Do problems with Wikipedia presage social networking’s end?
Paul Murphy questions the real-world implementation of “democracy” in social media. “Wikipedia is supposed to be the on-line encyclopedia for everyone, but what it has become is something entirely different: an early and illustrative warning of the collapse from informed social networking to propaganda.”

Ori Brafman’s Introduction to Sway
The author of Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior writes a guest post on Mashable about psychology as it relates to social media. “It all started with a conversation I had with an OB/GYN about social networks. We were talking about how when you take away centralized control, you have to rely on emotional relationships. Then, off the cuff, I said, ‘I’m sure it’s different in medicine, where people relate to each other on a much more rational level.’”

Whedon’s ‘Dr. Horrible’ Triggers Downed Server Epidemic
Renay San Miguel of TechNewsWorld gives us another example of the viral power of blogs and its influence on pop culture. “[Joss] Whedon, using his own money, called up some actor friends — including “How I Met Your Mother’s” Neil Patrick Harris — and shot on unused Universal Studios lots. The result is “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” and all the hype generated within the blogosphere reportedly crashed servers for the show’s Web site after the first episode was made available for viewing Tuesday. Hulu reportedly also crashed after featuring the show.”

Do Startup Companies Need Community Managers?
ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick asks a vital question businesses must face to cope with an ever social Internet landscape. “Community Manager is a position being hired for at a good number of large corporations but what about smaller companies? We asked a number of people what they thought and the following discussion offers some great things to think about, pro and con.”

Interview: IT consumerization and the future of higher ed
John Stokes talks to Oren Sreebny, director of emerging technology for the central IT and networking unit at the University of Washington, about technology trends, including how law affects Web 2.0. “I asked Oren about the possibility of using software-as-a-service (SaaS) and virtualization to sandbox sensitive and business data from personal data, but as it turns out, it’s not as simple as just forcing different kinds of data to live in different places. While the feds might have rules about where some data is physically located, what’s even more important from both a policy and a legal perspective is when, where, and how you access that data, no matter where it’s stored.”

Community Platform Pricing for New Clients
In his blog, Jeremiah Owyang attempts to help businesses assess the costs of social networking endeavors. “I’ve found that for new programs (like social media) these are often experimental ‘new media’ budgets and although these products and services tend to be inexpensive, there are still some pricing considerations you must be prepared for.”

Alpha: When Beta is not good enough
Over at Mashable, Rob Diana airs his dissatisfaction with the perpetual beta development model. “The public beta is one of the more annoying terms on the internet right now. I say this as a software developer understanding that companies and developers are releasing software that is most likely very buggy.”