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Obama draws support from online music videos

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Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is a phenomenal figure in the U.S. politics not only for his political acumen and rhetoric but also his charisma online music videos.

Chicago Sun-Times reports more and more celebrities are showing their support to Obama through online music videos. Aside from the smash hits “Yes We Can” from Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am and “I Got a Crush … on Obama”, Twisted Sister’s guitarist Jay Jay French is the latest icon to join the viral campaign. French will turn the music “I Wanna Rock” to “I Want Barrack.”

Moreover, pop-funk band Fall Out Boy is rumored to participate in this initiative since the band leader appeared in Rolling Stone March 6 issue wearing an t-shirt displaying the Obama 08 logo.

Despite all the hype, the Obama remains mum about this trend.

iPhone fosters mobile Internet use

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Here’s another study in praise of iPhone and its significant impact to the mobile landscape.

Mobile media research firm M:Metrics reveals that it is the most popular device for accessing news and information on the mobile Web, with 85 percent of iPhone users accessing news and information in the month of January.

The table below compares iPhone use to other leading smartphones in the market as well as the general consumption.

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“This data indicates that the iPhone’s widgets are and effective means to drive mobile content consumption,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, M:Metrics. “Two featured widgets, YouTube and Google Maps are extremely popular among iPhone users: 30.4 percent accessed YouTube and 36 percent used Google Maps. In comparison, only one percent of all mobile subscribers accessed YouTube and 2.6 percent checked out Google Maps.”

China imposes news blackout in Tibet

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tibet censorshipThe ongoing riot in Tibet displays China’s Internet censorship prowess at its finest. Other countries pay attention and jot down notes. It turned out blocking YouTube and Google News is just an initial salvo.

BusinessWeek reports the Chinese government has banned journalists and tourist from entering Tibet to control the flow of information. To make matters really worse, there is a stricter measure implemented over the Internet.

All comments in different blog-hosting companies are filtered to be consistent with the news release from state-controlled media companies including China Central Television and Xinhua News Agency.

Even popular search engines like Baidu, Yahoo! China and MSN China are playing safe to avoid suffering the same fate as Google News. These leading sites only add news coming from state-owned media companies.

It goes to show how China is obsessively compulsive when it comes to suppressing freedom of speech and flow of information. However, it should not underestimate the power of the frustrated online mob for it has the power bypass all these controls.

Ning poised to cross 300k social networks

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ning.gifNing, a platform enabling everyone to create his or her own social network, is expected to cross 300,000 social networks in “a matter of weeks” as announced by its co-founder Marc Andreessen in his blog.

This bold prediction comes up after Andreessen recently announced that Ning officially crossed 200,000 social networks for the first time. Based on its current growth rate, he estimates that 1,000 social networks are added per day.

Combine that growth rate with increasing usage will yield stronger growth and in terms of registered users and page views. In short, the milestone of 300,000 social networks will become a reality soon.

Andreessen also shared some interesting stats on about Ning at his blog. Here’s something really interesting:

There are now more — actually, a lot more — social networks on Ning than there are on the rest of the Internet in total, including all of the other services that let you create your own social network combined (i.e., all of our honorable competitors combined).

Anyone interested in selling your life at eBay?

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ian-usher.gifThere are so many weird stuffs you can stumble upon on eBay. Now here’s a cool way to get over your romantic partner and land a spot on Yahoo’s Odd News section.

Meet Ian Usher, a 44 year-old Brit who moved to Perth, Australia in the name of love and now selling practically all his belongings at eBay in the name of love (lost) once again.

The Telegraph reports Usher is selling everything including his three-bedroom house, car, jet ski, motorcycle, job in a rug store (with employer consent) and even his friends to the highest bidder so he can forget the bitter memories he had in Australia after a failed 5-year marriage. You can check out the complete details at www.alife4sale.com.

This so-called “life package” is his clever exit strategy as well as starting fund to start all over again. Usher expects to get £230,000 out of this online bidding.

So if you’re bored with your life, want to experience the adventures of Usher from a first-person perspective, and most importantly have enough money to win the bid, this whole weeklong bidding fiesta will kick off on June 22. Wife sold separately.