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Web 3.0 is mostly to do with the massive amounts of active and passive data we are generating. An example of passive data is phone calls from mobile devices. Bandwidth is increasing, which enables video, audio and graphic sharing and data. Hoffman advocates thinking hard about it and acting to protect data. Think about what kind of future we want to create.

Facebook is opening up their server technology used in their data centers. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said he hoped the unusual technology-sharing program, which Facebook is calling the "Open Compute Project" would encourage industry-wide collaboration around best practices for data-center and server technology. "By sharing this, we will make it more efficient for this ecosystem to grow," he said.

The power of data mining... "Yet more evidence, if it were needed, of the value that can be found in the Twitter stream. The social media service that has been credited with doing just about everything, may even turn out to be a medical goldmine."

Social media data analysis explained using a sample query.

Timeline organizes your life in reverse chronological order based on the content you've shared on your Facebook profile. The layout is designed as a dual-column view with a large main column for viewing content and a smaller one on the right for fast navigation. If you've entered when you graduated high school or college, when you got married, when your first child was born or when you started a new job, all that data will show up in your Timeline. You can also go back and add photos and captions to important past events, or remove particularly embarrassing photos or other content from your new profile page.

 Pwnedlist.com tells you if your user name or email address has been revealed in one of the recent hacker attacks on, for instance, Gawker or Sony's gaming division. It is worth knowing, especially if you use the same details to log into a variety of sites. All you have to do is type in your email address or user name into the box on Pwnedlist.com and it will tell you if it has appeared in any of lists of data that have been dumped onto the Internet recently.

Awesome new keyword tool! That is, if the data is accurate.

Some interesting data on Facebook, especially regarding young people.

"I've been testing a service called ZoneAlarm SocialGuard that I think strikes a good balance between safety and privacy, between a parent's peace of mind and a teen's sense of freedom. Every five minutes, it monitors kids' Facebook accounts for approaches by potential predators and strangers, cyber-bullying, age fraud, account hacking, and links to inappropriate or malicious websites. It uses algorithms that look for certain types of language, profile data, or other clues that unwanted activity may be under way."

A list of 11 free security and privacy utilities that shield you against malware, protect your data at Wi-Fi hotspots, encrypt your hard drive, and do everything in between.

New York magazine posted an essay on one cultural consequence of the world as a data-stream, the death of the narrative.

Open data is a key step in holding governments to account and empowering democracy. It is not an end in itself, but it is a driver in societal change and it is hoped it can change the relationship between government and citizen. The prospects for mobile apps driven by open government in Kenya gaining traction are good, given a population that primarily accesses the Internet over mobile devices.