I got busted the other day. I logged on my blog and noticed something was different. The garage sale picture I used had a green background all of a sudden. I thought this was odd because I just linked to it from another site, but then I looked more closely. Turns out, the picture also had a message just for me.

I'm a lazy blogger. I'm stealing bandwidth from bestbuffalohomes.com.

It was a shock to get called out like that. I really hadn't thought I was doing anything wrong, let alone stealing. But I took the link to the picture out of the post just to make sure.

The incident has made me question my policy of borrowing pictures from other sites. The only reason I do it is to spice up my pages, and if I learned anything from my newspaper design experience, it's the difference a good picture can make. But it has also made me wonder about the nature of ownership on the Internet, and what rules there ought to be.

The funniest thing to me about the rebuke wasn't that I was stealing the picture. I'm sure it was just a stock photo anyway that I could have downloaded for free if I had taken the time. (That's probably why he called me "lazy".)

The most precious commodity on the Internet might be bandwidth. This probably isn't a great analogy because I'm not much of a network administrator, but bandwidth refers to the size of the pipe you have chosen to control the flow of information in and out of your site. Most of us don't have to worry about it. We can make due with whatever little pipe our hosting provider gives us. My Bluehost site even advertises unlimited bandwidth, although I hear the admins ask you to upgrade when you start getting thousands of hits a day.

But larger organizations need more dataflow and, to extend the metaphor to its most absurd level, they zealously guard their pipes from encroaching roots or clogs. I guess that makes me a big wad of toilet paper then.

Honestly, most of the time, someone is not going to mind if you link to a picture or post on another blog. A lot of times it will drive some traffic to the site. But the lesson I gleaned from this, and something I'm going to do better, is askfor permission first. It's really the neighborly thing to do, even on the Internet where you'll probably never see your neighbor face-to-face. So thanks for the lesson, Best Buffalo Homes, and here's to keeping your bandwidth flowing!

I'm not sure if I can get IRB approval for this on short notice, but I'm thinking of running a little local experiment here Saturday. I've advertised my garage sale in the local newspaper (The Columbia Daily Tribune) and on Craigslist and a local Yahoo! groups - KwikSwapColumbiaMO. I'm going to hand everyone that visits a short survey that asks them where they learned about the sale. Then I connect their choice with how much they spent and keep track of it all. By comparing the groups (Newspaper, Craigslist, KwikSwap, and other) I will statistically suggest which method will predict sales. I'm a genius! I wonder if I can add this to my dissertation proposal.

Ok, I'm kidding of course (although the more I read this over, the more it sounds like a good idea. What a geek I've become!) But I think I will try to ask some people casually because I'm curious about which method will attract the most people. If I were really bold, I wouldn't have bothered with the Tribune at all and just counted on the Internet to drive traffic, but I'm a wimp and I still have a fair share of ink in my veins. However, my hypothesis is that the Web sites will account for more visitors than the newspaper. At least that's what I've heard anecdotally.

It makes sense too because Craiglist has really eaten newspaper's lunch in the classified business. The Yahoo! group theoretically gives me a captive and motivated audience because you have to join the group to see the listings. I don't think this is possible without the Web. Plus the Internet offers a wealth of other features that a newspaper doesn't such as an easy way to create a map to all sales. If I were really ambitious I could have even linked items in my description to images and reviews.

But I didn't because all I really care about is getting rid of stuff so we don't have to move it, and I think I have some things people can use. I can't help asking the questions and wondering if this is one of those moments when I need to test some of my wacky Internet ideas.

Now to be fair, the Tribune did give me a free Garage Sale Starter Kit with a couple of signs and some pricing stickers, I think. I don't remember and I don't really care. Who needs low tech signs when I can draw on the power of the 'Net to offload my stuff?

It seems an odd thing for one of the grand old ladies of journalism to do, but I'm glad the Washington Post isn't taking itself quite so seriously all the time. And even though the contest itself is decidedly low-tech, I think it serves as an example of how to reach out to your audience and involve them in the Internet age.

For the third year in a row, the Washington Post has sponsored a Peeps diorama contest. I nearly missed the class I had to teach today because I got lost in all the entries. I'm was surprised and impressed at the level of detail in many of the displays, and I marveled at the creativity. I was also heartened that so many of the entries had news themes. It says a lot for Washington Post readers, and it demonstrates that people are not just reading the news. They are digesting it and incorporating it into their lives.

I wish I could feature individual dioramas here, but I can't because the Post has put them all in one Flash file. But take a minute and scroll through to find an interview with Michael Peeps, I mean Phelps. It's a nice contrast of his glory and disgrace. There are also much more newsworthy entries, such as this one of green bunnies waterboarding pink bunnies at Peeptanamo Bay or any of the several dramatic depictions of the historic inauguration, one that recreates Aretha Franklin's hat in explicit detail.

I'm sure people scoffed at the original idea. I'm sure some are still saying this isn't something the Post should be involved in. But I like it, and I think all newspapers, especially national and regional ones, need to reach out to their readers more.

So is anyone planning a trip to Thailand any time soon? If so, I can hook you up with about 13,000 baht . It's the proceeds from another ebay selling experience gone wrong, and I'll tell the story here because it fits within the blog's theme. I guess I just assumed I could overcome all barriers online.

When my MacBook died, I decided to see what I could get for it. The monitor worked great, and the keyboard wasn't missing any keys. I found a good market online, and two bidders got into a bidding war. In the end, it sold for more than I hoped, but there was one catch. The winning bidder was in Thailand.

In my listing I said no international shipping, but ebay didn't stop him from bidding, and I couldn't find any way to legally welch. He also agreed to pay international shipping, and frankly, helepd me make a little bit more money.

The problem was the language barrier. I e-mailed him with directions on how to pay. He e-mailed me back with nonsense. Finally, I understood from his messages he was going to use PaysBuy , the Thai equivalent of PayPal. PayPal's a great service, even if they charge a little too much, so I assumed PaysBuy would be the same, and for the most part, it is. I can use it to buy all kinds of great merchandise. I just can't transfer the money there to my American account.

Frankly, that's my fault. I just assumed too much about how easy it was to transfer money in this digital age. I made the ugly American assumption that everyone online speaks English.

So as great as the Internet is, and how closely it can bring us together, it's not a magic bullet. We still need to complete some transactions face to face, and that's how it always will and should be.

So I think I'm going to buy an overpriced iPod and pay too much to have it shipped to me from Thailand, and in the end, I think I'll finish ahead. I'll trade a broken Macbook for an overpriced iPod any day. I just could have used the cash to fix my deck.

UPDATE (4/14/09): Getting Thai merchants to ship to the States is a bit harder than I thought. Looks like I'm going to be buying a lot of Thai books and music because that's all they'll ship. D'oh!

It was a throw-away line at the end of another sappy Rick Reilly column.

And in a what-should-I-Twitter-about-myself-now? world, why would a young guy be so selfless? "Well, I know what it's like when your parents divorce. It can be hard. Moving. Splitting up from their dad. I wanted to make sure nothing happened to the kids."

But it really got me thinking about Twitter and how I plan to use it. Is tweeting all just self-promotion?

Well, you can be cyncial and site the recent exchanges between Shaquille O'Neal and Mark Cuban that have led to rampart speculation the Mavs will sign or trade for the aging superstar in the off-season as pure narcissism.

Or, and I'll admit here's the part that took some research, you can pull up the Huffington Post's list of the "Best Green Twitter Feeds" as an example of people letting their fingers do the walkign to give back. I'm sure there are lots of others.

But in the end, I think you have to recognize Twitter for what it is. It's a tool - nothing more, nothing less. If you don't want Twitter to be about ego-inflation, then stop making such a big deal of the celebrities who tweet. Add a Tweetfeed of your own that inspires people to do good.

That's what I hope to do. It's hard to let my account die after my class is over, especially now that I have more than 150 followers. A couple of them aren't even students in the class. They are friends and co-workers and even a couple people I respect in the industry.

While my reasons for keeping the account may be self-serving, the ways in which I use it don't have to be.