He describes the downsides of having a large online audience, where social networking breaks down. The key insights: large networks can hinder conversation and stifle the exchange of ideas, because socializing doesn't actually scale.

"After all, the world’s bravest and most important ideas are often forged away from the spotlight — in small, obscure groups of people who are passionately interested in a subject and like arguing about it. They’re willing to experiment with risky or dumb concepts because they’re among intimates."

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I recently came across Jeff Clark's portfolio, which features a ton of solid data visualization tools and projects, including a couple of nice applications for Twitter.

Twitter Venn (created using Processing and Twitter Search) takes a set of terms and creates a Venn Diagram showing the rate of tweets containing the each of search terms and combination of the search terms. Twitter Venn also shows a tag cloud for each regions with other common words. Look at the Twitter Venn for design, less, better:

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Josh Peters wrote a nice little post about an experience he recently had on Twitter. In the process of being spammed by Twitter user Liquid4Health, he noticed that the user's logo was a somewhat shoddy rip-off of the Mozy logo.

Comparison of Twitter Avatars for Mozy and Liquid4Health

Interestingly, Liquid4Health is a marketing account on Twitter for a company called GBG. GBG's logo is not the same as the Twitter icon in question. This seems to imply that the marketer who created, designed, and uses their Twitter account is making a series of unethical (or at least unpleasant) design and marketing decisions on behalf of the company. The lesson here? Keep a leash on your social marketers. This Twitter account is driving brand value down and attracting negative chatter on the internet. (Go ahead and Google Liquid4Health: the Josh's article is already on the front page.)

Funnily, one of the three taglines on GBG's homepage is "driven by ethics." One more lesson that design ethics is not a spectator sport. You've got to actively ensure that your brand is ethically represented, otherwise, as Josh says, it'll come back to haunt you.

1. iStockphoto to Sell Logos

Big news this week from iStockphoto: the site plans to offer logos for sale in the near future. Commenters on their forum seem to favor the deal, while designers are (not surprisingly) much less enthused.

To their credit, iStockphoto is trying something different with the logos they plan to sell. Logos will be unique items, only sold once apiece. In addition, they will cost much more than stock photos. Whereas a decent sized image might run $7-$10, a logo could run $100-$750.

But tell me, who is going to buy these things and who is going to supply them? Is there really such a thing as a stock logo? I think we know the answer...

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1. Webtrendmap

The top slot this week goes to the Webtrendmap beta. Essentially, it aggregates the top re-blogged stories from trusted sources, so you get only the cream of the crop.

I like it so far because the trusted sites seem to be weighted towards designers and, in the limited time I've spent with the site, their picks seem pretty good.

Also, the interface is unique. As I understand it, you can make your own "maps", plotting trends across two axes or even locations. I confess, I'm not sure how that part works, but it's intriguing.

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1. Measuring the quality of visitors rather than the quantity

Marketing blogger Helge Tennø raises an interesting question: in the age of social media, what are we missing from our current web analytics?

It is easy to measure page views and sales, but that still leaves a lot of room in between. How do we track the number and activity of different user types that make online communities work? There's no good answer yet, but it's something to chew on.

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1. Far Foods

I caught James Reynolds's Far Foods, an updated design for produce packaging, on Swissmiss. I think the boarding-pass styling might be too clever visually, but I very much like the idea of prominently displaying point-of-origin, distance traveled, and resulting CO2.

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1. Packaging Design at Its Worst

Treehugger has a gallery of packaging designs that are wasteful and, in one case, downright dangerous.

2. What Street Vendors Can Teach Businesses About Twitter

One of the better articles I've read on making effective use of Twitter. I appreciate the fact that the authors use real tweets as examples instead of simply making broad, unsupported generalizations.

3. Want more sign-ups? Don't lead with "Free" offers

In user testing, 37signals found that a call-to-action button with the copy "See Plans and Pricing" resulted in a 200% increase in sign-ups over variations on "Sign-up for a Free Trial".

It seems that people are weary of "free" things online as they are often a gateway to unwanted subscriptions and opt-out schemes.

4. How to Monetize a Free Service

Okay, that title's a bit misleading.

But we could learn something from the actions of Pandora CEO Tim Founder on how to make the move from free to freemium. Founder broke the news to his customers in a sensitive and well-reasoned letter that's worth reading.

Make a great service and treat your customers like intelligent people. That's something we can all subscribe to.