For example: As of January 1, 2009, , leading Netizens around the globe to scratch their heads and ask, What the heck is a "Ning"?
Short answer: It's what Marc Andreessen is doing these days.
Slightly longer answer: It's a site where you can build your own social network quickly and easily. Which means it's attracted a fair number of folks who wanted a low cost way to build Web 2.0-ish sites based around what comes naturally (and, occasionally, unnaturally). They've now got less than 30 days to clean out their toy chests and find a new home. This has caused no end of grief for folks who've devoted quite a bit of time to building their sites.
Note: The Widget Laboratory claims to to new sites for amateur pornsters left in the lurch. (I haven't tried them, so let me know if they work.)
Ning's motto is "." I guess they'll need to change that to "Create Your Own Social Network for Anything But, You Know -- That Stuff."
Meanwhile, YouTube has done something similar by The 'tube already nixes any explicit videos it finds. Now it's tightening its chastity belt by tweaking the algorithms to push the naughty stuff off the front page and to the bottom of the search results.
YouTube isn't getting rid of the smut; it's just hiding it in the bottom drawer of the bureau in the back of the closet, like your dad's old copies of Penthouse.
Both Ning and YouTube face a problem that has plagued anti-porn crusaders for decades: . Good luck with that one.
Finally, a churchy investment group calling itself the Timothy Plan wants to save your children from . They've offered up from the tame (Pet Vet and Pokemon) to the demonstrably evil (just about every version of Grand Theft Auto ever made, plus a number of other highly popular titles). Think of it as one-stop shopping for folks who are looking to avoid games like that -- or conversely, are looking to find the edgiest ones.
Social networks and game consoles, they're the devil's playthings. But Hell, you already knew that.
Naughty or nice -- what's on your shopping list this year? E-mail me direct: cringe@infoworld.com.