Last year, the "Bed Intruder Song" took the top billing in YouTube's annual top 10 list. This year, it was Rebecca Black's "Friday." While there wasn't a single cat video in last year's top 10, this year saw two of them make the list ("Nyan Cat" and "cat mom hugs baby kitten"). Sadly, my favorite cat video of the year didn't make the list, though.

Here is the complete top 10:

Clearly, though, Facebook is a far stickier site and users come back more often and reload the page more frequently. YouTube’s visitors, on the other hand, don’t quite return as often and probably only watch one or two videos per session. In this context, though, it is also worth noting that Facebook is also becoming a major video destination these days. According to the latest data from comScore, the social network is now the #3 video site in the U.S. (after YouTube and Vevo).

Here is the complete top 10:

[via: labnol]

A Hometown Paper for the Web – Including the Funnies

As White told me during an interview last week, the team aims to be part of the communities it covers (think: Reddit-embedded reporters). In his view, news sites “haven’t gotten better in the last ten years.” The Daily Dot, of course, wants to change this, though the site it is launching with today does still look and feel like a standard Internet news site. White and Thomas told me that the team plans to add extensive personalization features to the site over time.

The site aims to bring the sensibilities of local news reporting to the web. The team currently focuses on covering some of the largest online communities (Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook etc.). White rightly notes that some of these represent user groups that are larger than most countries.

One feature that exemplifies this “hometown newspaper” sensibility the best is the Comics section. A paper without a comics section, after all, can’t really call itself a paper. The idea here, surely is to drive traffic by these easily consumed and shared comics, but it’s also nice to see that the Daily Dot isn’t just aggregating these comics from other sites but actually pays artists to draw these for them.

No WordPress to be Found Here

From a technical perspective, it is worth noting that the Daily Dot decided to bypass the regular suspects in its choice of content management systems and now uses the Armstrong CMS. Armstrong is a new publishing platform that was developed by The Bay Citizen and The Texas Tribune and financed by a grant from the prestigious Knight Foundation. The Daily Dot is the first major new publication to use this new CMS, which is written in Python and based on the Django Framework.

Why is Anonymous so Upset? Facebook is Selling Data to Governments

The statement itself, which was published about 3 weeks ago but mostly remained unnoticed until today, has a very paranoid feel to it. The author (or authors), for example, argue that Facebook is selling personal data to “government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.”

Is Anonymous Able to Bring Facebook Down?

The problem with this “press release,” which as is so often the case with Anonymous, comes in the form of a YouTube video, is that it is obviously unclear who is behind this attempt. It could just be the work of a single person with no institutional support behind it. It’s not clear then, if Anonymous will really launch this attack – or if this is just an elaborate hoax.

Then, of course, there is also the simple question whether an organization like Anonymous could actually bring Facebook to its knees. After all, it’s not like Facebook doesn’t know how to handle a lot of traffic. A simple denial of service attack then, isn’t likely to be very effective.

You can read the full text of the release below:

This guest post was written by Kyle Brady.  Kyle is a young political scientist and writer interested in everything from domestic politics to foreign policy to political theory, currently living in San Jose, CA. He blogs at kyle-brady.com, contributes to assorted publications, and is writing a book on the modern political scene in America. Socially, Kyle can be found on Twitter, on Google+, on Facebook, and via email.

The (Technological) Dark Ages of Political Discourse

In previous ages, even as recent as the turn of the Millennium, the job of politicians was considerably easier: what blogs and social media services existed were all but irrelevant, cellphones were still primitive and uncommon, and email was just beginning its rise to mainstream popularity.  During this period, politicians of any level, local, state, or federal, had limited ways to interact with their constituents: in-person meetings, letters, and phone calls.  The result of this was a restricted style of communication, isolating the politicians from having frequent bidirectional conversations with their constituents and preventing the general public from having their voice properly heard.

What happened during these eras when only professional journalists could hold politicians accountable, interest groups had a nearly uncontested voice, and the average citizens could write all the letters or make all the phone calls they liked, to no avail?  Only the largest controversies ousted politicians from power, and even that did not always happen consistently.  Without groups lobbying in the actual best interests of the public, Big Business (and all other groups with the “Big” moniker) was favored both in policy and practice. Voters were considered informed if they even knew of the candidates they were choosing to elect, much less what the politicians stood for.

These were the first two-hundred and twenty-four years of the United States.

Modern Technology Arrives in Politics

While the last few years of President Clinton’s Administration saw the beginning of greater public accountability and increased expectations for constituent interaction, the modern era of technology-influenced politics didn’t truly emerge until George W. Bush took Office.  During President W. Bush’s Administration, blogs came to have a larger voice and greater power, email emerged from its slow birth, and online social tools began to receive notice, as primitive as they were.  By the end of 2008, Facebook and Twitter were key portions of the election cycle, and were making their way into the halls of government, while blogs and online publications were taken much more seriously as a vehicle for opinion generation and constituent communication.

Today, halfway through 2011, politics has evolved even further.  Politicians not only communicate via broadcast media and through speeches and press releases, but also bi-/multidirectionally through social media services, websites, email, and interviews for all sorts of media organizations.  Citizens can now reach their local Congressman or Senator through any number of ways, and may even receive a response.

Not Without Consequences

This hasn’t happened, however, without negative effects.  As a direct result of greater accountability, greater access to information on issues and voting records, and greater communication platforms, politicians are constantly working toward their re-election, ever pandering to their voter base.  This is easily demonstrated by the striking political stances taken only for election posturing, the constant manipulation of consequence and blame, and the general degradation of political discourse.

Even more intriguing, the same forums that have helped politicians better interact with their constituents have also proven to be a significant source of problems.  Numerous politicians have resigned as a result of their online behaviors – an even more have been forced into positions of embarrassed apology.  Whether the offense is an inappropriate remark to their staff, untoward conduct, or simply inexplicable awkwardness, the stark reality is that politicians are finding it harder than ever for their private lives to remain private – and to hide those things they would rather the world never discover.

Exploitation and Fear

Social media and technology have brought about this change, not any other aspect of Western life.  Just as the printing press was a medium for politicians and royalty to both simultaneously fear and exploit for its ability to advance and affect the realms of politics and political discourse, social media is cultivating the same mixed emotions within the hearts of modern politicians.  The difference today, however, is that the general public has access to social media, email, and the Internet, but not everyone was previously able to publish newspapers, manifestos, or pamphlets.

In Part II of this series, the effects of a larger, more powerful constituent voice will be examined.

Besides the darker background, Google has also changed the way it displays video thumbnails by making them larger. This means you will see fewer suggested videos per page, but the images will likely make to click on more of them in the long run. The new design also sports a few new interface elements, including buttons that allow you to change the size of the video player without changing the video resolution.

To join the Cosmic Panda experiment, just head over here and opt in (to opt out again, just go back to the sign-up page). Google is also actively soliciting feedback with the help of a prominent button on the left side of the screen.

Google, of course, has been on a redesign spree lately, including major changes to the look and feel of some of its most well-known products like Gmail, Google Calendar and even its search engine.

This is the first time YouTube will stream such a major sports event. There have been persistent rumors that YouTube has been negotiating with both the NBA and NHL in the U.S. to stream some of their games live. Until now, the biggest live streaming sports events on Google’s YouTube have been cricket games, however.

HD Previews

The HD preview images will be available for all videos with a resolution of 480p or higher. As YouTube increased the resolution of its videos over the last few years, the embed previews weren’t exactly keeping pace. Now, even when you embed a large embed, the previews won’t look like they came from a 1990s online video.

YouTube will  create these new images for newly uploaded videos and plans to re-encode all preview images for older videos over the next few weeks and automatically.

Logoless Player

As for the logoless player (which you can enable by adding ?modestbranding=1 to the video URL in the embed code), YouTube says that many of its users have been asking for this functionality, which hides most (but not all) of YouTube’s own branding.

For most users, bookmarks live in the browser and thanks to built-in or third-party sync, the only problem Delicious solved for these users (having a central repository of your bookmarks) hasn’t been an issue for years now. If anything, apps like Instapaper, as Gigaom’s Mathew Ingram also notes, have jumped into this niche with features that actually solve a problem for their users.

Update: While I wrote this, Delicious’ own founder Joshua Schachter told CNN that he himself also thinks that the service’s time has passed.

Share More – Bookmark Less

It’s a strange phenomenon, though: On the one hand, we probably share more today than we ever did thanks to services like Twitter and Facebook. The thing there, though, is that these are share-it-and-forget-it services. We send a link to Twitter and Facebook – maybe have a short discussion about them with our friends – and move on. Need to find something again? Just Google it.

There still seem to be some niche users for Delicious (sharing links with students, colleagues etc.), but for the most part, there are plenty of other solutions for this now as well, especially when you want to curate content and not just share some bookmarks.

My personal feeling then, is that there really isn’t much use of services like Delicious on the Internet today – mainstream users never cared in the first place and advanced users have moved on to other, better tools. That, of course, doesn’t mean that Delicious’ new owners couldn’t turn the service around by making it useful once again. Pure bookmarking services, however, have outlived their usefulness.

According to an FAQ posted on AVOS’ site, the first priority for the new owners is to launch a Firefox 4 extension (AVOS’s website is currently down, likely due to the high interest in this story).

Yahoo acquired Delicious in 2005 and the service has lingered in limbo ever since. While Yahoo kept the lights at Delicious on, it did not do much to introduce new features to it over the years. According to an internal memo that was leaked to the press in December 2010, Yahoo planned to “sunset” Delicious if it didn’t find a buyer for it soon.

Here is the full text of AVOS’ press release:

YOUTUBE FOUNDERS ACQUIRE DELICIOUS FROM YAHOO!

Promise Users the Same Great Service And Even Easier & More Fun Ways To Save, Share, and Discover the Web’s “Tastiest” Content.

San Francisco, CA., – April 26, 2011 – Delicious.com, the leading social bookmarking service, has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, they have firsthand experience enabling millions of users to share their experiences with the world. Their vision for Delicious is to continue to provide the same great service users love and to make the site even easier and more fun to save, share, and discover the web’s “tastiest” content. Delicious will become part of AVOS, a new Internet company.

“We’re excited to work with this fantastic community and take Delicious to the next level,” said Chad Hurley, CEO of AVOS. “We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web.”

“We spoke with numerous parties interested in acquiring the site, and chose Chad and Steve based on their passion and unique vision for Delicious,” said John Matheny, SVP of Communications and Communities at Yahoo!

The YouTube founders plan to work closely with the community over the next few months to develop innovative features to help solve the problem of information overload. “We see this problem not just in the world of video, but also cutting across every information-intensive media type,” said Chen.

Going back to their roots, Hurley and Chen located Delicious in downtown San Mateo, California, blocks away from where they started YouTube. They’re aggressively hiring to build a world-class team to take on the challenge of building the best information discovery service on the web.