first friend and professional in your new location. (Your contact informaion is strictly used for Coldwell Banker in contacting a agent to help you. all information is concidered private and confidential.).

Source: http://meaford-ontario.com

Making a dry-laid stone walk

Step 1

LAY OUT THE PATH

Lay out the boundaries and slope of the walk using batterboards, stakes, and mason’s line. Cut the sod along the edge of the walk with an edger and slip a spade under the sod. Press the handle down near the ground and remove the sod by kicking the back of the spade. Dig deeper, removing enough soil to accommodate a 6-inch base plus the thickness of an average stone.

Step 2

FILL THE BED WITH GRAVEL AND SAND

Measure down from the mason’s line to make sure the surface follows the intended slop of the walk. Fill the excavated area with 2 inches of gravel, then tamp with a power tamper. Add another 2 inches and tamp again until you have 4 inches of tamped gravel. Cover with landscape fabric. Spread 2 inches of bedding sand over the landscape fabric. If you need more than one piece of landscape fabric, overlap the sheets 12 to 18 inches.

Step 3

MAKE A TRIAL LAYOUT

Lay out the stones for the walk on the ground next to the excavation-this leaves the sand-and-gravel bed undisturbed while you cut and fit stones. A gap of ½ inch between stones is ideal. When you need to cut a stone, mark the cut with a carpenter’s pencil, making the cut as straight as possible.

Step 4

MAKE CUTS WITH A BRICK CHISEL

Put a brick chisel on the pencil line and strike it what a 3-pound sledgehammer. Score along the entire line this way. Then place the line directly above the edge of the piece of wood. Sever the piece with a single, solid blow. Place the stones in position on the sand-and-gravel bed. Embed each one in the sand by tapping it with a rubber mallet until it is flush with the adjacent ground.

Step 5

CHECK FOR FLAT

Stone walks are never perfectly flat, but check for high and low spots by placing a straight 2x4 across the length and width of the walk. Set a high stone with a tap of the mallet or by removing sand from beneath it. Add sand under the low stones. Once you’ve laid all the stones, sweep mason’s sand into the joints with a stiff brush or broom. Since you can’t use a power tamper on uneven surfaces such as natural stone, mist the surface with water. Continue adding sand and misting until the joints are filled to the level of the stones.

Source: http://diy.homedepot.ca

Dr. Phil -- Brit's Family Asked Me to See Her

Dr. Phil just appeared on CBS' "Early Show" this morning, and said that he went to see Britney Spears and her family's request.

Here's what he said about his visit on Saturday morning: "I want to sent the record straight. I went to see Britney at the request of her family. I talked to Lynne, Jamie, and Brian, because they were frustrated that she wasn't going to be held for a longer time."

Asked how he had come to be involved in the saga, Dr. Phil said, "Thursday night, the phone rang, it was Lynne, clearly she was very upset. Any parent would be. I was first contacted by her family a year ago, and had maintained a running dialogue for the last year or so."

Source: http://www.tmz.com

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?

By: Charles Fishman | Photographs By: Livia Corona

A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.

Wal-Mart priced it at $2.97--a year's supply of pickles for less than $3! "They were using it as a 'statement' item," says Pat Hunn, who calls himself the "mad scientist" of Vlasic's gallon jar. "Wal-Mart was putting it before consumers, saying, This represents what Wal-Mart's about. You can buy a stinkin' gallon of pickles for $2.97. And it's the nation's number-one brand."

Therein lies the basic conundrum of doing business with the world's largest retailer. By selling a gallon of kosher dills for less than most grocers sell a quart, Wal-Mart may have provided a ser-vice for its customers. But what did it do for Vlasic? The pickle maker had spent decades convincing customers that they should pay a premium for its brand. Now Wal-Mart was practically giving them away. And the fevered buying spree that resulted distorted every aspect of Vlasic's operations, from farm field to factory to financial statement.

Indeed, as Vlasic discovered, the real story of Wal-Mart, the story that never gets told, is the story of the pressure the biggest retailer relentlessly applies to its suppliers in the name of bringing us "every day low prices." It's the story of what that pressure does to the companies Wal-Mart does business with, to U.S. manufacturing, and to the economy as a whole. That story can be found floating in a gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest retailer. It's the world's largest company--bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. Wal-Mart sold $244.5 billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what

number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year. And in its own category of general merchandise and groceries, Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined. "Clearly," says Edward Fox, head of Southern Methodist University's J.C. Penney Center for Retailing Excellence, "Wal-Mart is more powerful than any retailer has ever been." It is, in fact, so big and so furtively powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate being.

Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas.

Of course, U.S. companies have been moving jobs offshore for decades, long before Wal-Mart was a retailing power. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries such as China. Wal-Mart, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s trumpeted its claim to "Buy American," has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States.

One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market. "One of the things that limits or slows the growth of imports is the cost of establishing connections and networks," says Paul Krugman, the Princeton University economist. "Wal-Mart is so big and so centralized that it can all at once hook Chinese and other suppliers into its digital system. So--wham!--you have a large switch to overseas sourcing in a period quicker than under the old rules of retailing."

Steve Dobbins has been bearing the brunt of that switch. He's president and CEO of Carolina Mills, a 75-year-old North Carolina company that supplies thread, yarn, and textile finishing to apparel makers--half of which supply Wal-Mart. Carolina Mills grew steadily until 2000. But in the past three years, as its customers have gone either overseas or out of business, it has shrunk from 17 factories to 7, and from 2,600 employees to 1,200. Dobbins's customers have begun to face imported clothing sold so cheaply to Wal-Mart that they could not compete even if they paid their workers nothing.

"People ask, 'How can it be bad for things to come into the U.S. cheaply? How can it be bad to have a bargain at Wal-Mart?' Sure, it's held inflation down, and it's great to have bargains," says Dobbins. "But you can't buy anything if you're not employed. We are shopping ourselves out of jobs."

The gallon jar of pickles at Wal-Mart became a devastating success, giving Vlasic strong sales and growth numbers--but slashing its profits by millions of dollars.

There is no question that Wal-Mart's relentless drive to squeeze out costs has benefited consumers. The giant retailer is at least partly responsible for the low rate of U.S. inflation, and a McKinsey & Co. study concluded that about 12% of the economy's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s could be traced to Wal-Mart alone.

There is also no question that doing business with Wal-Mart can give a supplier a fast, heady jolt of sales and market share. But that fix can come with long-term consequences for the health of a brand and a business. Vlasic, for example, wasn't looking to build its brand on a gallon of whole pickles. Pickle companies make money on "the cut," slicing cucumbers into spears and hamburger chips. "Cucumbers in the jar, you don't make a whole lot of money there," says Steve Young, a former vice president of grocery marketing for pickles at Vlasic, who has since left the company.

At some point in the late 1990s, a Wal-Mart buyer saw Vlasic's gallon jar and started talking to Pat Hunn about it. Hunn, who has also since left Vlasic, was then head of Vlasic's Wal-Mart sales team, based in Dallas. The gallon intrigued the buyer. In sales tests, priced somewhere over $3, "the gallon sold like crazy," says Hunn, "surprising us all." The Wal-Mart buyer had a brainstorm: What would happen to the gallon if they offered it nationwide and got it below $3? Hunn was skeptical, but his job was to look for ways to sell pickles at Wal-Mart. Why not?

And so Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles went into every Wal-Mart, some 3,000 stores, at $2.97, a price so low that Vlasic and Wal-Mart were making only a penny or two on a jar, if that. It was showcased on big pallets near the front of stores. It was an abundance of abundance. "It was selling 80 jars a week, on average, in every store," says Young. Doesn't sound like much, until you do the math: That's 240,000 gallons of pickles, just in gallon jars, just at Wal-Mart, every week. Whole fields of cucumbers were heading out the door.

For Vlasic, the gallon jar of pickles became what might be called a devastating success. "Quickly, it started cannibalizing our non-Wal-Mart business," says Young. "We saw consumers who used to buy the spears and the chips in supermarkets buying the Wal-Mart gallons. They'd eat a quarter of a jar and throw the thing away when they got moldy. A family can't eat them fast enough."

The gallon jar reshaped Vlasic's pickle business: It chewed up the profit margin of the business with Wal-Mart, and of pickles generally. Procurement had to scramble to find enough pickles to fill the gallons, but the volume gave Vlasic strong sales numbers, strong growth numbers, and a powerful place in the world of pickles at Wal-Mart. Which accounted for 30% of Vlasic's business. But the company's profits from pickles had shriveled 25% or more, Young says--millions of dollars.

The gallon was hoisting Vlasic and hurting it at the same time.

Young remembers begging Wal-Mart for relief. "They said, 'No way,' " says Young. "We said we'll increase the price"--even $3.49 would have helped tremendously--"and they said, 'If you do that, all the other products of yours we buy, we'll stop buying.' It was a clear threat." Hunn recalls things a little differently, if just as ominously: "They said, 'We want the $2.97 gallon of pickles. If you don't do it, we'll see if someone else might.' I knew our competitors were saying to Wal-Mart, 'We'll do the $2.97 gallons if you give us your other business.' " Wal-Mart's business was so indispensable to Vlasic, and the gallon so central to the Wal-Mart relationship, that decisions about the future of the gallon were made at the CEO level.

Finally, Wal-Mart let Vlasic up for air. "The Wal-Mart guy's response was classic," Young recalls. "He said, 'Well, we've done to pickles what we did to orange juice. We've killed it. We can back off.' " Vlasic got to take it down to just over half a gallon of pickles, for $2.79. Not long after that, in January 2001, Vlasic filed for bankruptcy--although the gallon jar of pickles, everyone agrees, wasn't a critical factor.

By now, it is accepted wisdom that Wal-Mart makes the companies it does business with more efficient and focused, leaner and faster. Wal-Mart itself is known for continuous improvement in its ability to handle, move, and track merchandise. It expects the same of its suppliers. But the ability to operate at peak efficiency only gets you in the door at Wal-Mart. Then the real demands start. The public image Wal-Mart projects may be as cheery as its yellow smiley-face mascot, but there is nothing genial about the process by which Wal-Mart gets its suppliers to provide tires and contact lenses, guns and underarm deodorant at every day low prices. Wal-Mart is legendary for forcing its suppliers to redesign everything from their packaging to their computer systems. It is also legendary for quite straightforwardly telling them what it will pay for their goods.

"We are one of Wal-Mart's biggest suppliers, and they are our biggest customer, by far. We have a great relationship. That's all I can say. Are we done now?"

John Fitzgerald, a former vice president of Nabisco, remembers Wal-Mart's reaction to his company's plan to offer a 25-cent newspaper coupon for a large bag of Lifesavers in advance of Halloween. Wal-Mart told Nabisco to add up what it would spend on the promotion--for the newspaper ads, the coupons, and handling--and then just take that amount off the price instead. "That isn't necessarily good for the manufacturer," Fitzgerald says. "They need things that draw attention."

It also is not unheard of for Wal-Mart to demand to examine the private financial records of a supplier, and to insist that its margins are too high and must be cut. And the smaller the supplier, one academic study shows, the greater the likelihood that it will be forced into damaging concessions. Melissa Berryhill, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, disagrees: "The fact is Wal-Mart, perhaps like no other retailer, seeks to establish collaborative and mutually beneficial relationships with our suppliers."

For many suppliers, though, the only thing worse than doing business with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart. Last year, 7.5 cents of every dollar spent in any store in the United States (other than auto-parts stores) went to the retailer. That means a contract with Wal-Mart can be critical even for the largest consumer-goods companies. Dial Corp., for example, does 28% of its business with Wal-Mart. If Dial lost that one account, it would have to double its sales to its next nine customers just to stay even. "Wal-Mart is the essential retailer, in a way no other retailer is," says Gib Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., who is leading a yearlong study of how to do business with Wal-Mart. "Our clients cannot grow without finding a way to be successful with Wal-Mart."

Many companies and their executives frankly admit that supplying Wal-Mart is like getting into the company version of basic training with an implacable Army drill sergeant. The process may be unpleasant. But there can be some positive results.

"Everyone from the forklift driver on up to me, the CEO, knew we had to deliver [to Wal-Mart] on time. Not 10 minutes late. And not 45 minutes early, either," says Robin Prever, who was CEO of Saratoga Beverage Group from 1992 to 2000, and made private-label water sold at Wal-Mart. "The message came through clearly: You have this 30-second delivery window. Either you're there, or you're out. With a customer like that, it changes your organization. For the better. It wakes everybody up. And all our customers benefited. We changed our whole approach to doing business."

But you won't hear evenhanded stories like that from Wal-Mart, or from its current suppliers. Despite being a publicly traded company, Wal-Mart is intensely private. It declined to talk in detail about its relationships with its suppliers for this story. More strikingly, dozens of companies contacted declined to talk about even the basics of their business with Wal-Mart.

Here, for example, is an executive at Dial: "We are one of Wal-Mart's biggest suppliers, and they are our biggest customer by far. We have a great relationship. That's all I can say. Are we done now?" Goaded a bit, the executive responds with an almost hysterical edge: "Are you meshuga? Why in the world would we talk about Wal-Mart? Ask me about anything else, we'll talk. But not Wal-Mart."

No one wants to end up in what is known among Wal-Mart vendors as the "penalty box"--punished, or even excluded from the store shelves, for saying something that makes Wal-Mart unhappy. (The penalty box is normally reserved for vendors who don't meet performance benchmarks, not for those who talk to the press.)

"You won't hear anything negative from most people," says Paul Kelly, founder of Silvermine Consulting Group, a company that helps businesses work more effectively with retailers. "It would be committing suicide. If Wal-Mart takes something the wrong way, it's like Saddam Hussein. You just don't want to piss them off."

As a result, this story was reported in an unusual way: by speaking with dozens of people who have spent years selling to Wal-Mart, or consulting to companies that sell to Wal-Mart, but who no longer work for companies that do business with Wal-Mart. Unless otherwise noted, the companies involved in the events they described refused even to confirm or deny the basics of the events.

To a person, all those interviewed credit Wal-Mart with a fundamental integrity in its dealings that's unusual in the world of consumer goods, retailing, and groceries. Wal-Mart does not cheat suppliers, it keeps its word, it pays its bills briskly. "They are tough people but very honest; they treat you honestly," says Peter Campanella, who ran the business that sold Corning kitchenware products, both at Corning and then at World Kitchen. "It was a joke to do business with most of their competitors. A fiasco."

But Wal-Mart also clearly does not hesitate to use its power, magnifying the Darwinian forces already at work in modern global capitalism.

Caught in the Wal-Mart squeeze, Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep its commitment to the retailer. It handed those profits to the competition.

What does the squeeze look like at Wal-Mart? It is usually thoroughly rational, sometimes devastatingly so.

John Mariotti is a veteran of the consumer-products world--he spent nine years as president of Huffy Bicycle Co., a division of Huffy Corp., and is now chairman of World Kitchen, the company that sells Oxo, Revere, Corning, and Ekco brand housewares.

He could not be clearer on his opinion about Wal-Mart: It's a great company, and a great company to do business with. "Wal-Mart has done more good for America by several thousand orders of magnitude than they've done bad," Mariotti says. "They have raised the bar, and raised the bar for everybody."

Mariotti describes one episode from Huffy's relationship with Wal-Mart. It's a tale he tells to illustrate an admiring point he makes about the retailer. "They demand you do what you say you are going to do." But it's also a classic example of the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't Wal-Mart squeeze. When Mariotti was at Huffy throughout the 1980s, the company sold a range of bikes to Wal-Mart, 20 or so models, in a spread of prices and profitability. It was a leading manufacturer of bikes in the United States, in places like Ponca City, Oklahoma; Celina, Ohio; and Farmington, Missouri.

One year, Huffy had committed to supply Wal-Mart with an entry-level, thin-margin bike--as many as Wal-Mart needed. Sales of the low-end bike took off. "I woke up May 1"--the heart of the bike production cycle for the summer--"and I needed 900,000 bikes," he says. "My factories could only run 450,000." As it happened, that same year, Huffy's fancier, more-profitable bikes were doing well, too, at Wal-Mart and other places. Huffy found itself in a bind.

With other retailers, perhaps, Mariotti might have sat down, renegotiated, tried to talk his way out of the corner. Not with Wal-Mart. "I made the deal up front with them," he says. "I knew how high was up. I was duty-bound to supply my customer." So he did something extraordinary. To free up production in order to make Wal-Mart's cheap bikes, he gave the designs for four of his higher-end, higher-margin products to rival manufacturers. "I conceded business to my competitors, because I just ran out of capacity," he says. Huffy didn't just relinquish profits to keep Wal-Mart happy--it handed those profits to its competition. "Wal-Mart didn't tell me what to do," Mariotti says. "They didn't have to." The retailer, he adds, "is tough as nails. But they give you a chance to compete. If you can't compete, that's your problem."

In the years since Mariotti left Huffy, the bike maker's relationship with Wal-Mart has been vital (though Huffy Corp. has lost money in three out of the last five years). It is the number-three seller of bikes in the United States. And Wal-Mart is the number-one retailer of bikes. But here's one last statistic about bicycles: Roughly 98% are now imported from places such as China, Mexico, and Taiwan. Huffy made its last bike in the United States in 1999.

As Mariotti says, Wal-Mart is tough as nails. But not every supplier agrees that the toughness is always accompanied by fairness. The Lovable Company was founded in 1926 by the grandfather of Frank Garson II, who was Lovable's last president. It did business with Wal-Mart, Garson says, from the earliest days of founder Sam Walton's first store in Bentonville, Arkansas. Lovable made bras and lingerie, supplying retailers that also included Sears and Victoria's Secret. At one point, it was the sixth-largest maker of intimate apparel in the United States, with 700 employees in this country and another 2,000 at eight factories in Central America.

Eventually Wal-Mart became Lovable's biggest customer. "Wal-Mart has a big pencil," says Garson. "They have such awesome purchasing power that they write their own ticket. If they don't like your prices, they'll go vertical and do it themselves--or they'll find someone that will meet their terms."

In the summer of 1995, Garson asserts, Wal-Mart did just that. "They had awarded us a contract, and in their wisdom, they changed the terms so dramatically that they really reneged." Garson, still worried about litigation, won't provide details. "But when you lose a customer that size, they are irreplaceable."

Lovable was already feeling intense cost pressure. Less than three years after Wal-Mart pulled its business, in its 72nd year, Lovable closed. "They leave a lot to be desired in the way they treat people," says Garson. "Their actions to pulverize people are unnecessary. Wal-Mart chewed us up and spit us out."

Believe it or not, American business has been through this before. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the grocery-store chain, stood astride the U.S. market in the 1920s and 1930s with a dominance that has likely never been duplicated. At its peak, A&P had five times the number of stores Wal-Mart has now (although much smaller ones), and at one point, it owned 80% of the supermarket business. Some of the antipredatory-pricing laws in use today were inspired by A&P's attempts to muscle its suppliers.

There is very little academic and statistical study of Wal-Mart's impact on the health of its suppliers and virtually nothing in the last decade, when Wal-Mart's size has increased by a factor of five. This while the retail industry has become much more concentrated. In large part, that's because it's nearly impossible to get meaningful data that would allow researchers to track the influence of Wal-Mart's business on companies over time. You'd need cooperation from the vendor companies or Wal-Mart or both--and neither Wal-Mart nor its suppliers are interested in sharing such intimate detail.

Bain & Co., the global management consulting firm, is in the midst of a project that asks, How does a company have a healthy relationship with Wal-Mart? How do you avoid being sucked into the vortex? How do you maintain some standing, some leverage of your own?

This July, in a mating that had the relieved air of lovers who had too long resisted embracing, Levi Strauss rolled blue jeans into every Wal-Mart in the United States.

Bain's first insights are obvious, if not easy. "Year after year," Carey, a partner at Bain & Co., says, "for any product that is the same as what you sold them last year, Wal-Mart will say, 'Here's the price you gave me last year. Here's what I can get a competitor's product for. Here's what I can get a private-label version for. I want to see a better value that I can bring to my shopper this year. Or else I'm going to use that shelf space differently.' "

Carey has a friend in the umbrella business who learned that. One year, because of costs, he went to Wal-Mart and asked for a 5% price increase. "Wal-Mart said, 'We were expecting a 5% decrease. We're off by 10%. Go back and sharpen your pencil.' " The umbrella man scrimped and came back with a 2% increase. "They said, 'We'll go with a Chinese manufacturer'--and he was out entirely."

The Wal-Mart squeeze means vendors have to be as relentless and as microscopic as Wal-Mart is at managing their own costs. They need, in fact, to turn themselves into shadow versions of Wal-Mart itself. "Wal-Mart won't necessarily say you have to reconfigure your distribution system," says Carey. "But companies recognize they are not going to maintain margins with growth in their Wal-Mart business without doing it."

The way to avoid being trapped in a spiral of growing business and shrinking profits, says Carey, is to innovate. "You need to bring Wal-Mart new products--products consumers need. Because with those, Wal-Mart doesn't have benchmarks to drive you down in price. They don't have historical data, you don't have competitors, they haven't bid the products out to private-label makers. That's how you can have higher prices and higher margins."

Reasonable advice, but not universally useful. There has been an explosion of "innovation" in toothbrushes and toothpastes in the past five years, for instance; but a pickle is a pickle is a pickle.

Bain's other critical discovery is that consumers are often more loyal to product companies than to Wal-Mart. With strongly branded items people develop a preference for--things like toothpaste or laundry detergent--Wal-Mart rarely forces shoppers to switch to a second choice. It would simply punish itself by seeing sales fall, and it won't put up with that for long.

But as Wal-Mart has grown in market reach and clout, even manufacturers known for nurturing premium brands may find themselves overpowered. This July, in a mating that had the relieved air of lovers who had too long resisted embracing, Levi Strauss rolled blue jeans into every Wal-Mart doorway in the United States: 2,864 stores. Wal-Mart, seeking to expand its clothing business with more fashionable brands, promoted the clothes on its in-store TV network and with banners slipped over the security-tag detectors at exit doors.

Levi's launch into Wal-Mart came the same summer the clothes maker celebrated its 150th birthday. For a century and a half, one of the most recognizable names in American commerce had survived without Wal-Mart. But in October 2002, when Levi Strauss and Wal-Mart announced their engagement, Levi was shrinking rapidly. The pressure on Levi goes back 25 years--well before Wal-Mart was an influence. Between 1981 and 1990, Levi closed 58 U.S. manufacturing plants, sending 25% of its sewing overseas.

Sales for Levi peaked in 1996 at $7.1 billion. By last year, they had spiraled down six years in a row, to $4.1 billion; through the first six months of 2003, sales dropped another 3%. This one account--selling jeans to Wal-Mart--could almost instantly revive Levi.

Last year, Wal-Mart sold more clothing than any other retailer in the country. It also sold more pairs of jeans than any other store. Wal-Mart's own inexpensive house brand of jeans, Faded Glory, is estimated to do $3 billion in sales a year, a house brand nearly the size of Levi Strauss. Perhaps most revealing in terms of Levi's strategic blunders: In 2002, half the jeans sold in the United States cost less than $20 a pair. That same year, Levi didn't offer jeans for less than $30.

For much of the last decade, Levi couldn't have qualified to sell to Wal-Mart. Its computer systems were antiquated, and it was notorious for delivering clothes late to retailers. Levi admitted its on-time delivery rate was 65%. When it announced the deal with Wal-Mart last year, one fashion-industry analyst bluntly predicted Levi would simply fail to deliver the jeans.

But Levi Strauss has taken to the Wal-Mart Way with the intensity of a near-death religious conversion--and Levi's executives were happy to talk about their experience getting ready to sell at Wal-Mart. One hundred people at Levi's headquarters are devoted to the new business; another 12 have set up in an office in Bentonville, near Wal-Mart's headquarters, where the company has hired a respected veteran Wal-Mart sales account manager.

Getting ready for Wal-Mart has been like putting Levi on the Atkins diet. It has helped everything--customer focus, inventory management, speed to market. It has even helped other retailers that buy Levis, because Wal-Mart has forced the company to replenish stores within two days instead of Levi's previous five-day cycle.

And so, Wal-Mart might rescue Levi Strauss. Except for one thing.

Levi didn't actually have any clothes it could sell at Wal-Mart. Everything was too expensive. It had to develop a fresh line for mass retailers: the Levi Strauss Signature brand, featuring Levi Strauss's name on the back of the jeans.

Two months after the launch, Levi basked in the honeymoon glow. Overall sales, after falling for the first six months of 2003, rose 6% in the third quarter; profits in the summer quarter nearly doubled. All, Levi's CEO said, because of Signature.

"They are all very rational people. And they had a good point. Everyone was willing to pay more for a Master Lock. But how much more can they justify?"

But the low-end business isn't a business Levi is known for, or one it had been particularly interested in. It's also a business in which Levi will find itself competing with lean, experienced players such as VF and Faded Glory. Levi's makeover might so improve its performance with its non-Wal-Mart suppliers that its established business will thrive, too. It is just as likely that any gains will be offset by the competitive pressures already dissolving Levi's premium brands, and by the cannibalization of its own sales. "It's hard to see how this relationship will boost Levi's higher-end business," says Paul Farris, a professor at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. "It's easy to see how this will hurt the higher-end business."

If Levi clothing is a runaway hit at Wal-Mart, that may indeed rescue Levi as a business. But what will have been rescued? The Signature line--it includes clothing for girls, boys, men, and women--is an odd departure for a company whose brand has long been an American icon. Some of the jeans have the look, the fingertip feel, of pricier Levis. But much of the clothing has the look and feel it must have, given its price (around $23 for adult pants): cheap. Cheap and disappointing to find labeled with Levi Strauss's name. And just five days before the cheery profit news, Levi had another announcement: It is closing its last two U.S. factories, both in San Antonio, and laying off more than 2,500 workers, or 21% of its workforce. A company that 22 years ago had 60 clothing plants in the United States--and that was known as one of the most socially reponsible corporations on the planet--will, by 2004, not make any clothes at all. It will just import them.

In the end, of course, it is we as shoppers who have the power, and who have given that power to Wal-Mart. Part of Wal-Mart's dominance, part of its insight, and part of its arrogance, is that it presumes to speak for American shoppers.

If Wal-Mart doesn't like the pricing on something, says Andrew Whitman, who helped service Wal-Mart for years when he worked at General Foods and Kraft, they simply say, "At that price we no longer think it's a good value to our shopper. Therefore, we don't think we should carry it."

Wal-Mart has also lulled shoppers into ignoring the difference between the price of something and the cost. Its unending focus on price underscores something that Americans are only starting to realize about globalization: Ever-cheaper prices have consequences. Says Steve Dobbins, president of thread maker Carolina Mills: "We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything manufactured under those restrictions."

Randall Larrimore, a former CEO of MasterBrand Industries, the parent company of Master Lock, understands that contradiction too well. For years, he says, as manufacturing costs in the United States rose, Master Lock was able to pass them along. But at some point in the 1990s, Asian manufacturers started producing locks for much less. "When the difference is $1, retailers like Wal-Mart would prefer to have the brand-name padlock or faucet or hammer," Larrimore says. "But as the spread becomes greater, when our padlock was $9, and the import was $6, then they can offer the consumer a real discount by carrying two lines. Ultimately, they may only carry one line."

In January 1997, Master Lock announced that, after 75 years making locks in Milwaukee, it would begin importing more products from Asia. Not too long after, Master Lock opened a factory of its own in Nogales, Mexico. Today, it makes just 10% to 15% of its locks in Milwaukee--its 300 employees there mostly make parts that are sent to Nogales, where there are now 800 factory workers.

Larrimore did the first manufacturing layoffs at Master Lock. He negotiated with Master Lock's unions himself. He went to Bentonville. "I loved dealing with Wal-Mart, with Home Depot," he says. "They are all very rational people. There wasn't a whole lot of room for negotiation. And they had a good point. Everyone was willing to pay more for a Master Lock. But how much more can they justify? If they can buy a lock that has arguably similar qual-ity, at a cheaper price, well, they can get their consumers a deal."

It's Wal-Mart in the role of Adam Smith's invisible hand. And the Milwaukee employees of Master Lock who shopped at Wal-Mart to save money helped that hand shove their own jobs right to Nogales. Not consciously, not directly, but inevitably. "Do we as consumers appreciate what we're doing?" Larrimore asks. "I don't think so. But even if we do, I think we say, Here's a Master Lock for $9, here's another lock for $6--let the other guy pay $9."

Charles Fishman (cnfish@mindspring.com) is a senior writer at Fast Company. Andrew Moesel provided research assistance for this story.

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com

Messy desk = ordered mind, expert says

By CAROL SMITH
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Is a cluttered desk a sign of genius or just hopeless disorganization?

I had plenty of opportunity to ponder this question during a recent office move that involved packing multiple (I dare not say how many for fear the storage police will come after me) boxes of back files.

Now a certain Jay Brand has unwittingly come to my rescue and allowed me to save face among my colleagues who were able to fit all their office belongings into two allotted "hot files" for the move.

Brand, a former psychology professor, is now a "cognitive engineer" at office furniture giant Haworth Inc. in Holland, Mich.

He says, and I quote: "A clean desk isn't always the sign of a productive employee."

Phew.

"In fact, a clean desk can hinder worker efficiency."

I love this guy.

The premise is that people use their desk space as an extension of their minds.

"The human mind, specifically short-term memory, has a limited capacity," Brand said. "It has seven, plus or minus two, 'chunks' available for storing things.

"Since most people are doing seven things at once, they tax the capacity of their working memory almost immediately."

They need a place to "offload" some information from working memory into the environment.

Information placed into the environment this way is known as a "cognitive artifact."

"It expands a person's capacity to think," Brand said. "You're using the environment to think as well."

Companies that promote, or require, clean desk policies are in essence giving their workers "environmental lobotomies," he said.

"Essentially, you're required to destroy the context of your work every night and recreate it the next morning. It's wasted time."

Each time people clean their desks, they lose the embedded cues that their cognitive artifacts provide, Brand said. "Workers in such environments can sometimes feel like they spend more time getting organized each day than working on actual projects."

Brand himself confesses his work group -- the industrial design division at Haworth -- has a reputation for being difficult to clean up around.

Everyone has a different working style, he said. As long as people's piles mean something, they're useful.

People think differently. Some people lay out their projects left to right. Others use a top down method.

Piles may be organized by topic, chronologically, or some highly idiosyncratic system. Different strategies work for different people, Brand said. Using space to think, however, is not an excuse for being a pack rat, he said.

Rats.

"I don't advocate people be messy as an end in itself," he said. "You have to have some method to your madness."

Most people never use 80 percent of the stuff they file away, and 60 percent of the stuff on their desks.

Current projects tend to attract all kinds of paper. But once a project is finished, cull through the file, then put the rest in storage, Brand said.

Other tips include using multiple surfaces to layer information. Shelves can help separate information so ideas don't get lost.

Moving things around in the piles also helps refresh their significance, he said. "Post-it notes, pictures, magazine articles, lists and charts lose their meaning and become virtually invisible if left alone."

Also, keep your most important projects and priority items within your personal "strike zone."

Retailers have long known that people's attention is most often focused on items placed in view between their shoulders and their hips. Anything higher or lower is less likely to get noticed. You can apply the same strategy to the papers in your work environment.

The concept that my desk with its drifts of paper, and stacks of things I can't bear to toss may be an extension of my inner brain is a scary thought.

Then again, a clean desk is a blank slate.

And that's an even scarier one.

Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com

Craigslist history

Craigslist, an universal database arranged as both an advertisement service and discussion forums, is often considered the Internet equivalent of classified ads. Craigs list offers a wide range of services, goods, romance activities, events postings as well as advice.

In 1995, the very first post on Craiglist was done. For the most part Craig Newmark did they vast majority of submission to the site himself. Most of the earlier postings to this site were in regards to social events and similar topics leaning more towards the Internet industry in the San Francisco area.

It was not too long after craigslist.org got its start that word of mouth had caused this tremendous site to grow beyond the expectations of the founder Craig Newmark. Many people were at this time using the website for non-event postings. At this time visitors to the site were often trying to fill job positions. This seemed to be an excellent way for companies to reach the people that would best benefit the individual industries. This is how the category jobs became to have a permanent place on Craigslist.

Soon after the website became a popular site, the founder decide it was time for him to be a full time addition to his website. The high demand for this particular classified ad grew into a website that was beyond all others that were found on the Internet With many daily visitors it was now time to enlist some help to keep this site up to date and as easily flowing as it could be. By the end of the first quarter in 2000, Craigslist now employed nine people.

This popular websites employees were employed and ran this website from Craig Newmark's home in San Francisco. They were located on Cole Street. It has been stated that the reason Craigslist is so popular is due to the people that utilize the website are able to have a voice. Pretty much proving if the people are giving a voice in the industry it can rapidly grow into something spectacular. Offering honesty, integrity and a feeling of trustworthiness is the key factors in Craigslist. Take all of that and then add in an easy to use website, and viola. You have an excellent top ranking website, that everyone can enjoy.

There was a higher demand for many new categories on the website. The viewers of Craigslist were by now growing even more. Looking for different services, it was now apparent that Craigslist was among the most popular website to find things. The popular website was in need of a domain name, this was when the site was registered as craigslist.org and craigslist.com. This was a preventative measure to ensure the name Craigs list could not be used for anything else.

Craigslist awards and prices

Since its start, Craigslis has received many awards:

- NYPRESS: 2003, Best Local Website, by Manhattan Reader's Poll
- Webby: 2001, Best Community Site, by the Academy
- Webby: 2001, Best Community Site, by the People's Voice
- PC World : 2006, Best Product (3rd place)

Craigslist controversies

Most often the source of controversy arises when individuals post within the wrong categories. These posts are then flagged and on many occasions, certain individuals will post negatively about the poster. Many times affiliate marketers flood the board, which is strictly forbidden by Craigslist. Craigs lists's Terms of Use state: that no content content "that constitutes or contains 'affiliate marketing,'...that constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if: posted in areas of the craigslist sites which are not designated for such purposes...[or] that includes links to commercial services or web sites, except as allowed in 'services.'" Many people use automated programs that post these advertisements for them. But please note that these posts are always removed and almost immediately! Be aware of this before trying to post content that isn't allowed on this site. Find more creative ways to market yourself and ensure that your posts stay active.

History of Craigslist expansion:

3/1995: SF Bay Area
6/2000: Boston
8/2000: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, Washington DC
10/2000: Sacramento
4/2001: Atlanta, Austin, Denver, Vancouver
10/2002: Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix
4/2003: Dallas, Detroit, Houston, London, Toronto
11/2003: Baltimore, Cleveland, Honolulu, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, St. Louis, Tampa Bay
1/2004: Montreal, Providence
2/2004: Nashville, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Columbus, Fresno, Hartford, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Orlando
9/2004: Albuquerque, Anchorage, Boise, Buffalo, Memphis, Salt Lake, Santa Barbara, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin, Melbourne, Sydney
11/2004: Albany, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Eugene, Inland Empire, Monterey Bay, Omaha, Orange County, Ottawa, Paris, Reno, San Antonio, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Spokane, Tokyo, Tucson, Tulsa
1/2005: Auckland, Bakersfield, Belfast, Berlin, Brisbane, Brussels, Burlington, Calgary, Cardiff, Des Moines, Edmonton, Glasgow, Jacksonville, Louisville, Richmond, Stockton, Winnipeg
2/2005: Birmingham UK, Buenos Aires, Columbia, Manila, Mexico City, Rome, Seoul
3/2005: Zurich
4/2005: Allentown, Barcelona, Birmingham AL, Cape Town, Delhi, Hong Kong, Lexington KY, Little Rock, Madison, Maine, Modesto, Mumbai, New Haven, New Jersey, Rochester, Shanghai, Stockholm, West Palm Beach, Wichita
6/2005: Adelaide AU, Ann Arbor, Asheville, Athens GR, Bangkok, Beijing, Champaign-Urbana, Charleston SC, Chico, Dayton, Delaware, El Paso, Florence IT, Fort Myers, Frankfurt, Geneva, Grand Rapids, Halifax, Harrisburg, Humboldt, Istanbul, Jackson MS, Jerusalem, Johanessburg, Lima Peru, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Munich, New Hampshire, Oklahoma City, Osaka, Perth AU, Prague, Puerto Rico, Redding, Rio De Janeiro, San Luis Obispo, Santiago, Saskatoon, Syracuse NY, Tallahassee, Tel Aviv, Tijuana, Vienna, Western Massachusetts, Victoria BC, West Virginia
7/2005: Costa Rica, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming
9/2005: Baton Rouge, Bristol UK, Chennai IN, Ithaca, Knoxville, Leeds UK, Liverpool UK, Mobile, Montgomery, Newcastle UK, Pensacola, Quebec, Savannah, Shreveport, Toledo
1/2006: Bellingham WA, Cairo Egypt, Chattanooga TN, Colorado Springs CO, Gainesville FL, Hamilton ON, Kitchener ON, Hyderabad India, Lansing MI, Medford OR, Oxford UK, Palm Springs CA, Santa Fe NM, Taipei China, Ventura CA
6/2006: springfield MO, columbia MO, rockford IL, peoria IL, springfield IL, quad cities IL/IA, fort wayne IN, evansville IN, south bend IN, bloomington IN, gulfport-biloxi MS, huntsville AL, salem OR, bend OR, london ON, windsor ON, fort lauderdale FL, sarasota FL, daytona beach FL, cape cod MA, worcester MA, green bay WI, eau claire WI, appleton-oshkosh WI, flagstaff AZ, yakima WA, utica NY, binghamton NY, hudson valley NY, long island NY, akron-canton OH, youngstown OH, greenville SC, myrtle beach SC, duluth MN, augusta GA, macon GA, athens GA, flint MI, saginaw MI, kalamazoo MI, upper peninsula MI, mcallen TX, beaumont TX, corpus christi TX, brownsville TX, lubbock TX, odessa TX, amarillo TX, waco TX, laredo TX, winston-salem NC, fayetteville NC, wilmington NC, erie PA, scranton PA, penn state PA, reading PA, lancaster PA, topeka KS, new london CT, lincoln NE, lafayette LA, lake charles LA, merced CA, south jersey NJ, fort collins CO, roanoke VA, charlottesville VA, blacksburg VA, provo UT, fayetteville AR, rocky mountains, micronesia, helsinki FI, warsaw PL, oslo NO, naples IT, jakarta ID, marseilles FR, kolkata IN, budapest HU, caracas VE, hamburg DE, pakistan, bangladesh, beirut LB, malaysia, panama, caribbean, portugal, christchurch NZ, wellington NZ, durban ZA, prince edward island, newfoundland, cote d'azur

Source: http://craigslistinfo.info

Canada's labels slam proposed digital 'tax'

By Robert Thompson

TORONTO (Billboard) - A revolutionary plan that would effectively legitimize file-sharing here has been slammed as "a pipe dream" by Canadian labels.

The Songwriters Assn. of Canada proposes to allow domestic consumers access to all recorded music available online in return for adding a $5 Canadian ($4.96) monthly fee to every wireless and Internet account in the country.

The SAC claims that the proposal, which has been presented to labels' bodies the Canadian Record Industry Assn. (CRIA) and Canadian Independent Record Production Assn. as well as publishers' groups, would raise approximately $1 billion Canadian ($993 million) annually. Although the SAC does not detail how revenue would be collected and distributed, it says it would go to artists, labels and publishers.

The idea doesn't strike a chord with everyone. The SAC proposal "would signal the death of paid music services in Canada," said Alistair Mitchell, CEO of Canadian music service Puretracks. "It would be saying we're just giving up on developing new models. The concept is so flawed, I don't know where to start."

"This proposal is incredibly well thought out and well constructed," acting SAC president Eddie Schwartz said. Producer/songwriter Schwartz, whose songs have been performed by Joe Cocker, Pat Benatar and Donna Summer, says the scheme would "allow people to gain access to the entire repertoire of Western music" for only $60 Canadian per year.

That, he added, "amounts to $0.16 ($0.159) per day. (Which) seems like a pretty good deal." Schwartz said it's unlikely that users with both a wireless phone and an Internet account would have to pay twice for access.

MANY HURDLES TO CLEAR

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Assn. estimates that Canada had 18.5 million wireless phone users and 7 million residential Internet users at the end of 2006. In 2006, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the trade value of recorded music fell 9.1 percent to $598.7 million Canadian ($529.8 million); CDs accounted for 85 percent of that total.

CRIA president Graham Henderson said he has discussed the plan with Schwartz, but his organization is reluctant to become involved. "We don't want to pursue what amounts to a pipe dream that is presented as a quick fix," he said. "We'll lose focus on the real issues that will help us resolve the industry's problems."

Schwartz said he has received positive feedback from consumer groups. But he noted that the plan would require clearance from the Copyright Board of Canada, and the SAC has not yet taken the concept to the regulatory body.

The SAC also has yet to present its proposal to Canadian Internet service providers, although some are dismissive of the plan.

"It appears (the SAC) would ask wireless carriers and ISPs to collect this surcharge on their behalf," said a spokesman for Bell Canada, one of the country's largest telecommunications companies and the majority owner of Puretracks. "(That) would not go over well with our client base, especially with the large number already signed up for our (legal) mobile and online music services."

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2004 that ISPs are not responsible for the actions of clients using their Internet services. One senior source at a Canadian ISP said, "ISPs are not required to -- nor would they -- police this kind of usage. Nor would they charge, collect and remit what is in essence a tax."

However, the proposal has received support from the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, a group of 187 acts, including the Barenaked Ladies and Avril Lavigne.

Artist Andrew Cash described the SAC suggestion in a statement on behalf of the CMCC as "the first progressive proposal we've seen in Canada to address file-sharing."

Reuters/Billboard

Your Tube, Whose Dime?

New York -

The Web lets users watch whatever they want, whenever they want to watch it. So what do they want to see? A home-made video of two boys lip-synching along to the Pokémon television theme song. Internet video site YouTube has streamed the video more than 9.5 million times in the last four months, making it the site's most-watched movie.

Startup of the moment YouTube, which garnered 12.9 million unique visitors in March, doesn't care what viewers watch, as long as they keep tuning in. Making money is another matter: The site, which has raised $11.5 million in venture capital in the last year, didn't see a penny in revenue until March, when they cautiously began selling ads. Meanwhile the site's bandwidth costs, which increase every time a visitor clicks on a video, may be approaching $1 million a month--much of which goes to provider Limelight Networks.

Internet optimists predict that online video, long-rumored to be the next big thing, is finally taking off: IDC estimates that video generated $230 million in revenue in 2005 but will jump to $1.7 billion by 2010. In the meantime, the best play in Internet video may not be the companies that show off the clips, but the ones who deliver them to users' PCs.

The content-delivery business may be a $500 million a year business--twice the value of Internet video advertising and users fees--and is growing 25% per year, IDC estimates. It is dominated by big, publicly traded hosting providers such as Akamai Technologies (nasdaq: AKAM - news - people ) and AT&T (nyse: T - news - people ), as well as boutique shops such as Limelight, which also serves News Corp.'s (nyse: NWS - news - people ) MySpace and Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Xbox Live videogame service. Some of the biggest portals, like Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) and Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ), have built up their own content-delivery networks and don't need to pay a third party for many services.

The bandwidth companies typically charge video sites up to a penny per minute of video streamed. Big players who buy in bulk get discounted rates: Industry observers estimate that YouTube, which is streaming 40 million videos and 200 terabytes of data per day, may be paying between a tenth of a cent and half a cent per minute. Neither YouTube nor Limelight would comment on their pricing.

And while privately held Limelight doesn't open its books, Akamai this week posted earnings of $11.5 million in on revenue of $91 million for the first quarter of this year; the company's stock has tripled in the last year. IDC analyst Rona Shuchat says Akamai may control half of the content-delivery market.

Some upstarts in the video Web market are betting on a different content-delivery model. Instead of paying for professional hosting, they're hoping people will open their digital subscriber lines and cable modems to transfer data between users instead of sending everything from a central server. This "peer to peer" setup has been successful for online phone service Skype, purchased last year by eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people ), and underground file-sharing networks using software called BitTorrent, which some say is responsible for one-third of all Internet traffic.

Gilles BianRosa, chief executive of BitTorrent-software maker Azureus, says peer-to-peer networking could save his company 95% in hosting costs when it launches a community-based video site in the next few months. Other companies are already onboard: WurldMedia Chief Executive Gregory Kerber, whose company will start serving movies and television shows for General Electric's (nyse: GE - news - people )'s NBC-Universal this year, says the peer-to-peer model is the next step in Web video evolution. "We can sell to the consumer at the same price point that they're used to, but we'll be giving them a higher-quality product that's more versatile," Kerber says.

But peer-to-peer transfers can be flaky. They require willing participation and good behavior from users, including access to their upstream bandwidth that most broadband service providers already cap tightly. As a result, some video-delivery specialists such as Solid State Networks are hedging their bets with a mix of peer-to-peer and traditional content-delivery. Solid State Chief Executive Rick Buonincontri eyeballs cost savings around 50% over standard hosting while maintaining a professional service-quality level.

YouTube Stars - Video Blogs

This is the hottest thing on the Internet! First it was e-mail. Next came chat rooms. Then there was Instant Messaging, MySpace and blogs of all shapes and sizes. Now, the hottest thing for socializing on the net is video blogging. Sites like YouTube.com are making Stars out of ordinary cyberspace citizens. Then again, the people you will meet in this article have probably always had a certain flair and charm and talent. But now they can show off to the entire world!

This web page will introduce you to the Stars of YouTube. You'll be entertained by their video performances! Further down on this page, we present an article called, "YouTube Stars - Creating Reality TV?". The article is written by a man who describes the kinds of videos that people are creating and uploading to YouTube. Learn which videos and video personalities he has found to be entertaining and even occasionally uplifting.

After you have read our article, follow the Related Links to see the videos discussed in the article. We have embedded two short clips from the amazing illusionist known as MadV right in this page. For more information about blogging and making videos on your computer, please buy a few of the Books we recommend below. Remember the thrill of sending and receiving your first emails? Well, the Internet is fun once again; check it out for yourself!

Are your e-communications safe?

In a day when it seems that the entire world has access to all of our personal information, Newsweek arrives with a blasting cover "Beating Big Brother," and as a techie-lite, I'm always interested in how big brother is peeking into my business. After reading the article, it seems there is a whole world of cyber-snoops out there, and even if it's just for kicks, these folks care about our online communications.
After some research, I find that not even faxes are secure. Many times we receive a fax that is not meant for us. A fax number can be entered incorrectly, and even if the person sending the fax types in the receiver's correct fax number, a disturbance in the telephone network can mysteriously cause a fax to go awry and deliver it to an unintended machine. In large offices confidential faxes come over the lines and lay open to whoever gets to the fax machine first. Worse that that, and something we rarely think of, is interception. Fax lines can be bugged and all incoming and outgoing faxes can be read. Intercepting a fax is a fairly simple process, it's no problem for home equipment to scan satellite traffic and pick up fax messages from around the world. There are professional grade interception units that can capture up to 150 faxes from a 6000 line satellite.

We worry about the security of our email, but sending documents by email precludes the need to retype or scan a document for additions and corrections. (Which can be a rather tenuous process when faced with large documents or contracts).

So email security is a real problem. As an email wends its way over the Internet it stops at many computers designed to direct the mail to its intended address. Anyone with access to these servers can easily scan all the email that passes through their systems; they can use software that scans for keywords, credit card numbers, names or email addresses. Emails that match their search can be saved and read without the sender or receiver being aware of the breach in security.

There is a publicly available type of software, very popular with teenage hackers, nicknamed "sniffer" that will permit users to do the very same thing. A search on Yahoo for "sniffer software" yields about 24,600 web pages - you obviously don't have to be a rocket scientist to get access to this software.

What can possibly save us from all these cyber-snoops and bad deed doers? Encryption of our files and emails seems to be the only answer. The familiar 128 bit encryption versions of Internet Explorer or Netscape allow us to open certain secure websites, and this technology can also be applied to files and email.

Bit encryption is achieved with mathematical algorithms that use a "key" to encyrpt and decrypt data into unreadable digital code and back again. The average key, 56 bit, is not as strong as the 128 bit - which isn't as uncrackable as the 256 bit key.

To illustrate the complexity of these keys, a 56-bit key creates 72 quadrillion possible combinations. The 128 bit key would be 4.7 sextillion (4,700,000,000,000,000,000,000) times more difficult to crack than a 56-bit key. Your home computer has the power to crack a 56 bit key, but it stops at the 128 bit.

Encryption for everyone
Cryptography has traditionally been a James Bond type of thing to many of us, but as most of Bond's gadgets, encryption is available at a reasonable price. Cypherus, a new utility for encrypting documents, has a friendly changeable skin and a drag-and-drop interface. It gives everyday users the power of encryption - once reserved exclusively for governmental and military agencies - as a tool to safeguard sensitive data and communications.

The software can encrypt individual e-mail messages. Email recipients who don't have the software installed will receive the message's "key" as an executable file, and a password must be agreed upon prior to sending the email.

To prevent prying eyes from examining files on your computer, you can encrypt your files with a single mouse-click. Cypherus has the power to secure single files or groups using "Normal, High, Paranoid, and Custom" encryption levels that top out at 448-bit. Their "Shredder" permanently removes deleted files by physically overwriting file information on the hard drive. This feature can be conveniently automated to render deleted files unreadable by anyone.

Cypherus encryption is so strong that it the U. S. Government considers it a munition and they are therefore prevented from exporting their technology to "the big 7" countries: Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan.

But there are limits to the Cypherus protection. The illustrious attorney, F. Lee Bailey, spokesman for APMSafe (the developer of Cypherus, quips, "If the CIA wants to see what's on your disk, they will get in, but hopefully that won't be a problem for the people who are paying $50 for this particular program."

All this for only $49.95. You can buy this little bit of magic at direct at www.cypherus.com.

By Marsha Collier

eBay Resources for Buying and Selling Online

From Barbara Crews,

The ABCs of eBay:
Are you still hesitant about buying on eBay? Read my step-by-step tutorial on how to register, bid, buy and search on eBay. Once you take that first step, it's easy. Maybe even too easy!

• The ABCs of eBay

FAQ: Auction Terms:
Some of the terms can be a bit confusing at times. Just what does a Buyer's Premium mean or what about a Dutch Auction? Don't be surprised by extra fees after an auction ends, learn what these terms mean before bidding.

• Auction Terms and Descriptions

eBay Proxy Bidding:
People often compain about being outbid by only fifty cents or a dollar, regretting that they did not bid a little more to win the auction. But that doesn't always work.

• Proxy Bidding Explained

Quick Steps to Selling on eBay:
A brief how-to on selling on eBay that will give you an idea of just what steps are needed to list your stuff for sale.

• How-to Sell on eBay

Ten Ways to Sabotage Your eBay Listings:
It's time to start selling some of your extra collectibles, it's easy right? Just stick a few pictures up on eBay and wait for the money to roll in. Wrong.

• Dos and Don'ts for eBay Listings

Sniping:
If you're not an auction sniper, you probably really dislike sniping and would like to tar and feather the last guy that took a win away from you. But just what is sniping and how does it work?

• Are You a Sniper?

Frauds and Scams:
Do not ever give out personal information in replying via an email about your Paypal or eBay account. Also never log-in to eBay via an email you've received. Never.

Find out more about the way folks are trying to swindle us.

• eBay Mail Scams
• Paypal Fraud eMails
• Beware of Escrow Scams

Fun Stuff:

• Do you buy on eBay? Why not? Take the poll or see how others voted on
  Yes, I Buy Collectibles on eBay.
• Rare? Hard-to-Find? Just what are sellers trying to sell us?
  Humorous Look at Standardizing Auction Terms
• Would you believe four categories?
  Flashback -- eBay, April 1997
• Since you can find collectors for everything, it shouldn't be surprising to find people that collect eBay logo items!
  eBay-O-Rama

eBay's Collecting Survey:
Are you an intentional collector or unintentional collector? Find out how you fit into this eBay survey.

• eBay Commissioned Survey

"Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace"

"Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace"

danah boyd
American Association for the Advancement of Science
February 19, 2006

Citation: boyd, danah. 2006. "Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace." American Association for the Advancement of Science, St. Louis, MO. February 19.

[This is a rough, unedited crib of the actual talk.]

Much appreciation to the Macarthur Foundation for funding this research and to the rest of the Digital Youth team for guidance and insight.

If you have feedback about this talk/essay (especially if you think i'm wrong), write me: zephoria@zephoria.org

This crib has been translated to French thanks to Laurence Allard.

Introduction:

I want to talk with you today about how teenagers are using a website called MySpace.com. I will briefly describe the site and then discuss how youth use it for identity production and socialization in contemporary American society.

I have been following MySpace since its launch in 2003. Initially, it was the home to 20-somethings interested in indie music in Los Angeles. Today, you will be hard pressed to find an American teenager who does not know about the site, regardless of whether or not they participate. Over 50 million accounts have been created and the majority of participants are what would be labeled youth - ages 14-24. MySpace has more pageviews per day than any site on the web except Yahoo! (yes, more than Google or MSN).

Many of you may have heard about MySpace, most likely due to moral panic brought on by the media's coverage of the potential predators and bullying. There is no doubt that the potential is there, but there are more articles on predators on MySpace than there have been reported predators online. Furthermore, bullying is a practice that capitalizes on any available medium. Moral panics are a common reaction to teenagers when they engage in practices not understood by adult culture. There were moral panics over rock&roll, television, jazz and even reading novels in the early 1800s [1]. The media, typically run by the parent generation, capitalizes on and spreads the fear with little regard for data or actual implications. Examples are made out of delinquent youth, showing how the object of fear ruined them in some way or other. The message is clear - if you don't protect your kids from this evil, they too will suffer great harm to their minds, bodies or morals.

There _are_ potential risks on MySpace but it is important not to exaggerate them. The risks are not why youth are flocking to the site. To them, the benefits for socialization outweigh the potential harm. For this reason, i want to ask you to put your fears aside for the duration of this presentation and try to see the values of MySpace for youth. What they are doing is really fascinating.

What is MySpace:

So what is MySpace?

MySpace is a social network site. In structure, MySpace is not particularly unique. The site is a hodgepodge of features previously surfaced by sites like Friendster, Hot or Not, Xanga, Rate My Teacher, etc. At the core are profiles that are connected by links to friends on the system. Profiles are personalized to express an individual's interests and tastes, thoughts of the day and values. Music, photos and video help users make their profile more appealing.

The friend network allows people to link to their friends and people can traverse the network through these profiles. An individual's "Top 8" friends are displayed on the front page of their profile; all of the rest appear on a separate page. Bands, movie stars, and other media creators have profiles within the system and fans can friend them as well. People can comment on each others' profiles or photos and these are typically displayed publicly.

Originally, the site was 18+ and all data was public. Over time, the age limit dropped to 16 and then, later, to 14. The youngest users are given the option to make their profiles visible to friends-only and they do not appear in searches.

When someone starts an account, they are given an initial friend - Tom Anderson, one of the founders of MySpace. By surfing the site, they find and add additional friends. Once on MySpace, most time is spent modifying one's own profile, uploading photos, sending messages, checking out friends' profiles and commenting on them. Checking messages and getting comments is what brings people back to MySpace every day.

When MySpace was initially introduced, skeptics thought that it would be just another fad because previous sites like Friendster had risen and crashed. Unlike the 20-somethings who invaded Friendster, the teens have more reason to participate in profile creation and public commentary. Furthermore, MySpace's messaging is better suited for youths' asynchronous messaging needs. They can send messages directly from friends' profiles and check whether or not their friends have logged in and received their email. Unlike adults, youth are not invested in email; their primary peer-to-peer communication occurs synchronously over IM. Their use of MySpace is complementing that practice.

Many teens access MySpace at least once a day or whenever computer access is possible. Teens that have a computer at home keep MySpace opened while they are doing homework or talking on instant messenger. In schools where it is not banned or blocked, teens check MySpace during passing period, lunch, study hall and before/after school. This is particularly important for teens who don't have computer access at home. For most teens, it is simply a part of everyday life - they are there because their friends are there and they are there to hang out with those friends. Of course, its ubiquitousness does not mean that everyone thinks that it is cool. Many teens complain that the site is lame, noting that they have better things to do. Yet, even those teens have an account which they check regularly because it's the only way to keep up with the Jones's.

Of course, not all teens are using the site, either because they refuse to participate in the teen fad or because they have been banned from participating. Such non-conformity is typical of all teen practices.

With this framework in mind, i want to address three issues related to MySpace: identity production, hanging out and digital publics.

Profiles:

Every day, we dress ourselves in a set of clothes that conveys something about our identity - what we do for a living, how we fit into the socio-economic class hierarchy, what our interests are, etc. This is identity production. Around middle school, American teens begin actively engaging in identity production as they turn from their parents to their peers as their primary influencers and group dynamics take hold.

Youth look to older teens and the media to get cues about what to wear, how to act, and what's cool. Most teens are concerned with resolving how they perceive themselves with how they are perceived. To learn this requires trying out different performances, receiving feedback from peers and figuring out how to modify fashion, body posture and language to better give off the intended impression. These practices are critical to socialization, particularly for youth beginning to engage with the broader social world.

Because the teenage years are a liminal period between childhood and adulthood, teens are often waffling between those identities, misbehaving like kids while trying to show their maturity in order to gain rights. Participating in distinctly adult practices is part of exploring growing up. Both adults and the media remind us that vices like sexual interactions, smoking and drinking are meant for adults only, only making them more appealing. More importantly, through age restrictions, our culture signals that being associated with these vices is equal to maturity.

The dynamics of identity production play out visibly on MySpace. Profiles are digital bodies, public displays of identity where people can explore impression management [2]. Because the digital world requires people to write themselves into being [3], profiles provide an opportunity to craft the intended expression through language, imagery and media. Explicit reactions to their online presence offers valuable feedback. The goal is to look cool and receive peer validation. Of course, because imagery can be staged, it is often difficult to tell if photos are a representation of behaviors or a re-presentation of them.

On MySpace, comments provide a channel for feedback and not surprisingly, teens relish comments. Of course, getting a comment is not such a haphazard affair. Friends are _expected_ to comment as a sign of their affection. Furthermore, a comment to a friend's profile or photo is intended to be reciprocated. It is also not uncommon to hear teens request comments from each other in other social settings or on the bulletin boards. In MySpace, comments are a form of cultural currency.

For those seeking attention, writing comments and being visible on popular people's pages is very important and this can be a motivation to comment on others' profiles. Of course, profile owners have the ability to reject comments and Tom rejects most of them. Some people literally spam their network with comments. Last week, there were "Valentine's cards" that people made and added to the profiles of all of their friends via comments. People advertise events through mass comments. Some comments are also meant to be passed on, creating virus like memes.

The rules of friending are also very important. It is important to be connected to all of your friends, your idols and the people you respect. Attention-seekers and musicians often seek to be friended by as many people as possible, but most people are concerned with only those that they know or think are cool. Of course, a link does not necessarily mean a relationship or even an interest in getting to know the person. "Thanks for the add" is a common comment that people write in reaction to being friended by interesting people.

While these dynamics may not seem particularly important, they are essential to youth because they are rooted in the ways in which youth jockey for social status and deal with popularity. Adults often dismiss the significance of popularity dynamics because, looking back, it seems unimportant. Yet, it is how we all learned the rules of social life, how we learned about status, respect, gossip and trust. Status games teach us this.

Hanging Out:

So what exactly are teens _doing_ on MySpace? Simple: they're hanging out. Of course, ask any teen what they're _doing_ with their friends in general; they'll most likely shrug their shoulders and respond nonchalantly with "just hanging out." Although adults often perceive hanging out to be wasted time, it is how youth get socialized into peer groups. Hanging out amongst friends allows teens to build relationships and stay connected. Much of what is shared between youth is culture - fashion, music, media. The rest is simply presence. This is important in the development of a social worldview.

For many teens, hanging out has moved online. Teens chat on IM for hours, mostly keeping each other company and sharing entertaining cultural tidbits from the web and thoughts of the day. The same is true on MySpace, only in a much more public way. MySpace is both the location of hanging out and the cultural glue itself. MySpace and IM have become critical tools for teens to maintain "full-time always-on intimate communities" [4] where they keep their friends close even when they're physically separated. Such ongoing intimacy and shared cultural context allows youth to solidify their social groups.

Digital Publics:

Adults often worry about the amount of time that youth spend online, arguing that the digital does not replace the physical. Most teens would agree. It is not the technology that encourages youth to spend time online - it's the lack of mobility and access to youth space where they can hang out uninterrupted.

In this context, there are three important classes of space: public, private and controlled. For adults, the home is the private sphere where they relax amidst family and close friends. The public sphere is the world amongst strangers and people of all statuses where one must put forward one's best face. For most adults, work is a controlled space where bosses dictate the norms and acceptable behavior.

Teenager's space segmentation is slightly different. Most of their space is controlled space. Adults with authority control the home, the school, and most activity spaces. Teens are told where to be, what to do and how to do it. Because teens feel a lack of control at home, many don't see it as their private space.

To them, private space is youth space and it is primarily found in the interstices of controlled space. These are the places where youth gather to hang out amongst friends and make public or controlled spaces their own. Bedrooms with closed doors, for example.

Adult public spaces are typically controlled spaces for teens. Their public space is where peers gather en masse; this is where presentation of self really matters. It may be viewable to adults, but it is really peers that matter.

Teens have increasingly less access to public space. Classic 1950s hang out locations like the roller rink and burger joint are disappearing while malls and 7/11s are banning teens unaccompanied by parents. Hanging out around the neighborhood or in the woods has been deemed unsafe for fear of predators, drug dealers and abductors. Teens who go home after school while their parents are still working are expected to stay home and teens are mostly allowed to only gather at friends' homes when their parents are present.

Additionally, structured activities in controlled spaces are on the rise. After school activities, sports, and jobs are typical across all socio-economic classes and many teens are in controlled spaces from dawn till dusk. They are running ragged without any time to simply chill amongst friends.

By going virtual, digital technologies allow youth to (re)create private and public youth space while physically in controlled spaces. IM serves as a private space while MySpace provide a public component. Online, youth can build the environments that support youth socialization.

Of course, digital publics are fundamentally different than physical ones. First, they introduce a much broader group of peers. While radio and mass media did this decades ago, MySpace allows youth to interact with this broader peer group rather than simply being fed information about them from the media. This is highly beneficial for marginalized youth, but its effect on mainstream youth is unknown.

The bigger challenge is that, online, youth publics mix with adult publics. While youth are influenced by the media's version of 20somethings, they rarely have an opportunity to engage with them directly. Just as teens are hanging out on MySpace, scenesters, porn divas and creature of the night are using MySpace to gather and socialize in the way that 20somethings do. They see the space as theirs and are not imagining that their acts are consumed by teens; they are certainly not targeted at youth. Of course, there _are_ adults who want to approach teens and MySpace allows them to access youth communities without being visible, much to the chagrin of parents. Likewise, there are teens who seek the attentions of adults, for both positive and problematic reasons.

That said, the majority of adults and teens have no desire to mix and mingle outside of their generation, but digital publics slam both together. In response, most teens just ignore the adults, focusing only on the people they know or who they think are cool. When i asked one teen about requests from strange men, she just shrugged. "We just delete them," she said without much concern. "Some people are just creepy." The scantily clad performances intended to attract fellow 16-year-olds are not meant for the older men. Likewise, the drunken representations meant to look "cool" are not meant for the principal. Yet, both of these exist in high numbers online because youth are exploring identity formation. Having to simultaneously negotiate youth culture and adult surveillance is not desirable to most youth, but their response is typically to ignore the issue.

Parents also worry about the persistence of digital publics. Most adults have learned that the mistakes of one's past may reappear in the present, but this is culturally acquired knowledge that often comes through mistakes. Most youth do not envision potential future interactions.

Without impetus, teens rarely choose to go private on MySpace and certainly not for fear of predators or future employers. They want to be visible to other teens, not just the people they they've friended. They would just prefer the adults go away. All adults. Parents, teachers, creepy men.

While the potential predator or future employer don't concern most teens, parents and teachers do. Reacting to increasing adult surveillance, many teens are turning their profiles private or creating separate accounts under fake names. In response, many parents are demanded complete control over teens' digital behaviors. This dynamic often destroys the most important value in the child/parent relationship: trust.

Conclusion:

Youth are not creating digital publics to scare parents - they are doing so because they need youth space, a place to gather and see and be seen by peers. Publics are critical to the coming-of-age narrative because they provide the framework for building cultural knowledge. Restricting youth to controlled spaces typically results in rebellion and the destruction of trust. Of course, for a parent, letting go and allowing youth to navigate risks is terrifying. Unfortunately, it's necessary for youth to mature.

What we're seeing right now is a cultural shift due to the introduction of a new medium and the emergence of greater restrictions on youth mobility and access. The long-term implications of this are unclear. Regardless of what will come, youth are doing what they've always done - repurposing new mediums in order to learn about social culture.

Technology will have an effect because the underlying architecture and the opportunities afforded are fundamentally different. But youth will continue to work out identity issues, hang out and create spaces that are their own, regardless of what technologies are available.

Phrase Bibliography:

[1] Thomas Hine's "Rise and Fall of American Teenager" p. 104-105
[2] Erving Goffman's "Presentation of Self in Everyday Life"
[3] Jenny Sunden's "Material Virtualities."
[4] Misa Matsuda in "Personal, Portable, Pedestrian"

Note: A great deal of other literature informed this talk even if not explicitly cited. Citations are used to explicitly reference people's turn of phrases.