That’s what I’m talking about! (TechCrunch)

Netflix is coming to the Xbox 360 this fall. Netflix subscribers will have instant access to over 10,000 movies and TV shows, streamed directly to the Xbox 360 console.

Yes, the title is intended to be dramatic.

First, there’s the feelgood part: Netflix has decided to keep separate profiles for single accounts. As a Netflix subscriber: Thank you. When I heard they were going to eliminate the profiles, I wondered (right after copying my 300+ DVD queue into a an OpenOffice spreadsheet) if there was really a time when taking away the profiles could be justified. I could not think of one. Even when everything that’s available on DVD has been converted to Instant Watch, parents (like the Netflix Product Manager known as “Todd”) will still want separate profiles to prevent their children from checking out the latest soft-core porn that Netflix uploads. (Not that they won’t be able to get it elsewhere, but at least the parents will feel like they have some control)

As they say, The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease. And so, as with Serenity, Americans get what they want.

Which brings us to the Chinese. While it hasn’t been confirmed, there are rumors that China has been blocking access to Facebook. Honestly, nothing scares me more than when China decides to block and/or redirect websites. As Cory Doctorow says in his latest Guardian column:

The internet is only that wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press in a single connection. It’s only
vital to the livelihood, social lives, health, civic engagement, education and leisure of hundreds of millions of people (and growing every day).

And the government of the world’s most populous country basically gets to control what people can do with that wire.

Here’s a recent Facebook ad:

Okay, in truth, that was just an ad on an application in Facebook, which probably means they just show that to everyone who has the app installed. (Just for reference, it’s the Basketball Fan Application)

But here is something I just can’t understand: (No, not how I could just kill a man - raise your hand if you thought it, though)

And here’s the point of the post: Facebook has a ton of information about me, and I see this ad? Perhaps WooMe is actually what they say in the text: a new voice and video social network. (But with a name like WooMe, I kind of screams “Singles!”) Maybe WooMe just paid enough to override the whole “married” part of my profile, or perhaps they just didn’t think to check the “don’t target married people” box when placing the ad. I don’t know how many blog posts I’ve seen saying how personalized ads on Facebook are going to be the next big thing, but something tells me that isn’t it.