From Wired, the investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future. From New Scientist, Google may know your desires before you do: In the future, search engines could know what you want before you do — if you're willing to trust them with the details of your private life; your online traces are helping fuel a revolution in the understanding of human behaviour, one that's revealing the mathematical laws of our lives; and tired of status updates from people you hardly know? Pay attention and you might find those weak ties more useful than you think. Researcher Danah Boyd argues that Facebook's success is due in part to "white flight" from MySpace. Despite its giant population, Facebook is not quite a sovereign state, but it is beginning to look and act like one (and more and more). Ryan Singel on five things that could topple Facebook’s empire. Amazon.com's first sale was fifteen years ago, and while the pioneering online retailer eventually found success, many of its peers weren't so lucky — a look at great sites of the Web 1.0 era that never made it. Goofy pictures of cats, Hitler screaming about Kanye West, Sad Keanu Reeves — these are the products of vast Internet collaboration, and we should take them seriously. The end of forgetting: The digital age is facing its first existential crisis — the impossibility of erasing your posted past and moving on.
