A host of links to social media policies to refer to if you're developing one yourself.

Useful social media marketing tools for companies that are looking for consistency of brand communications across networks

In the most ludicrous pantomime of democracy last night, two hours were spent debating and passing the Digital Economy Bill - legislation aimed at tackling the hugely complicated issue of filesharing and copyright. Putting aside the fact that copyright laws are now utterly incapable of coping with the new digital age, the law allows for internet connections to be closed down is someone is suspected of downloading/uploading copyright material from that location.

Businesses... let's hope none of your staff are downloading music. Are you a cafe with free wifi? You are now responsible for for everything that any of your customers download. Libraries... likewise. If you have wifi at home, you'd better get it encrypted. But even that won't work - savvy downloaders can easily anonymise their IPs and crack your encryption.

There are so many problems with this bill that really can be summed up with one thought: The people who have created this legislation DO NOT KNOW HOW THE INTERNET WORKS. That's why it's being opposed by everyone who does. It is a law that doesn't protect artists (who have lots of new opportunities to get their work some attention via the net), it protects the recording industry (NB - not music industry), who have refused to adapt their business models to the new reality and are simply trying to use legislation to prop up their old (failing) models.

As someone on the Now Show said, It's akin to trying to prop up the blacksmiths industry by forcing all car owners to put a few horses feet on their car. Wake up people - the world is changing! The internet is changing everything about media - this is a revolution, so won't be stopped by laws... the revolution will just become set against the authorities and a greater conflict created.

Laurence Lessing is a good voice to listen to in this debate - he's a law professor who specialises in copyright and the digital economy... and the good news for the US is that he is advising the White House. Here's what he has to say about how the law is actually killing creativity, not protecting it:

For us in the UK, we have just woken up in a new reality - when the bill becomes law - in about a year and half's time, large corporations will have the power to disconnect you from the internet if they THINK you have been breaching copyright. Important parts of the new information economy like Wikileaks can be blocked by the UK government because they are sharing information that is copyrighted... even if it is revealing corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power.

Believe - this is not the end... the internet and it's users are way, way way better informed and resourced than the government and large businesses could ever be - our tools for collaboration and communication are so much more advanced than institutions that were created when letter writing was the most efficient form of communmication. The government has just picked a fight that it cannot win, and will spend vast sums of money and amounts of time in Canute-like behaviour that subsequent generations will hold up as a case study of idiotic posturing against the inevitable forces of history. For "luddites", read Digital Economy Bill.

If you'd like to do something about this - then join the Open Rights Group

Find out if your MP voted for or against the bill... or just didn't bother

Join the conversation on Twitter

A useful table of the pluses and minuses of different social media communities and tools for business use.

A wiki collecting social media policy documents from around the world

A site monitoring web conversations about National Theatre Wales, built on Netvibes.

Website of Dr Kelly Page, from Cardiff's Business School.

Here are some very common misconceptions about social media marketing.

Interesting views on marketing on the social web from Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.

I set out some of the logic behind, and tools you can use for lifestreaming at a recent Ignite event here in our Cardiff. Here's a video of the presentation, the slideshow and some links you can check out.

Ignite is an event where a load of geeks get together to drink, network and watch a series of 'rapid fire' presentations - you get 5 minutes and 20 slides that automatically transition every 15 seconds. The Cardiff (and soon, London) event is organised by Neil Cocker and Claire Scantlebury, from Nocci and Cardiff Web Scene respectively.

The presentation format is a serious challenge - the challenge is to get the timing right and create a presentation that's sufficiently interesting for a very savvy audience but also entertaining enough for a tipsy-but-savvy audience. I hope I managed to get the balance right.

Anyway - here's the video from my presentation, followed by the slides I used:

You can also view these in my lifestream - this site pulls in my uploads and favourites from Slideshare.net, and also any Youtube favourites or uploads too.

Here are a few good lifestreaming links:

• Lifestream blog
• Friendfeed | Friendfeed Beta
• Sweetcron | Sweetcron wiki | Sweetcron users group
• Tumblr
• Storytlr
• I am Shimone (Sweetcron based site)

Lifestreaming makes sense of the mass of social media activity that we're creating. As our actions on the web - be that favouriting or liking a video, uploading media content or commenting on a blog - become more and more dispersed across a wide range of services, it helps to have tecnologies that aggregate them back together.

As I mentioned in the talk, we can all make a start by plugging our media account details into Facebook, but I think Friendfeed is the service we'll all be paying attention to in the future. Not ony can we aggregate all our web activity, but we can subscribe to each other. All Friendfeed needs is an active community commenting and liking the best content and it'll become the most powerful platform on the web.

Right now, Friendfeed certainly looks like the most interesting lifestreaming platform for the future - see Robert Scoble setting out how much more useful it can be than Twitter:

All in all, the IgniteCardiff event was great - there were a bunch of fantastic presentations and a hectic night of networking, drinking and partying was enjoyed by all.

You can check out all the presentations from IgniteCardiff #2 at the IgniteCardiff YouTube Channel. My favourite presentation from the night was from DK at Mediasnackers, who gave a fantastic presentation on change.

Massive respect to Neil and Claire - and if you're based in Cardiff, make sure you don't miss the next one! Stay in touch by connecting with them online.

A really useful and easy to remember approach to developing a social media strategy

A really useful and easy to remember approach to developing a social media strategy

45 propositions for developing human social strategies online

A blog all about lifestreaming

A very neat little user generated directory for twitter. Just tweet @wefollow and add three #tags, and you're in the directory

A very neat little user generated directory for twitter. Just tweet @wefollow and add three #tags, and you're in the directory

Brandrepublic reports that spend on social media marketing is set to increase, despite the recession

A really good presentation on the sociology of digital networks