MSN Chatrooms

MSN shuts down its chatrooms. Microsoft's internet service, MSN, is closing all
chatrooms on its global sites due to concerns about child safety. [BBC News News Front Page UK Edition]

This is something that we will see more and more service providers doing - limiting posting and publishing to users that they can identify with a validated credit card billing relationship. This is no guarantee but it goes a long way to making these communities safer places. Some will call this a limit of fee speech - these services are not like a street corner in cyberspace. If somebody wants to set up a soapbox in the lobby of a building you own, you have the right to know who they are, approve or deny them permission at your discretion and ask them to leave if they disturb your tennants. Two big issues that we will be wrestling with for a while: identity and rights management.

Candidate Camera. Not quite moblogging. Though basically a publicity ploy by the cowbox folks, Candidate Camera is still worth a browse. A digital camera has been offered to every single one of the candidates in the California recall election from Adam to Zellhoefer and they're sending in shots from the campaign trail. Clearly some are having fun with the project, from the
unknown to the infamous. And while others are going for the mom and apple pie constituency, at least a couple are aiming at the Maxim mindset. Having David Hume Kennerly at the helm adds some credibility, and while his featured photo
picks are always good, you can always in true blogger style just jump to
the latest entries. [MetaFilter]

Intersting photoblog from the campaign trail (sponsored by Gateway Digital Cameras!). Imagine if you went to an event and you and others were given a digital camera to capture pictures. The camera was pre-configured to take every picture that you reviewed on the LCD and pressed OK and published it to a group photoblog over a Wi-Fi network. Wouldn't that be a great promotion for a digital camera vendor!