A real blog entry is on the way soon, but I had to post this in the meantime. Mark Cuban, a guy I said should be the NBA's example on how to create publicity through blogging, was just fined $25,000 for comments he posted on his Twitter feed about the calls refs made during the Mavericks 103-101 loss to the Nuggets.

One of his tweets is an instant classic in my mind (from the Fox Sports story referenced above):

"can't say no one makes money from twitter now. the nba does."

So if that doesn't convince you that there's something to this Twitter thing David Stern, I don't know what else will.

Also I have to note I just saw an interview with Gilbert Arenas after his return to the NBA where he swore off blogging. Here's what he told the AP:

"It's just like the double-(edged) sword thing: Eventually your words is going to kill you," and "it's like everything I said, everybody started using it as firepower, instead of saying it's just entertainment."

If my blog was getting that kind of traction, the last thing I'd do is give it up, but then again, I haven't signed an $111 million contract YET!

Just read this on ESPN and had to share because I think it validates my previous post. I especially appreciated this paragraph:

Though Villanueva promised not to tweet again during a game, he did question whether there's much difference between a player taking a few seconds to do a television interview at halftime and taking a few seconds to use their mobile phone to post a Web message to fans.

So there you have it. Tweet away you crazy NBA players, and make sure you follow the women's professional soccer league feeds. Who wouldn't mind getting a text from Mia Hamm every once in a while.

When I first saw this headline on ESPN.com, I thought, "Not again." I thought the NBA, or at least the Milwaukee Bucks, were following the NCAA's lead in banning reporters from liveblogging games. I wondered how the NBA could misunderstand the ways people use Twitter so much that it would ignore the marketing potential following a game on your cell phone has.

But then I actually read the story, and now I'm not so sure. I still think Twitter could be a valuable tool for a large sports league like the NBA. I think it needs to give its players more freedom to create fan opportunities online. But maybe players should focus more on the coach's halftime speech and less on updating their feeds.

I guess I've gotten ahead of myself, as I often do. The story, if you haven't already read it, describes how Charlie Villaneuva, a Milwaukee forward, sent the following tweet or twitt, as he calls it (Is that right? It sounds dirty.) during halftime of the Bucks game against the Boston Celtics:

"In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up."

I guess he did step up. I couldn't find out how many points he scored after halftime, but he led his team with 19-points in the 86-77 win.

If I were the coach, I would want my player focused on the game, not his cell phone, so I can understand Scott Skiles' decision to ban Twitter from the locker room. But I also think he and his team are overestimating how hard it is to send a quick tweet. I can't imagine it takes any longer than the inane halftime interviews coaches or players grant to the sideline reporter. I think it's a lot less distracting than being " mic'ed up " or followed constantly with a courtside camera. I mean during last Sunday's NHL on NBC game, I could watch Sean Avery's every move online. So what's wrong with a little tweeting?

I think the real issue is not distraction. It's control. The league wants to dictate how and when its players promote themselves. But the league look at Gilbert Arena's or Mark Cuban's blogs to understand how individual players or owners acting alone can drum up more publicity than their well crafted technological angles.

I'm all for imposing, as we say in the business, "content neutral" rules on Twitter. Players could, for example, limit their tweets to the first five minutes after the half is over. But if you are going to give the media unprecedented access to players through mics and cameras, then you have to give players the same rights. The NBA might be surprised at what happens.

P.S. On a side note that's related and probably should have been the focus of this post, the Utah Jazz have been innovatively using the Web to connect with fans for the last two years. Jazzbots is a collection of fan blogs, sponsored and maintained by the team. From what I can tell, the blogs are the honest opinions of fans, not sanitized to protect players or coaches. I've really enjoyed what I've read, especially the posts from a fiery writer named Mallory Meyer . Ok, she's my niece, but she does a great job and the spirit of what she's doing meshes well with my research interests. I smell a conference paper!

Gather 'round young 'uns, and I'll tell you a story. It's about the time before everyone was on Facebook, about the time when you had to have a .edu e-mail address to get in. Your nerdy storyteller was a budding Internet researcher at the time and he happened to be a grad student, so he signed up for the grand experiment never thinking much about it. He languished with less than a dozen friends for more nearly two years. But then, a funny thing started to happen. People he hadn't seen or heard from in years started "poking" him. Seemed like they wanted to be his "friends" again, and he gladly accepted. Before too long again, he was the Bell of the Ball, and he lived happily ever after.

Yes, that was supposed to sound like a fairy tale, but strangely enough, it's all mostly true (except for the "Bell of the Ball" part). I started writing this fairy tale because my wife recently challenged me to step back and take an objective look at the social networking phenomenon. She basically called the site a passing fad, akin to Ugg boots and Tivo. As much as I want to disagree with her, my own history with the site suggests as much. I didn't really become a Facebook power user (or colossal time waster) until everyone else started joining.

Applying what I know about communication theory and even the results of a Facebook survey I helped another doctoral student administer on campus, that's probably the way it should be. You could almost think of Facebook like the early telephone. A phone was pretty useless if you were on the only one on the block to have one, but become exponentially more useful as larger and larger groups of people started installing them in their homes. In fact, our study suggested that Facebook forges such powerful connections between online friends that people rate news stories sent by their friends more credible than those sent by news organizations.

My Facebook attention waxes and wanes. Some days I struggle for an hour to come up with the perfect status update while on others, I hardly care what happened. I still love finding old friends on the site, but my definition of friend has definitely become looser and looser the more time I spend there. Honestly, I vacillate between whether Facebook is a powerful tool for social cohesion and relationship building or, like my wife, whether it's simply a fad as transitory as the Pet Rock. (I really hope Tivo last a long, long time, or at least until I can afford one.)

In the end, I think I realize what Facebook really is. It's simply a tool, just like a shovel. It really all depends on how people decide to use it. If the best Facebook applications we can come up with are Vampire hunting games and hucking Legos and In and Out Burgers at each other, then I think Facebook will go the way of the Rubik's Cube. But if can find useful ways to make the tenuous connections we make online have real world implications, then I think Facebook will not only survive, but it can become a communications tool more powerful than the newspaper or telephone. That's why I decided to write about it here, on my "professional" blog. It's up to those of us researching, designing and evangelizing the future of media to step back and analyze this funny tool we have in Facebook and decide how to most effectively use it.

Many of my friends are already on the cutting edge, to some degree. I like the instant status updates I get through Twitter. I follow a lot of the links people post to keep on top of the news (Through Facebook, I learned about the latest controversial episode of Big Love, and I even joined the group.) I can even sometimes get 3 out of 5 on the New York Times news quiz.

But we can't stop there. We could all use a challenge to step away from the screen for a minute to try to figure out how we can dig better holes with Facebook. I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg won't mind.

I've had a string of bad luck lately with computers, so much so that I want to shout from the housetops. My beloved Macbook of three years died again and needs its second new logic board, so I've gave up on it. I bought an HP from Circuit City at a discounted rate, but when I got it home, the hard drive was fried, and getting HP customer service to fix it was a nightmare.

But I'm too scared to complain. In researching libel cases for the Principles of American Journalism class I teach at the University of Missouri, I found this case, and it's a doozy. Zebulon Brodie, the owner of a Dunkin' Donuts near Baltimore is suing Independent Newspapers, the company behind a local discussion board site, because three anonymous posters made disparaging remarks about his store. The company must reveal the names so his libel case can proceed.

I know the law. I shouldn't be scared. If my complaints are the truth, I have nothing to fear. But I'm baffled why this case is even making the court rounds. Brodie's case has no merit, but it looks to me like the judges are too concerned about the impact of the big bad Internet to see the forest for the trees.

In its ruling, released yesterday, the Maryland Court of Appeals supported at least the qualified right to speak anonymously on the Internet. Sam Bayard, assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School, told the Washington Post that the decision places the burden of proof squarely on the plaintiff.

"It seems to be pretty much following a recent trend that we've been seeing -- that there is at least a qualified right to speak anonymously on the Internet," Bayard said. "Courts are going to require the plaintiff or others seeking identities to make a heightened showing that they have a valid cause of action."

The Maryland court also issued a strict five-step process on what plaintiffs must prove to obtain the names behind anonymous posts. These guidelines force the defamed to prove actual damages, which Brodie would have a hard time doing in this case.

Here's the first alleged libelous post by CorsiaRiver:

"I wouldn't go to that Dunkin' Donuts of Brodie's anyway ... have you taken a close look at it lately? One of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen."

To me, that's a statement that should be decided on its merits. First, is it true? Second, does it clearly identify someone? Last, does it cause any real damage?

And that's why I have a bit of a problem with this case and the rulings. I know I should be glad that one of this nation's high courts is recognizing the right to post anonymously but within limits online. The guidelines the Maryland court offers are succinct and effective. But I have to wonder why do we even care this took place on the Internet? What makes the Internet so different that we have to extend the First Amendment to it, as this Post story so boldy claims in the subhead?

Yes, the founding fathers probably couldn't predict the rise of the Internet, but they didn't have to. They made the First Amendment so broad that they didn't have to. The rights it affords pertain to all publishing and all forms of speech, whether verbal, print or electronic. What I really wish is the court would have decided this case on its merits and not created new extensions of old rules online. I also don't ever remember where the criteria for free expression forced you to put your name on it.

Let's embrace the Internet for what people like Bayard know it can be.

"There's a long tradition in U.S. history of at least anonymous political speech, and certainly when you contemplate the Internet and the new opportunities it offers, this is the way a lot of speech happens," he said.

So in the spirit of starting the discussion, I am going to rail against Apple and HP after all. Apple uses superior and innovative marketing to convince us its products really aren't the defective pieces of junk, and HP hides behind a telephone system designed to discourage its customers from even complaining at all. There, I said it. I feel better. Let the lawsuits begin. I'm pretty sure I have the law on my side.