Here’s 12 minutes of me talking about sports and race, along with a veiled shot at Twitter tossed in just for fun.

I remember standing stationary in the busy hallways at SXSW/i ’06, mesmerized by the Twitter chatter plastered on Plasmas all over the Convention Center.  The overwhelming buzz and seemingly overnight new media darling status has quickly changed that mystical chatter into annoying noise.  What kind of noise?  Well, as I write this, the top trending item on Twitter is “RIP Kanye West“.  Now I’m sure it’s very possible that The Louis Vuitton Don has passed, but Jeff Goldblum and I are skeptical.

What does this “noise” have to with Facebook?   Nothing.  Other than its raging case of Twitter-envy.

The original Facebook News Feed worked as a curator.  It knew that you didn’t want to search through each and every one of your friends’ profiles to figure out the big news of the day.  Just like working through my email inbox, I could read through all of the Facebook-supplied, juicy tidbits until I got to one I had already read, and then cross “checking Facebook” off my mental to-do list.  “I’m done,” I would think.  “I’m caught up. I’m in the know.”

But like the Facebook fiend that I am, it wouldn’t take long for fear to creep in.  “Hm…it’s been a little while since I’ve been on Facebook,” would lead to, “I wonder if there’s anything new going on,”  which would ultimately turn into a panicked, “Crap, I hope I’m not missing anything!”, and right back to facebook.com I would go.

But as Facebook started to feel the unwarranted heat from Twitter, the News Feed suddenly changed from a curated summary into a real-time, unfiltered activity stream.  Going even more Single White Female, Facebook organized a username land-grab, and even implemented their own version of @ replies.

Now this isn’t a problem when you’re just starting out on Facebook, but as the average social graph size continues to grow, it becomes impossible to read through absolutely everything.  Shouldn’t a friend getting engaged be given more prominence than Liz sending Eric a horse topiary?  With zero possibility of processing every bit of the unfiltered minutiae of my friends’ activities, there’s no fear of missing something, because you’re always missing something. Without that fear, checking Facebook slips a notch from being a must-do, to being a fun-to-do.

And that’s what the new Facebook homepage design hopes to fix.  Leaked earlier this week by a brand advertiser being pitched to by Facebook, it seems that they’re bringing story curation back to the forefront.

“Facebook is simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams. Now, when users log on to Facebook for the first time in a while, they will see the most important stories that they missed while they were away. From there, users can navigate to the real-time stream and toggle between both views throughout their sessions. In addition to making it easier for users to view content that is most relevant to them, this change also speeds up the time it takes for the home page to load and makes birthday reminders more prominent.

Ultimately, Facebook believes these changes will increase engagement on the home page by surfacing more relevant stories to users.”

The emphasis added was mine, and it can’t be stressed enough.  Facebook is turning off the firehose stream of data, and returning to the role of uber-connected friend that knows all the best and most juicy gossip. If you don’t stay in touch, you’re going to miss something.

Facebook is bringing the “fear” back. And that should scare all of its competitors.

If you’re an Idea City employee, come on over to the Theater at 2p.

I’ll have candy.

For a brief moment this morning, Facebook and Twitter were both down. I quickly crafted a few succinct, snarky sentences before realizing I had nowhere to post it.

While Facebook seems to be back up and humming again, Twitter has confirmed that the site was forced down, and is being kept down, by an ongoing Denial-Of-Service (DDoS) attack. What’s a DDoS? Imagine 10,000 people descending on your local grocery store, not looking to buy anything, but just stroll up and down the aisles. Everything gets congested, and no one accomplishes anything.

Well, no one except for the people orchestrating the attack. Regardless of your feelings on Twitter the medium, there’s no denying its full-blown media darling status, or the huge bulls-eye that status places on its back. And Twitter’s (surprising) single network provider architecture certainly doesn’t help.

So what does this outage mean for users? Well, a lot and a little. We’ve all seen the stats on low retention rates for users that don’t dive into the conversation quickly–there are a lot of nascent n00bs that I’m sure will completely drop off because of this.

But then again, Australia and much of Japan will sleep right through it. The early-adopting Twitterati will probably enjoy the nostalgia of the Fail Whale. Heck, I’ve read reports of people taking strolls around the block to kill time while it’s down. What crazy times we live in!

So what does this mean for your brand? Well, a lot and a little. Companies like StockTwits and Bit.ly get smothered while sucking on the Fail Whale’s teat. Symbiotic relationships are great as long as there are multiple sea anemones for your Clownfish. No brand should place all of their customer service, marketing, or customer acquisition eggs in the basket of a pre-revenue startup still trying to find its way.

But then again, that’s not a news flash, because you knew that already. Right? Right?

And that’s saying a lot.

Soak up the idiocy of Mark Pfeifle, kids, a former Deputy National Security Advisor to George W. Bush. More on this story over at TechCrunch.

I should be in bed.

But I have one statement and one question.

I’ll make it quick.

Tech Marketing Folk: Stop using the word algorithm when all you mean is a really big If statement. I know you’re exaggerating. You know you’re exaggerating. Stop it. Now.

Twitterati: If the despicable Ahmadinejad had been robbed of an election and was using social networking to organize his supporters, would there be as much of an outpouring of support? Would people be changing their profile pictures to green ribbons? Would Twitter be pushing back scheduled maintenance? I doubt it.

A cable company having trouble isn’t normally news, but when that one provider dominates an entire state it’s a big deal. Tweets started trickling in 50 minutes ago, and now they’re starting to flow in.

If you provide a service that people find mission-critical, having an external site (hosted by a different hosting company!) that monitors status is mandatory. Whether it’s a site like status.oceanic.com, or just a freakin’ Twitter account. If you wait for a crisis to establish the line of communication, it’s already too late because no one will no where to find it.

Merry Christmas, Hawaiian Telecom’s advertising agency—you just had a new campaign dropped in your lap.

I yelled out loud when I read the headline to this story. It couldn’t be true. No chance. No one could that be warped, could they?

The COO of Revision3, the “Internet” “television” “network” best known for Diggnation, had his Bay Area apartment broken into last night. His actions? Epic FAIL.

It’s a scary thought, waking to a stranger stumbling around your place. I’d like to think I’d be calm about it. Call the cops. Don’t stop to grab anything. Shimmy out the window. I can’t say I’d be Sully cool, but I think I’d be able to handle it. One thing I know I wouldn’t do? Pull out my iPhone. And fire up freakin’ Twitter. And post 14 Tweets. And set up a web cam. And drag the guy into my bed. And question him on camera. And broadcast it on the Internet. Okay, that’s 7 things I wouldn’t do.

I’ve been running my startup for almost three years now and laugh at anyone that suggests I’d fare better in Silicon Valley. The tech community is crippled by cultural and conceptual homogeneity, and Silicon Valley is it’s Hajj. Sure, surrounding yourself with entrepreneurs will boost your support system, but it’ll also kill your ability to identify the Web 2.0 echo chamber that’s sitting on your face.

If your life is in danger and your first thought is Twitter, you’re not doing it right. And by “not doing it right”, I mean you’re an idiot.

Juxtaposing the shooting sprees in Germany and Alabama in the past 24 hours involving completely innocent people with this flunky concerned more about the “show” than his safety just enhances the incomprehensible FAIL.