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CloudCanvas, the free online cloud-based image creation and image editing suite has gone live, another success from the start up incubator Founder Institute. CloudCanvas mixes Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator into an easy-to-use web based app. As it has chosen to go down the HTML5 path, no plugins are necessary – just an internet connection.

CloudCanvas makes it easy for novices and other interested amateurs to get into digital art but expert designers will also feel comfortable with some advanced tools being offered as well as vector and bitmap support.

Handily, CloudCanvas is integrated with Google Image search as well as having access to the wonderfully creative DeviantArt libraries so it’s easy to import images. There’s also a well-stocked clipart and template library containing over 30,000 images and 500 fonts, all ready to go.

By choosing the new HTML5 web standard, CloudCanvas runs on a whole lot of devices including the iPad. Images can be edited on the move and on the desktop seamlessly over the cloud.

CloudCanvas is currently free and looking to attract a large user base but once a critical mass is reached, chargeable premium features will be introduced such as the ability to purchase stock photography and the ability to purchase more fonts.

CloudCanvas is a bit late to the online picture editing party – piknik, Avery and even the industry leaders Adobe have released so it’s got a lot of ground to cover but so far signs are positive for the newcomer.

Behance, a networking platform for creative professionals, has announced a collaboration with LinkedIn and now allows users to connect their portfolios with their LinkedIn profile. The new app called Created Portfolio Display bridges the two disparate worlds leveraging the creative with the more professional sphere.

Since its creation, Behance has aimed to try and organise the creative world and let designers showcase their creations with online projects and portfolios. These allow a much greater exposure for members of the Behance network and as it’s a free service, the user base has grown substantially. Now, with the LinkedIn tie up, that exposure and resulting opportunities can only expand exponentially.

The Creative Portfolio Display LinkedIn app allows users to sync their portfolios with LinkedIn while choosing what to display, it goes without saying that the interface is beautifully designed. This allows business types to make inroads and really experience the range of creative design available from a wider pool of talent. It also gives a chance for the smaller and independent designer to pitch to the big hitters and brings  “A creative meritocracy to the design world” to quote Behance CEO Scott Belsky.

This new app and it’s collaboration is another feather in the bow of the Behance empire and it should ensure that Behance gets pushed into the mainstream offices of businesses around the globe.

Facebook has been adding various integrating features linking the platform – Facebook – with any number of external applications, all for fun of course. There is no reason why the same can’t happen on the LinkedIn platform, for professional purposes, and Behance shows what can be done.

Image via Business Insider

A lot has been buzzing around regarding the contract that New York resident Paul Ceglia produced claiming an 84% ownership stake in Facebook, allegedly signed when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a Freshman in college.  Two things need to be understood about this contract and what it could or couldn’t mean.

First of all, any contract is open to interpretation.  What seems clear and to the point to one person is generally vague enough that another (i.e. a lawyer) can make it say something different.  This is why contracts are often extremely complex and full of small print.  The contract in question here is only two pages long.

As it’s written, it’s a basic “work for hire” contract which many freelancers and businesses who hire contractors have probably seen or used before.  It boils down to Zuckerberg agreeing to give up 50% of a brainchild software called “The Face Book” in return for $1,000 in seed money from Ceglia.  This is an interesting sum of money, since Ceglia paid Zuckerberg the same amount to write a one-off piece of software for his own website at about this same time.

If the contract is valid as-is, then Ceglia is entitled to at least half of Facebook’s current value (in stock).  That, of course, assumes that the contract is valid, that there hasn’t been a statute of limitations passed in the State of New York, and that the wording is such that a judge would agree to arguments that it means half or more of the social networking site.  There’s the rub, since it’s possible that the valuation could be moved backwards in time to either when Facebook first went public or when it received it’s first influx of venture capital.

The real problem here is timing.  As Gawker points out, the timing of the whole thing seriously undermines Ceglia’s claim that “The Face Book” was conceived between himself and Zuckerberg.  Every webrepreneur knows that the first step in starting an online project is to find the right domain name.  If these two planned to make “The Face Book,” it would seem obvious that they would immediately register “Facebook.com” or “TheFaceBook.com” or some variant.  That didn’t have until almost a year later.

Finally, it’s pretty obvious that someone who had a contract with Zuckerberg for something else would have access to his signature and other details and could easily create a forged document to claim ownership of another property.  Especially given that at the time that this contract was supposedly signed, Zuckerberg was working on “FaceMash,” the fledgling idea for Facebook and the name that would be much more likely to be believable were it on Ceglia’s contract.

In the end, the courts or a team of lawyers and experts will decide whether Ceglia has a claim.  From all indications so far, he doesn’t.  What is really exacerbating the whole issue is the fact that, thus far, Facebook and Zuckerberg’s responses to this have been vague.

A WordPress host called Blogetery.com has been closed down by the Department of Homeland Security, taking down 73,000 blogs with it.  The host is only saying that “it’s serious,” but little else.  The DHS hasn’t said anything either and the speculation around the ‘Net is heavy.

The biggest problem is that it seems awful fishy that so many sites (the entire Blogetery.com network, hosted by a company called BursNet).  BursNet isn’t saying why or even who is behind it, though they did say it was a “law enforcement agency.”  The official notice, sent via email, read:

“This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials.  We had to immediately remove the server.”

Because the DHS and other government agencies are stepping up anti-piracy operations and the shutdown was due to copyright violations (on some sites, not necessarily all of the Blogetery sites), according to TorrentFreak who broke the story, the Web at large is viewing the shutdown as suspect.  The site wasn’t mentioned in an official Homeland Security briefing on the issue of piracy, but the mention of “thousands of websites have been closed down” is widely seen as referring to Blogetery’s blogs.  However, the involvement of Homeland Security and the lack of warning for the shutdown seems to say that this isn’t just another anti-piracy move.

Because non-piracy enforcement could conceivably fall under statues such as the USA PATRIOT Act, it could be that nobody involved is talking because they were served with hush warrants, prohibiting them from giving details.  Normally, piracy-related issues are handled by civil courts and take months to happen, not hours.  So if piracy were the case, it wouldn’t be a governmental issue, it would be a court issue.

Further, because an official statement from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said Sunday that the closing of Blogetery was not due to their involvement or request, it’s likely that this is a government-only action.  Which brings up more questions.

On a discussion board, BursNet made a final statement on the subject, saying:

“Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot…”

Another web forum host, IPBFree, was also closed down and at the same time.  This raises another interesting idea, given the free-form openness of IPBFree: could the issue be national security-related?

With the FBI rumored to be hunting for the founder of Wikileaks over a supposed 250,000 sensitive document leak (Wikileaks denies they have received anything like that) and with the types of political discussions that took place on IPBFree and the fact that both hosts (IPBFree and Blogetery) were free-to-use sites with wordwide access, it’s possible more was going on than just “file sharing” as the buzz seems to think.

Eventually, someone will come out with the full story.  Until then, it’s all speculation.  The suddenness of the shut downs, the hush-hush secrecy surrounding it, and the lack of information has certainly bred a lot of questions with few answers.

Fans of Reddit, the social news website, say that traffic volumes of the site have been unfairly reported at low numbers. The likes of Compete, Nielsen and Quantcast have been reporting that Reddit on average receive less than 1 million unique visitors a month. Reddit says otherwise. According to a Google Analytics screenshot the site actually enjoys over 8 million unique visitors a month.

Clearly Google Analytics will give more accurate statistics than outside analysts, but nobody is sure why there is such a big difference. Unfortunately for Reddit, advertisers choose to look at the analytics from the aforementioned companies, and as such advertising revenue for the site is less than it deserves to be.

Reddit has seen tough times. The website has been relying on its fans to find a way to keep the site going, pleading for financial assistance from its users. This decision has actually proven to be a success, following suggestions that the site has decided to switch to a ‘freemium’ business model. Users hope that this will provide enough revenue for the site to continue operating.

Of note is that Reddit says its traffic is still growing, with a vibrant community as active as it has ever been. The fact that the company could leverage the loyalty of its fans to raise money is also a good sign. But Reddit will need to rely on future innovation and will need to find a way to prove that a social media site where users themselves curate and create most of the content has a financial future.

Despite the firestorm over changes Facebook made to its privacy features, very few Facebook users have voted with their feet. This is what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says and, by measure of Quit Facebook Day, he’s right.

In a backlash against Facebook’s cavalier approach to user privacy, two technologists from Toronto set up an online petition, declaring May the 31st as “Quit Facebook Day”. A grand total of 34,000 Facebook users deleted their accounts which is not even a drop in an ocean of 500 million users.

Even so, the organizers Joseph Dee and Matthew Milan shared the sentiment of millions of Facebook users who became frustrated with the way in which the social platform has been changing its privacy policy. The detailed and granular privacy controls Facebook implemented have become far too complex and, unless well understood, left most users sharing far more information than they were aware of.

Zuckerberg acknowledged user’s frustrations and last week announced a new set of controls that feature a dramatically simpler way of limiting publicly available information. These changes went a long way to satisfy concerned users and privacy groups. The problem is, as Zuckerberg says, that it is difficult to create a platform which is both social yet at the same time protect people’s privacy to the fullest extent.

Facebook is not only facing its users: there are on-going government concerns that officials have expressed about the site’s privacy practices. In fact Zuckerberg has received a letter from the House Judiciary Committee asking him to explain in detail every way in which Facebook has been sharing its user’s information with third parties without them knowing about it.