Geek Gestalt

This photo of U2 lead singer Bono, shot during U2's Rose Bowl show on October 25, by amateur photographer Bruce Heavin, was taken with a Canon PowerShot G11, and is representative of the high-quality pictures that ticket-holders can easily take these days at concerts and other events with point-and-shoot cameras. Note the people in the picture snapping their own images of Bono.

(Credit: Flickr user Bruce Heavin)

At last month's huge U2 show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., how could you tell the difference between the professional photographers and your average amateurs?

Answer: the professionals were the ones whisked away after Bono and friends finished their third song, and the amateurs were still there, happily shooting to their heart's content.

Nearly every person at any show these days is going to have some form of camera with them, be it a point-and-shoot, an iPhone or some other camera phone, and it seems that there is almost no way to imagine keeping all those devices out.

That new reality is forcing an increasing number of bands to come to grips with the fact that they can't really control the images from their shows, and that, for the most part, they're better off letting fans cram Facebook and Flickr with such pictures anyway.

"It's an acknowledgment of the way technology is changing, and how much digital cameras have become a part of our lives," Rob Sheridan, the creative director for Nine Inch Nails, told CNET News. "Now that everyone has video and still cameras in their phones, and pocket digital cameras take HD video and great quality pictures, not only is it impossible to keep cameras out of shows, but it's fighting an increasingly uphill battle against what is now a cultural norm: people freely documenting their lives and the things they do to share it with friends and family."

In fact, the only people who may emerge frustrated from this new paradigm are the professionals. For those shooting with credentials, the phrase is "three songs and you're gone," said Bob Carey, the president of the National Press Photographers Association, meaning that pros are generally allowed to shoot from a designated "pit" near the stage during a band's first three songs, and then they have to leave.

Last month, I was one of those sporting a photo pass at the 96,000-fan U2 Rose Bowl show. And even as I was clicking away during those first three songs, I was acutely aware that there were hundreds of people even closer to the stage than I was, toting cameras capable of taking some pretty great pictures. Indeed, a quick Flickr search confirmed just that.

Little dynamos
Many of those fans--and thousands more throughout the Rose Bowl that night--were shooting with nothing more than a camera phone. And no one worries about the dissemination of images taken with devices like that. But some people were shooting with cameras like Canon's new PowerShot G11, a little 12.5-ounce, 10-megapixel dynamo much more than capable of producing professional images.

Shot with a press credential from the photo pit and with a digital SLR, this CNET photo is not all that distinguishable from the photo (seen above) by amateur Bruce Heavin, which he took with a Canon PowerShot G11, a point-and-shoot camera.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

So, while the professionals are being ushered out after those three songs, how is it that the fans are able to keep shooting?

The answer is camera policies in effect at concerts, which are almost always defined by the bands themselves. And conversations with people throughout the music industry make it clear that while there are no standard policies, and that the rules run the gamut from "anything goes" to "no pictures, please," artists today are increasingly tolerant, even encouraging, of fans taking all the pictures they want.

Look, for example, at the Nine Inch Nails Web site, which spells out the band's open camera policy, "inviting fans to capture the events with anything from a cell phone to a hi-def video camera." The reason is clear: "The results have been overwhelming, filling our own galleries with thousands of images and videos from every show, and inspiring a number of ambitious fan-sourced video projects within the NIN community. Some of those projects are starting to surface now, and we couldn't be happier with the way the fans have organized themselves and created some truly impressive work."

Further, Sheridan told CNET News, even the proliferation of pictures of the band's shows taken by fans hasn't hurt its commercial interests.

"Despite the fact that our fans take thousands and thousands of their own photos at each NIN show with whatever camera they'd like, we still sell prints of live photos taken by me through a Web site called frcphotos.com," said Sheridan. "This is presumably the type of thing that other acts would be trying to 'protect' by limiting photography at shows, but we've found that fans are still eager to purchase reasonably-priced professional prints, often taken at angles or distances that only someone working for the band would have access to."

Some artists are clearly concerned about fans' rights to take pictures, and go so far as to issue reminders when there are restrictions. For example, the indie rock due, Tegan and Sara, have sent tweets saying things like, "Hollywood Bowl restricts cameras that are deemed professional. This usually means cameras with a removable lens. So keep that in mind!!!"

And, of course, other rock stars are not at all behind the notion of fans taking pictures. Among those are said to be Prince, Kanye West, Bjork, and others. At shows by those artists, security is known to assiduously stop people from taking pictures of any kind, even with camera phones, though one wonders just how effective such policies can be.

Less anti-camera attitudes
But clearly, anti-camera attitudes are becoming less and less prevalent these days.

"It's something that artists have come to realize they have no control over," said Abe Baruck, a manager who works with big-name acts like Journey, Clint Black, and Peter Wolf. It's "more a realization that this is just the way people enjoy entertainment. They want to capture something for their own nostalgia (and it) just doesn't go anywhere other than for their own use."

That thinking is likely what is behind the restrictions on specific kinds of camera equipment at some shows, like U2's, and on professionals.

Even though millions of amateur photographers now own digital SLRs, there is still a mindset in the entertainment industry that anyone toting one at a concert is a professional and therefore should be limited in where and how they shoot.

That's why some bands, like U2, make a point of allowing fans to take pictures, so long as they stick to lower-end equipment. "Since 2001, U2 has openly allowed fans to bring cameras to their shows," reads the FAQ on the site U2tours.com. "Your camera, however, must be a point-and-shoot camera; DSLRs are not allowed."

"It's just a very simple calling card saying, 'I'm a professional media person,'" Philip Blaine, a producer with Coachella promoter Goldenvoice, said of photographers with digital SLRs, "'and I know how to utilize this media in a professional manner.'"

And while it's generally bands that are setting camera policies, some venues have also asserted control over what fans can and can't bring.

One example is the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles. As evidenced by the tweet from Tegan and Sara, that venue imposes restrictions around certain kinds of equipment. A Hollywood Bowl spokeswoman said that that venue won't let ticket-holders bring in professional-grade equipment.

Professional sports seem to largely work the same way. According to NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy, football fans are allowed to bring in any kind of still camera--though lenses are restricted to less than six inches long, for security reasons--they want. That policy is standard across the entire NFL, McCarthy added, and prohibits fans from bringing in any kind of camcorder.

The same basic policy applies to other sports, too. According to Nick Ohayre, a spokesperson for the NBA's Golden State Warriors, fans are free to carry and use cameras at basketball games, so long as they don't use flash and don't bring large, professional equipment.

But over time, as the technology improves, it may become more common and force sports leagues and entertainers to pay more attention to what's happening with imagery taken by the thousands of small devices fans bring with them to events, especially as the quality of pictures from those devices is often good enough for professional publication and licensing.

Some even think that band representatives need to do a better job of keeping up with what's possible in technology.

"I don't think they're aware of some of (what's possible) with new devices," said Carey of the National Press Photographers Association. "I don't think they've figured out the nuances of what point-and-shoots can do with photos and video."

But the increasing permissive attitude toward letting fans shoot whatever photos they please may simply come down to the realities of what it would take to do a serious search of every one of the thousands of people who go through an event's gates.

In the old days, said New York freelancer Lia Bulaong, if she wanted to sneak a camera into a show, she would hide its battery in her bra and then convince security she had brought her powerless camera into the show in order not to risk it being stolen from her car.

But in the last two or three years, she said, such subterfuge is pointless.

"No-camera policies just became extra ridiculous because pretty much everyone has a camera in their phone," Bulaong said. "Venues can't turn away camera phones and will never the capacity to check them in like they do coats and bags."

Plus, she pointed out, more and more, the bands want to incorporate the fans' phones into their shows.

"The one thing you will see at every concert now, regardless of the artist, is the moment when everyone has their camera phone out and the venue is awash in tiny lit up screens."

Microsoft is getting ready for a November release of new Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and instant movie and TV show streaming features in Xbox Live.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--At a star-studded E3 press conference last June, Microsoft touted, among other things, a plan to bring Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm to its hit online service, Xbox Live, as well as to begin offering instant streaming of movies and TV shows.

At the time, all Microsoft would say is that it hoped to roll out these new features to the public in the fall.

Well, it's now the fall. And on Wednesday, my colleague Josh Lowensohn and I got a first-hand look at the pre-release Xbox Live implementation of Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and video streaming, and had a chance to talk to Xbox Live General Manager Ron Pessner about it all.

Photos: Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm almost ready for Xbox Live

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Microsoft is still not ready to let the public in on the fun yet, and today is only willing to give the launch a November timeframe--with no actual date announced. Further, since E3, the so-called InstantOn streaming feature has been rolled up into a larger Zune branding effort, something that I think is a big mistake, given the cool reception the Zune name--at least as it applies to Microsoft's music player--has received in the marketplace.

Regardless, it's clear that Microsoft is nearly ready to start letting the Xbox Live community get its hands on the Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm features, and to begin streaming video content rather than waiting for it to download, which has been a slow, frustrating process by all accounts.

Pessner began by talking about Facebook. Clearly, Microsoft's interest is in getting the feature up and running and letting Xbox Live users begin to access the popular social network on their TVs sooner, rather than later, even though some fundamental elements of Facebook haven't been included.

According to Pessner, a chief goal of the implementation was to make it easy for users to make photo slideshows and watch them on their TVs. A quick demo revealed that much of the Xbox Live Facebook tool is built around looking at photo albums, scrolling between friends' albums and seeing who on a user's friends list has added photos to their account.

But one of Facebook's most fundamental offerings is photos and allowing users to upload them. And Microsoft has chosen, for now at least, not to let users do that. Pessner says the decision was made that Facebook on Xbox Live is about viewing images, and that anyone who wants to upload them to the social network will do so via the Web. It's a fair point, but it does seem like a major omission, and it would seem like something Microsoft will have to address soon.

Pessner also pointed to what he called Friend Linker, which is designed to help Facebook users see which of their friends are Xbox Live members, and vice versa. Among other things, it makes for an easy way for Facebook users to discover friends' gamertags and to invite them to be friends on Xbox Live.

All in all, while it's likely that many Xbox Live users will find themselves switching over to the Facebook application frequently--why move over to a computer if it's not necessary?--it's clear that there is a lot of room for more. The interface is consistent with everything else on Xbox Live, something that may please some. But frequent Facebookers might find it confusing to have to use Facebook in an entirely different format. Only time will tell.

Twitter on Xbox Live
Pessner then showed off the Xbox Live Twitter application. Like its Facebook counterpart, the interface will look very familiar to Xbox Live users. Pessner said the idea was to design a Twitter experience for the living room.

That means, of course, a fairly scaled down Twitter app. Users can post their own tweets, view friends' tweets, re-tweet them, favorite them, look at profiles, @ reply to others, and do Twitter searches. And that's about it.

To be sure, there aren't that many more features available to Twitter users elsewhere, but there are some. Again, Pessner made the argument that the idea was to optimize the experience for a living room TV and that to access a full range of features, users will happily turn to their computers.

One thing missing from both the Facebook and Twitter applications, however, is the ability to click on URLs, something that is a major piece of the social-networking puzzle these days.

Asked why not, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "That's not something we support right now. Today we're focused on delivering a great Twitter and Facebook experience which connects the Xbox Live community to friends in new and unique ways...This is just the beginning, and the great thing about Xbox Live is that we can evolve and update features based on the community's feedback."

Last.fm
The third piece of the new Xbox Live puzzle is its Last.fm application. Last.fm (which is owned by CNET News parent CBS Interactive) is a music service aimed at helping users discover new songs and artists--something Microsoft is hoping will add to users' overall Xbox Live experience.

Pessner said that adding Last.fm gives users access to a wide range of new music and music-related tools, much as adding Netflix to Xbox Live last year did for movies.

As with the Facebook and Twitter tools, Xbox Live users will find a scaled down version of Last.fm, one that Pessner said is focused mainly on music consumption, "but also on discovery."

Again, the tool has the familiar Xbox Live look and feel, and appears to be something that will expand some users' musical horizons. But it's also clear that what this is a simpler version of a service that's been optimized for a TV, and those who want the full experience will return to their computers.

And that's fine. No one is expecting Microsoft to replace their computer with Xbox Live, though I'm sure Microsoft would like to do so someday. If, for example, it ever put a full-featured Web browser inside Xbox Live, some of the missing features mentioned above could be addressed. But that's a conversation for another day.

InstantOn
The last new feature is the InstantOn streaming service that Xbox Live users will have access to. The idea is to give those buying or renting TV shows or movies through the Zune video marketplace (formerly known as the Xbox Live video marketplace) instant gratification instead of making them wait for their content to download.

The service will offer full 1080p high-definition movies and TV shows, and will let those who purchase content watch it right away or download it to their Xbox, a Zune player, or a PC. Those who rent content will be able to stream it and will have 24 hours to finish watching it once they press "play."

Pessner pointed to the fact that the service is designed to auto-detect a user's bandwidth level in order to play back the content in an appropriate quality. The idea there is to ensure that a user gets to watch what they want right away, regardless of how fast their connection is.

From Microsoft's perspective, this new set of offerings will make the Xbox an even stronger entertainment option than it has been in the past. But Pessner said there is still much more that can be added to the platform.

He wouldn't say what the next steps would be, of course, but did paint a broad picture, suggesting that users can draw their own conclusions of how Project Natal, Microsoft's forthcoming gesture-based control system for Xbox and PC "can light this up."

Each year, the Discovery Channel show shoots an episode for the network's Shark Week. The results of one of its shark shows, this articulated beast, hangs on the wall at the show's headquarters, M5 Industries, in San Francisco.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO--For some of the nearly 100,000 followers of "MythBusters" star Adam Savage's Twitter feed, communicating with him has proven to be more than just your average back-and-forth. For some, it's been a way to submit ideas that he and his Discovery Channel show costars have used for actual episodes.

On October 7, Discovery will begin airing its fall collection of new "MythBusters" episodes, and Savage said that he and costar Jamie Hyneman have taken at least four ideas that have come directly from Twitter users and implemented them on the show.

Among them are exploring the myth that dirty cars are more fuel efficient than clean ones; one that addresses the reality of a YouTube video in which a man shoots high off a huge water slide and lands, far in the distance, in a small inflatable pool; and one about insects.

Photos: 'MythBusters' takes aim at new episodes

To Savage, Twitter has become a terrific way for him to have a dialogue with the show's fans, especially since he says that the highly negative tone of the comments in the show's official forums turns him off and distracts him from doing his job.

By comparison, he said that because his Twitter followers know that he reads all of the tweets sent to him, there's somewhat of a "social contract" involved that improves the conversation. "I still have disagreements with people on Twitter," Savage said. "But it's much more civilized, and for me as a person who wants to give more value to the fans, I think about what I would want to read of someone who I admired, so I post funny things from behind the set" and lots of personal anecdotes.

For Hyneman, by contrast, Twitter, or any other social network, for that matter, isn't useful, and has actually become a bit of a distraction at work.

"I do notice that it's increasingly difficult to get Adam's attention when we're trying to work," Hyneman said, "because (if) you give him an instant of inactivity...it's like, okay," and he starts to use his iPhone.

Adam Savage often takes every available moment during the work day to communicate with people on his iPhone.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Asked why he has an iPhone, Savage said only that he is "an Apple Kool-Aid drinker from way back...and I love everything they produce."

Duct tape and much more
This fall, just as has been the case since "MythBusters" first got started, Savage and Hyneman have been scouring the world for things that pique their curiosity. Indeed, the show has taken the two--plus the show's other team of co-stars, Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci--on an unending quest for myths to bust that present them with a sense of adventure.

But this fall, viewers will see more on the show about duct tape, probably, than they ever thought possible. In fact, what started as a path towards a single segment on the popular adhesive ended up resulting in an entire duct tape special.

Both teams of "MythBusters" actually did two or three duct tape stories, Savage explained. "Some spectacular stuff came out of that," he said, "and if we could, we'd just move on to more duct tape stuff. But we've got to space it out so we don't over-duct tape the audience."

And while they wouldn't reveal too many details of what they'd done with the famous grey tape, Hyneman did allow that, in one situation, "We were on our way out the Golden Gate Bridge and had to turn back because the camera crew was complaining that they were getting too wet from the rough seas."

Whether that explains the boat covered in duct tape that is now hanging from the ceiling at M5 Industries, the San Francisco studio space where Hyneman and Savage do their work, is hard to say. But the boat is clearly from the duct tape special.

And while the two are cagey about much of what's coming up in the fall's episodes, they did share some information about one or two myths they attempted to bust.

One is the idea that a prisoner could use thousands of antacid tablets to create enough pressure to bust out of his or her cell. The two wouldn't say what the outcome of their experiment with more than 20,000 antacid tablets was, but they did admit that they were able to bust through a scale model of a jail cell made out of glass.

"It comes down to how well is the cell built," joked Hyneman.

The two were also willing to talk about the segment they did for one of the upcoming episodes on the aerodynamics of dirty cars, one of the myths that came from Twitter.

The myth, explained Savage, is that a dirty car is more fuel efficient than a clean one due to the "golf ball effect" caused by the dirt. The idea, he said, is that the dirt creates something of a "boundary layer that allows the car to be more aerodynamic."

Neither Savage nor Hyneman would say what the results of their investigation was, but Hyneman did say that they were both "very, very surprised (by) the results" and that what they found will be "of quite a lot of interest to the automotive industry."

Still another future episode has to do with the physics of bullet ricochets and whether it is possible for a shooter to hit him or herself with a bullet shot in an enclosed space. The results of that experiment also took the two by surprise, particularly because, as Hyneman said, "there are some basic flaws in the concept that you see in the movies with this 'ding-ding-ding and down you go.'"

At a much higher level now
"MythBusters" has now completed production on 134 episodes, and to Hyneman, that much experience has allowed him and Savage to be much more advanced in their approach to busting myths than they were at the beginning.

"The kinds of insights that we're seeing as far as the physics and the chemistry (and) all the dynamics of what's going on there," Hyneman said, "we're starting out at a much higher level now, and so the results that we're getting are not quite as basic as they were when we started."

More to the point, he said, he and Savage attack their work with greater clarity now, and have a better sense of what the best process is for attacking a myth. Oddly, instead of doing better science, or making things stronger or taking more risks, it all begins with the very concepts for each myth.

"The most important thing to get straight is the question you're trying to ask in the first place," Hyneman said. "It seems like a simple thing, but it's hard to get to that point and, a lot of times now, we're spending much more time defining that question before we do anything else."

SAN DIEGO--The list of Twitter clients grows every day, and for many people, finding just the right one is a crucial decision. Being able to track and manage multiple accounts is essential, but doing so can create somewhat of a chaotic flow of information.

At DemoFall 09 here Tuesday, DotSyntax unveiled the latest version of its already-popular Digsby social-media management tool, and the new version is geared specifically towards helping solve the Twitter chaos problem.

The new Digsby extrapolates from what it already does with social media offerings from MSN, Facebook, Yahoo, and others. Among those tools are a one-click status setting, easy switching between IM conversations, and seamless tracking of multiple e-mail accounts.

Now, Twitter implementation has become a key component of Digsby. It's the "first Twitter client designed for the mainstream audience," DotSyntax boasts.

The first innovation, the company argues, is a flipping around of the Twitter client standard, in which the stream of tweets is displayed newest first. Instead, Digsby shows the oldest first, so that it is easier to read threads from the beginning.

The client then tracks which tweets you've read so that you don't have to read an entire thread in one sitting. Instead, the tool can bring you back automatically to where you were if you don't finish reading a thread.

Another new approach is defining who are the most important Twitter users someone follows, and separating out everyone else they follow into one column. That means only the most important Twitter users will be in a primary column, making it more simple to see the most important information in your feeds.

There are other new features, as well, but one that I think is the most elegant and useful is adding a reply button to new tweet notifications. As a long-time Twhirl user, I both love and hate the constant pop-ups that let me know I've got new tweets in my feed. But if I see something I want to respond to in one of those pop-ups, I have to switch out of whatever I'm doing, bring up Twhirl and take action. By comparison, Digsby will allow replying to those tweets right from the pop-up.

I'd like to get my hands on the new application and see how it really performs. But it seems like one of the most promising Twitter clients I've seen in awhile, and if a critical mass of others agree, it could become the next standard-bearer client.

Gelato is a new dating service that aims to provide more accurate results by filtering user searches though a number of real-time social networking sites.

(Credit: Gelato)

Online dating, meet the social network, meet real-time search.

That's essentially the elevator pitch of Gelato, an early-stage start-up that's presenting at the DemoFall 09 conference in San Diego this week. Founded by Steve Odom, a recently divorced entrepreneur who found himself wanting a more effective way to meet someone new than what was available, Gelato aims to give singles a way to meet someone who might actually be a good match.

The idea is, as Odom put it, Friendfeed for dating. Users create a profile and then are able to peruse "life streams" of potential matches by viewing their Facebook profile and updates, their Twitter feed, the music they listen to on Last.FM and even what they're watching on Hulu and Netflix and their pictures on Flickr.

Ultimately, the point, Odom explained, is to give users a very realistic, in the moment, view of the person they might be going on a date with.

And, given this wealth of information, Gelato users are also rewarded for the truthfulness of their own profiles. In other words, the Gelato system looks for verification that, for example, someone who says in their profile that they're single really is.

To do that, Odom said he came up with what is known as the "Scoop" scoring system. This is designed to reward participation in social networking--the source of all of Gelato's information--as well as honesty. So, for example, a user gets 25 Scoop points for having an authenticated Facebook account with more than 25 friends; 25 points for an authenticated Twitter account; and 25 points if their Facebook relationship status matches what they've entered in their Gelato profile.

That means that Gelato users can easily see how many points someone else on the system has, and then take that into consideration when deciding if they think that person might be a good match.

To Odom, this combination of being able to see what someone is doing in real-time (via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and so on) and how active they are in various social networks means "you get a better sense of who someone is from what they're actually doing."

And, he added, it means that users can search for a more broad range of criteria, given that Gelato can look for matches based on search terms on all the various social networking sites that members use. So, finding "women who are 30 to 40, who are nonsmokers, who are politically liberal and who recently mentioned Burning Man, USC football, or World of Warcraft" might actually bear fruit, Odom explained.

Will this approach to online dating work? It is, of course, too early to tell, and Gelato will have to contend with the fact that anyone interested in finding love online already has a myriad choices. But there is something to be said for giving people a better sense, up front, of what they're really dealing with in the scary world of online dating, and if Gelato works as described, users will at least be able to know if their potential mates are as interested in Burning Man, USC football, and World of Warcraft as they are.

For CNET News' latest coverage from DemoFall 09, click here.

Twitter users on Thursday will, for the first time, be able to make voice calls directly to each other through the microblogging service.

A new third-party offering from Jajah known as Jajah@call is expected to go into beta Thursday morning that will allow Twitter users to initiate a two-way voice chat with other users by typing "@call @username"--where "username" is someone's Twitter ID--into any Twitter client. During the beta period, the company said, the calls will be limited to two minutes, but the company will evaluate that length during beta. However, it sees the two minute period--after which the call will end--as "the verbal equivalent of a tweet."

According to Jajah, an Internet communications provider with tens of millions of users, the service will allow a user to place a call to any other user, so long as the second person follows the first on Twitter and both have Jajah accounts. The service is free to use and is expected to work on any Twitter-enabled device, from PCs to smart phones.

One important element of the service is that users can keep their phone numbers private, yet be able to have voice chats with just about anyone on Twitter. To be sure, since the calls are initiated by one person, the recipient may well not be online, or may choose to ignore the call if they don't want to talk.

There are currently several applications that allow users to create voice-to-text Twitter posts--known as tweets--but it does not appear that anyone has yet made it possible to initiate voice communications directly between Twitter users.

Coming on the heels of the announcement earlier this week that Facebook users will now be able to communicate with each other via voice--using a third-party application from Vivox--it's clear that there is a strong interest, among service providers, at least, in taking leading social networks beyond strictly text communications. Whether large numbers of users choose to get on board is unknown at this point, of course. And given that neither the Facebook nor the Twitter voice services are being provided by the social networks themselves means that some users will choose not to get involved for fear of privacy, stability or other concerns.

Still, if these third-party services end up being successful, it would be natural to expect that Facebook and Twitter may decide they need to step up and directly embed such technologies into their offerings. And there is a precedent for such a move. After Vivox began offering Second Life users a third-party voice solution, the virtual world's publisher, Linden Lab, decided it needed to take advantage of the technology. Today, thanks to a formal partnership, Vivox's voice service is formally integrated into Second Life.

And while it may be some time before such a thing happens with either Facebook or Twitter, or any other major social network, one would have to think that it's only a matter of time.

Wired readers who want to try to win the $5,000 prize for finding reporter Evan Ratliff may not be able to use clues posted to his Twitter account, as the account has been suspended for 'strange activity.'

(Credit: Twitter)

Update (2:27 p.m.): The account is now back up. According to a Twitter spokesperson, it was "infected" for some reason.

When Wired recently launched its Vanish contest, a challenge to readers to locate reporter Evan Ratliff, who has gone on the "lam," it suggested that a major source of clues would be Ratliff's Twitter and Facebook accounts.

But as of Friday morning, his Twitter account (@theatavist) had been suspended for "strange activity."

Whoever finds Ratliff (and is the first to send his editor a photo of him) will win $5,000. And while there are a number of different ways to source up clues as to his whereabouts, one of them was supposed to be his Twitter account.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for information as to why the account was suspended.

The challenge is an interesting way to draw attention to a recent article of Ratliff's about the difficulties of disappearing from society. And in the original contest challenge, it was suggested that contest participants might draw some conclusions as to the methods the reporter would use--or wouldn't, as the case may be--from that story.

Of course, given that Ratliff is surely employing everything he can think of to stay below radar (theoretically not using credit cards or doing anything that might too easily give away his whereabouts) the Twitter account suspension might somehow be intentional. Then again, one would have to wonder what he would have had to do to get Twitter on board.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other ways to find clues. One is another Twitter account that was set up as a clearinghouse for information (@EvansVanished). Another is a Facebook account called The Search for Evan Ratliff, where fans are posting clues and working collaboratively to solve the puzzle.

This game, then, has many of the makings of a traditional alternate-reality game: online and offline components, widespread community involvement, clues spread across a wide swath of the Internet and a prize that may, in the end, have to be shared by a number of people who worked together.

And as is often the case with ARGs, this game, too, is in the service of promoting something else, in this case, Ratliff's larger article.

For now, those trying to find him and win the cash--and no doubt, bragging rights, as Ratliff said that to collect the prize, the winner has to agree to be interviewed on his or her methods--will have to do so without the assistance of his Twitter account. Then again, Twitter has been going through a rough time recently, with several periods of downtime.

Still, I really want to know what "strange activity" caused the service to take down the account. I'll update this article if I find out.

Inside the control room at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. Thought to be one of the most powerful and important megachurches in the United States, its lead pastor says that if churches don't embrace new technologies, they'll be left behind.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--If you're in charge of what is thought to be one of the most powerful, influential and important megachurches in the United States, if not the world, how do you make sure that your message is reaching the largest possible audience?

To Brady Boyd, the lead pastor at the New Life Church here, the famous, 10,000-plus member nondenominational church that's directly across Interstate 25 from the Air Force Academy, the answer is technology.

It's not that the New Life Church is light years ahead of anyone else--in fact, it may well even be slightly behind some other churches--but to Boyd the key is that he and his large support team are philosophically open to technology.

As part of Road Trip 2009, I stopped in at the New Life Church for an interview with Boyd. I wanted to know how this megachurch uses technology, and just how important tech is considered. The short answer? A lot.

"Churches have to stay current. We're in the communications business," Boyd told me. "The whole purpose of a church is to communicate a message of truth....We have to stay informed and we have to realize that most of the world is rapidly advancing in their ability to communicate."

In particular, Boyd pointed to Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook and Twitter. He said, in fact, that he Twitters constantly and recently maxed out his number of friends on Facebook.

"Advancing with the culture"
It may surprise some who think of churches as musty, behind-the-times institutions that a place like New Life Church, as well as others, are putting so much emphasis at staying on top of Web 2.0 and other technologies.

Indeed, Boyd even alluded to that point himself, suggesting that there are plenty of pastors out there who have fallen behind the times.

"Pastors have to embrace this," he said. "It's a generational gap. A lot of pastors over the age of 50 cannot embrace it, and they have stopped advancing with the culture. I think it's a mistake."

Boyd said it's crucial that someone in his shoes listens closely to what's going on in the world of communications, especially as that world is evolving so quickly. To that end, he said, he has people who give him monthly updates on where technology is going so that he, and New Life Church, don't fall behind.

The New Life Church, in Colorado Springs, Colo.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

One technology Boyd is fond of is podcasting, a medium he has been using to gain a global following of tens of thousands of listeners.

"I have to be aware, when I'm speaking, that I'm not just speaking to the people in front of me," Boyd said, "I'm speaking to people from all over the world, from various cultures, who are going to be listening to me through this Web technology."

But producing such podcasts--both audio and video--is expensive, and Boyd said that worrying about such costs may be another thing holding some churches back.

"It's very expensive, so I think what happens with churches sometimes," Boyd said, "is that because technology is so expensive, churches sometimes stay put. They stop advancing, because cost-wise, it's just so difficult to keep up with the latest technology."

He pointed to the costs of converting New Life Church's video cameras from analog to digital. He said that operation was extremely expensive, and had to be done piecemeal, over time. In addition, the church recently added a 70-foot high-definition screen to the back of its sanctuary that cost more than $100,000, something that had to be planned and budgeted for.

During big events inside the New Life Church, the atmosphere is much like a rock concert--and sometimes it is a rock concert.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Next up, he said, will be getting to the point where every New Life Church event is live-streamed to the Web. Other churches, he admitted, have already gotten there, so he knows he has to play a little catch-up.

And while an institution like New Life Church, which has thousands of congregants and visitors from all over the world, may be able to afford such a move, that's not necessarily true for other churches, even ones that fall under the category of megachurch.

"Especially in the economic downturn," Boyd said, "I think churches are challenged" with keeping up technologically.

And there's no time to waste, he suggested. Churches, he reiterated, are in the business of communications, and cannot allow themselves to stop spreading their message, no matter what the economic circumstances are. "We have a message that has to be communicated," he said, "and we have to do it well."

Living in fascinating times
As someone who has taken his message on the road, Boyd said he's been amazed watching how technology can help people in the ministry get their word out, and into the most remote places, so much quicker than in the past.

"We're (at) the point now where real-time communication is possible just about anywhere in the world," Boyd said. "I was in a remote place in Africa this past year, and there were people with cell phones out in the bush getting real-time downloads. So for the church, I think we're living in a fascinating time. We used to have to send missionaries around the world and it would take three months by boat to get to the country, and it would take them 20 years to reach every single person in the country. Now we can do that in a matter of minutes and hours."

While Boyd touts the virtues of being up-to-date with technology, no one is claiming that institutions like his and others are breaking ground no one else in the message-spreading business--whatever the message might be--has covered. A case in point is the music industry, where the technology in play at live concerts by big-name acts would put even a megachurch like New Life Church to shame. The same would be true of the film and television industries.

Then again, those industries have catering budgets nearly as big as what almost anyone else can afford when it comes to technology. The point, really, is that each type of business--film, music, news, churches--has upper limits of what's possible economically, and what's important to them is to be as efficient as possible.

"The American church can't measure its success now only by who...comes on Sunday," Boyd said. "Our message is being broadcast more and more through digital means, and they may not ever come to our building, they may never sit in a chair in our church. But they are certainly listening and receiving ministry because of the technology that's available. So the scope of your influence is really unlimited if you're willing to invest the time and money."

Click here for the entire Road Trip 2009 package.

During the Road Trip 2009 meetup in Boulder, iPhones were a hot topic. CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman used Twitter and Facebook to organize a get-together in the Colorado city.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

BOULDER, Colo.--When I polled a series of social-media experts about how best to build buzz for my Road Trip 2009 project, one of the strongest suggestions was to host meetups along the way.

I'd thought to do that last year, on Road Trip 2008, but never felt like I had enough time to do so. Or, frankly, the network to organize anything worthwhile.

This time, however, I knew I had to do it. So as the trip got close, I reached out to some folks who seemed well connected in Boulder, told them I was coming to town, and asked if they'd be interested in getting involved in bringing people together for the gathering.

It turned out I reached the right folks, or at least I started the right conversation, because next thing I knew, I got a tweet from Andrew Hyde, of Techstars, which provides seed capital and mentorship to early-stage start-ups, offering to get his people to come out.

The tech stars of Road Trip 2009's Boulder meetup

Over the next few days, we messaged back and forth, as I did with another Boulder resident, Brett Greene, of The Blind Influence. And the two promised that they would get some folks to join me at the meetup.

One thing I realized is that it's hard to get people in a town you don't know, who aren't already following you on Twitter and who aren't friends on Facebook, to come to a meetup you're trying to organize. That's why connecting with well-wired Boulder folks like Hyde and Greene made the difference.

And in the end, about 10 or 15 people showed up. We talked about technology, the start-up scene in Boulder, iPhones, and much more. I was nervous beforehand, but it went off great. I met some interesting Boulder Twitterers, learned about Techstars, and left feeling like next time I try to put one of these together, I'll know a little more about what I'm doing.

For the next several weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2009. After driving more than 12,000 miles in the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last three years, I'll be writing about and photographing the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more in Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. And in the meantime, join the Road Trip 2009 Facebook page and follow my Twitter feed.