Skyway West Recommended: January 30th to February 5th

New blog feature! Each Monday we’ll pass on links to articles we thought were well worth reading from the previous week, kind of a Digg-lite for those who live where we do (British Columbia, Canada), work like we do (high speed business internet), and drink the same kool aid we do (internet trends, internet privacy, cutting-edge technology, etc.). If you don’t want to wait ’til Monday, we usually tweet and link to these as we come across them

Atlantic Monthly: Neologism Watch: From Hashtag to Bashtag (pub Jan 23)

“I think Forbes’ excellent privacy blogger, Kashmir Hill, may have coined (or popularized) a new social media term: bashtag. A bashtag is what happens when a company (McDonald’s) tries to start a promotional hashtag (#McDStories) and users use it to hate on said company.”

Financial Post: SOPA-like Internet piracy laws could be coming to Canada, expert warns (pub Jan 25)

There is a behind-the-scenes campaign underway to bring laws such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the United States northward, warns a noted Canadian digital policy expert. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair for Internet and E-Commerce, said in a post to his personal blog that Ottawa’s reintroduction of copyright reform legislation makes the country “a prime target for SOPA style rules.”

IT World Canada: Another Way to Stop Phishing Attacks for Spoofed Domain Addresses (pub Jan 31)

Major Internet companies including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have announced a new specification to streamline the way email providers work out whether messages are part of phishing attacks using spoofed domain addresses. In testing for two years and called DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance), the initiative is really an attempt to impose a single set of policies on the sometimes arbitrary way that way companies separate the good email from the bad.

Mashable: 5 Ways Twitter is Changing Media Law (pub Jan 30)

“While technology companies always outgrow the laws that govern them, Twitter’s 140-character message system is proving to be particularly disruptive. At the same time, the microblog has been more aggressive in defending free speech than established companies like Facebook and Google. Here are five examples that show how Twitter’s unique platform is creating a new set of media rules that are forcing the law to play catch up…”

New York Times: Tracking Facebook’s Valuation (pub Feb 1)

How much is Facebook worth? The company was projected to surpass $3 billion in revenue in 2011, but it is expected to reach a valuation of up to $100 billion by the time of its initial public offering later this year.

CNET News: In Facebook IPO, color this graffiti artist richly rewarded (pub Feb 5)

From the right place at the right time department: In 2005 graffiti artist David Choe took up the offer of Facebook’s then-president Sean Parker who gave him “a few thousand dollars” worth of shares instead of cash. At the time Mr. Choe though Facebook “ridiculous and pointless”, but with Facebook’s pending IPO, Mr Choe stands to make up to a, well, ridiculous $200 million.