Last Friday night, Jimmy Kimmel guest hosted Larry King Live, and the topic was “Paparazzi: Do They Go Too Far?” Near the end of the show, they brought on Emily Gould, an editor for the celebrity gossip blog Gawker. Apparently, Gawker — which I’ve never read — has a feature called the Gawker Stalker Map which uses the Google Maps API to show locations in Manhattan where Gawker readers have reported celebrity sightings. Kimmel, having been the subject of a Gawker sighting, lets Gould have it pretty hard, noting the potential ramifications of real-time celebrity tracking: “that way when Gwyneth Paltrow comes out of the movies, there would be at least a dozen psychopaths waiting for her.”

Now, celebrities and paparazzi have gone around and around in the debate about right to privacy for public figures, and I’m not going to get into that here. What I thought was very interesting was a line Gould came back with that redefines the rules of the game a bit:

“Honestly, I think that there’s a shifting definition of what is public and what is private space for everyone not just celebrities. The Internet, blogs, MySpace, no one has the reasonable expectation of being able to walk around the street and not being noticed by someone.” - Emily Gould

And I think she’s right to say the definition of privacy is changing for folks on the Web. But there is still — and probably always will be — a distinction between two types of public/private interactions. It’s the Cult of Personality vs. the Cult of Information.

Celebrities like Paltrow or Tom Cruise, etc. have chosen a public life in the cult of personality. People want to be them and to be close to them. While folks on the Web who participate in social networking sites are participating in the cult of information. People want to know about them and about what they have to say. It’s really hard to be popular on the Web if you don’t have something interesting to say (porn stars excepted). A majority of the time, users on the Web just want information about other people. Paparazzi and the abusers of the cult of personality want the people themselves.

Typically, surfing MySpace, looking at stranger’s profiles is no different than peeking out your front curtains, trying to figure out what your neighbor’s building in his garage. In the cult of information, once you figure out what it is, you’ve gotten all you need from that person. In the cult of personality, someone would probably steal it.

That’s the fundamental difference between these types of interactions, and I think Gould misses the boat by not making this distinction. Granted, she had Jimmy Kimmel ramming his foot down her throat at the time, but I think she does Web 2.0-style social interactions a disservice by lumping them in with traditional invasions of privacy.

And please don’t think that I’m saying all peepers in the Web 2.0 style are above-board (ask Kathy Sierra). The world is a big place, and there are just as many bad people as there are good. I’m just pointing out a flaw in Gould’s statement.

CNN transcript of the show in question.

Probably the biggest stumbling block on my path to losing weight has been a lack of motivation. I love food, and I’ve always felt that life is for living and doing what you love. Well, turns out that can be an excuse to engage in destructive behavior, such as over eating. Anyway, a couple of things finally motivated me to make some real changes in my life, and once I decided to change, I sought out some help to keep me going and hold me accountable.

My motivation for losing weight is two-fold. First, I just turned 30. Now, I’m not saying I’m having a mid-life crisis or anything, but let’s just say I’m starting to feel Father Time nipping at my heels a bit. Second, in the process of moving into our new house last December, I hurt my lower back pretty badly lifting boxes. I spent a couple of excruciating nights during which the 15-foot walk to the bathroom brought me to tears from the pain. Laying in bed in constant pain, I promised myself that when my back healed and I was mobile enough to start working out, I would once and for all get myself in shape. It took almost a month before I felt strong enough to start, but I did start. And I plan to finish.

So, I had my motivation in place. But I’d been motivated before. When I was 25, I dropped about 20 pounds and actually had myself in pretty good shape. I marked my progress on the wall calendar in my living room, and seeing how much work I’d done really kept me going. Problem was, when I turned the page of the calendar to the next month, all of a sudden, I hadn’t done anything. The calendar was blank, and it was literally like a switch flipped off. I stopped working out. To avoid that happening again, I needed to be held accountable by a system that wouldn’t let me just turn the page.

And that’s when I started One Thing New. Even though it took me a couple of weeks to get to my first Lose Weight with Web 2.0 post, I had planned from the beginning that I would write about that. My thinking was if I publish my intentions to lose weight, then I’m accountable to my readers. And if I framed it as a project (testing out and comparing two Web 2.0 weight loss sights), then I would have a tangible goal to shoot for. Pretty smart, huh?

As I wrote in yesterday’s post, Gimme20 became my favorite of the two Web apps I reviewed. Tracking my workout — I mentioned using a calendar the last time I tried losing weight — and seeing my progress grow over time is incredibly inspirational. You want to keep it growing. Well, you can’t turn the page on Gimme20’s tracking page, and I think that’s important. And it’s not only the fact that I can see my stats growing; it’s also the fact that everyone can see them, too. If I put my goals out there, I’m held accountable by the people who read about them. It’s very motivating.

I can say that I wouldn’t have gotten as far a long as I have without the help of the Web 2.0 technology I’ve used. My age and my injury motivated me. And the potential audience and viewers of my blog and my Gimme20 page have helped me stick to my plan. I’ll continue to track my progress on Gimme20, and I’ll probably post periodic updates here. But I think I’ve gotten over the hump. My commitment to change is finally real, and I plan to see it through — with your help.

Oh yeah, since I started my program on Feb 28th, I’ve lost 12 pounds. Not bad for a month’s work, eh?

Man, I love the Web. Just when I think it can’t get any better, there’s always another idea that blows me away. Over the weekend (when I should have been learning Ruby!), I discovered tumblelogs, and I’m thinking they might be the Next Big Thing.

Basically, a tumblelog is a mini blog focusing on short form, mixed-media posts that share the thoughts, experiences, and discoveries of their authors without much commentary to go along. Folks share photos, video clips, quotations, and whatever snippets strike their fancy throughout the day in their raw forms. It’s blogging at its most basic, and it is riveting.

While there are stand-alone tumblelog platforms, the best and easiest place to get started is tumblr.com. From sign up to published, tumblr was the quickest Web publishing app I’ve ever used.

Their posting interface lets you post photos, links, quotes, videos, or regular blog-type posts. They even have a feature that lets you post photos directly from your cell phone. And of course, just like a blog, tumblr provides RSS syndication for your tumblelog. You can even import other RSS feeds. All of these features are easy to activate with just a few clicks.

While there only a few stock templates to choose from at this point, the look of your tumblelog is fully customizable if you know some basic HTML and CSS. Tumblr is still pretty new, and I’m sure they’ll be adding more features and templates as time goes on.

My favorite feature of the tumblr interface is the “Share on Tumblr” button that you can save in your bookmarks folder. When you come across a Web site or a photo or a video that you want to post to your tumblelog, just click the “Share on Tumblr” link, and it launches a mini-posting window. You can even highlight a chunk of text on a Web page, click Share on Tumblr, and the hightlighted text will be automatically imported to your posting window. Tumblr makes posting incredibly easy and intuitive.

After the huge growth of twitter during the SxSW festival, there are a lot of people who think the next wave of social networking will focus on these micro-blogging platforms. I messed around with twitter, but it didn’t stick. Tumblelogs, however, have captured my imagination. Let me know if you feel the same.

Eventually, I’ll have a supplemental tumbleblog for One Thing New, but for now check out my sports-themed tumblelog, TumbleBum.

Another April Fool’s Day has come, and another hundred Web sites have decided to pull pranks on their users. From Google announcing “Gmail Paper” to ThinkGeek publishing a list of fake gadgets (including the 8-bit tie that’s actually pretty cool), sites all over the net have switched up their regular content in favor of these gimmicky jokes. But I’m wondering if these stunts — which are really marketing ploys — are effective anymore.

First, when we know the joke is coming, is it funny anymore? I’m talking to Google here, who has been pulling April Fool’s pranks for years. Maybe it would be more effective if they took a few years off and posted pranks only when they were worth posting (this year’s Gmail Paper doesn’t exactly have me rolling on the floor).

And second, if everyone is doing it, the impact is diminished. And not just the impact of their jokes. It’s getting to the point that April Fool’s jokes are so widespread on the Web that you can’t tell what information is real. I’ve read so many blog posts in the last 24 hours that started off with something like “This isn’t an April Fool’s prank…”, including a job posting on Mashable. How could a job posting be considered a prank, unless everything on the Web today is suspect?

I’m really not trying to be a killjoy here. I enjoy a well done prank as much as the next guy. I’m just wondering if April Fool’s Day on the Web has become meaningless. For me — at least this year — it has.

If you’re interested, here’s a list of this year’s April Fool’s jokes.

My friend Robert and I have been discussing the merits and drawbacks of Web 2.0 technologies in the comments section of a couple of my recent posts. I’m buying into it whole hog, while he has some pretty severe reservations about the whole operation. He makes some excellent points, but besides dabbling in Myspace, I wonder how much of the Web 2.0 experience he’s had. In that vein, I’d like to challenge Robert and any other skeptics out there to dive in and take part in the 27things project.

I first read about Learning 2.0 and kcls27things a couple of days ago when those two tags started popping up on Technorati. The program is designed by the King County Library System in Washington state and modeled on a similar program created by a librarian in Charlotte, NC. Their goal is to get the KCLS staff up to snuff on some basic Web 2.0 technologies (Blogger, del.icio.us, Technorati, Flickr, etc.) in order to enrich their interactions with patrons. But the program is an excellent, step-by-step introduction to the world of Web 2.0 that can be used by anyone — not just KCLS staff.

The program is unfolding as I type this. The 27things blog is updated two or three times a week, and each post details one of the 27 steps. The posts themselves tend to be very basic, but within each post, there are external links to some excellent sources — podcasts, tutorials, and wikis — that delve deeper into each topic.

What’s great about how they’ve set it up is that each step only takes about 10 minutes to complete. Of course you can take more time exploring and playing, but to get a flavor of what’s out there, you only need about 10 minutes a day to get started. So far, they’ve covered blogging, RSS feeds, Myspace, Flickr, del.icio.us, and Library Thing (similar to aNobii). And while these technologies and sites might seem like second nature to a lot of us, there is still a large population (the majority?) of folks out there who don’t have a clue about them.

Besides librarians, I can see the benefit of the 27things program for all kinds of educators, parents, and older folks who keep hearing the Web 2.0 buzzwords (blog, tag, myspace, etc.) and want to learn more about it. And for Robert, once you get more of a taste of what’s out there, you might start to come around to my way of thinking (not holding my breath, though, buddy).