More than half of American adults use social media, according to a newly released survey. The number is even higher in young adults: the great majority of all 18-34 year-olds — 85% — use social media to communicate.

Results recently revealed by Universal McCann’s long-running Media in Mind study shows that mainstream America is embracing social media. According to the study, text messaging, social networking, and blogging are growing in popularity in staggering numbers.

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NowPublic.com released Tuesday its second MostPublic index, showing the 50 most influential people in Silicon Valley/San Francisco. “The MostPublic Index is a detailed (and transparent) barometer of who’s [sic] voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels—Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the like—transform how media is created and spread.”

The Vancouver-based participatory news network rated the individuals based on four measures: online visability; presence on user-generated content and social networking sites; interactivity and accessibility; and what they call The “R” factor, presence on microblogging platforms like Flickr, Twitter, and Tumblr.

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Internet expression has a double restriction: obviously, governmental censorship, but also, and a grayer area, corporate censorship. Internet providers and social networking sites can apply their own standards of taste when judging whether or not something on their site is offensive.

It is also difficult for websites to discern which are indeed the sites at fault. In New York, thousands of newsgroups were disbanded in an attempt to shut down child pornography sites. Many of these sites had nothing to do with pornography, but it was easier to disband them, for administrative reasons. Photographer Maarten Dors had a photo of a Romanian street kid removed from the photo-sharing site, Flickr, because the child was smoking a cigarette. Yahoo Inc., owner of Flickr, had the picture removed, as depicting adolescent smoking went against company policy. Yahoo later apologized and reposted the photo.

One of the difficulties in the debates over internet censorship is

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I am pleased to announce the launch of Atelier’s new website.

Our teams have put forth our best efforts in creating this blog to ensure you an exceptional online experience. The time has come for our Web site to become user-friendly.

This new version is designed to make the site more efficient. You are now able to browse our hundreds of articles more effectively through categories, keywords (tag clouds), and archives.

Additionaly, our homepage includes great new features such as my updates from the micro-blogging site Twitter and my photo updates from pictures and video-sharing site Flickr.

You are also given the opportunity to interact directly with any article that you read. I encourage you to express your opinion, suggestions, and critiques at the end of any article. We value your thoughts!

Do take the time to learn more about Atelier’s business by visiting the three main sections in the main column - Consulting Services, Events, and New Media.

I look forward to receiving your feedback, and wish you a happy reading.

Mathieu Ramage, Editor

Although new versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox have taken the spotlight, Flock and Opera are two other Web browsers worth considering that connect users to their online habits.

Flock 2 is similar to Firefox 3, unsurprisingly so because they are both part of the Mozilla open-source network. They have similar functionalities in their menu bar, but the unknown browser lends itself to the mass content sharing users go online for better than its well-known counterpart.

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“User-generated content” is one of the catchphrases of Web 2.0. Behind it is the idea that we are better served when the many, instead of the few, can produce, share and rank information. That works well on YouTube, Flickr, Diggs or even Google. But when it comes to an encyclopaedia, it is nice to feel confident about the accuracy of the user-generated articles.

In 2001, Larry Sanger (picture right) co-founded Wikipedia, probably one of the world’s largest collaborative projects which currently contains over 1,5 million articles in English. But he has become convinced that expert editors are the only way to ensure reliability. “It is not an encyclopaedia until you have brought it to the point where it can be trusted,” he said. As a result, there is one major difference between Wikipedia and his new project Citizendium. “Wikipedia gives no special role to experts. On Citizendium, editors are able to set policies for articles and we are working on a method to let them resolve editing wars.”

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