In unrelated stories, we hear that YouTube and roll-your-own social network site Ning will be imposing restrictions the type of content that can be uploaded by users.

YouTube will now apply a stricter standard for mature content on its most popular pages, and algorithmically demote sexually explicit or graphic videos from its ‘most viewed,’ ‘top favorited,’ and other popular pages. To prevent misleading images, video thumbnails will also be selected  algorithmically. Meanwhile Ning will discontinue its Red Light District as of 1 January 2009.

Ning CE Gina Bianchini explains the reasons behind this decision, which roughly amount to the fact that adult networks are simply more trouble than they’re worth: “We’re not discontinuing the Red Light District because we no longer believe in the freedom to create your own social network for anything as long as it’s legal. We do. Practically though, supporting adult networks no longer makes sense.”

Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch writes: “The advertisers Ning (and YouTube) are trying to lure, just don’t like being associated with that type of content. I guess, it’s like the broken car windows theory—small infractions lay the groundwork for bigger problems. Perhaps YouTube is thinking along the same lines.”

Most of the comments on the YouTube post are negative; YouTube user bobbyllew comments: “I dearly hope someone in a decision making position reads these comments. I have yet to find one which supports this move. This is very depressing news. As a worker in the ‘old media’ TV industry, this is just the sort of logic that is imposed from outside, it is pandering to people who want to control what we think, by controlling what we watch. It is without doubt a very bad move and clearly one that has been imposed on You Tube from outside. I heartily endorse You Tube’s policy of removing pornographic and overtly sexual videos, there’s plenty of other places for those, but people such as myself who occasionally use strong language to emphasise an important point should not be penalised for doing so. I beg you to reconsider this most drastic action.”

Digital data mining meets Twitter
Über tech PR blogger Stephen Waddington points to a helpful new tool to aid buzz monitoring, that thing that brand owners love doing in social networks and digital communities, to track the myriad conversations around brands, products, services, et al. Twilert borrows the now familiar Google Alerts model and delivers reports by email around search terms pre-defined by the user.

Having trialled the service for 24 hours, @Wadds has made some really neat discoveries: “For example by creating targeted alerts I’ve generated databases of Twitter users that are interested geocaching, Northumberland, tech PR and are seeking a PR agency. I know they’re motivated because they are having discussions about these topics with their Twitter network.

“Next I could invite these individuals to join a special interest community built around a related proposition or I could attempt to engage with them directly via Twitter. It’s very simple and quick to do, yet the potential is incredibly powerful.”

What Pownce’s demise can teach us
Stan Schroeder at Mashable has advice for social technology entrepreneurs in the wake of Pownce’s demise. He writes: “I’ve been following Pownce from day one, I’ve actually used it more than Twitter, and I’ve been bullish on the service because I thought it offered a compelling feature set when compared to other services in the space. I was wrong.”

The old adage of less being more aided Twitter, despite the fact that Pownce offered features which most Twitter users would love to see, Schroeder says. “Twitter devs may be slow when it comes to adding new features, but they’re slow on purpose, because they understand that Twitter is good, for the most part, as it is.

“The main lesson is probably this: if you’re not first to the game, but perhaps second or third, you need to do your research very thoroughly; sometimes being bigger, better and faster than the competitors simply won’t do.”