>> China blocks YouTube again, MySpace gets instant messaging and you can now stalk potential dates on your iPhone with the new Match.com application. It's Tuesday, March 24, I'm Natali Del Conte and it's time to get Loaded.
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>> China has blocked YouTube -- again. On Monday a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry told reporters, "Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact it is just the opposite." Interesting, so why is YouTube down off and on all month? The spokesperson did not know, but this happened late last March over the fact that YouTube was hosting protests about Tibet. Suspicious indeed!
MySpace is catching up to Facebook with in-browser instant message. It means you can instant message your MySpace friends inside the client instead of with the desktop client or Meebo's MySpace messenger. It works a lot like Facebook chat. It's in the lower part of the browser, can be popped out and can be turned off. You can also IM MySpace users who are not your friends. I can't say I love that idea. This is in Beta testing for users in Canada, but it's supposed to launch for all English speaking countries in the next few weeks and then other regions in the following months.
Wow, people really hate the new Facebook. More than one million users have voted against the redesign, which just launched earlier this month. The vote on the new Facebook layout page has over 640,000 comments and 1.7 million people are part of the petition against the new Facebook group. What is the big deal people, it's just a social network. You can still do all the same things you could always do. Okay, so the calendar is a bit harder to find and there's a bit more noise with the Twitter-like feed, but really the backlash online is disproportional and are you really going to leave Facebook because of it? I don't think so.
In perhaps better Facebook news, Netflix has announced that it will integrate the Facebook connect platform. Netflix users will now have their movie ratings show up if they choose on their Facebook profiles. The company hopes that by having movie ratings on Facebook profile they'll be able to get more users to use the service more --