I just got a heads up on an Advertising Age story that Wal-Mart is trying to be MySpace (and, yeah, I aped their headline, too).

Here’s the lead:

It’s a quasi-social-networking site for teens designed to allow them to “express their individuality,” yet it screens all content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. Oh, and it calls users “hubsters” — a twist on hipsters that proves just how painfully uncool it is to try to be cool.

Sure, nobody went broke underestimating American taste, but underestimating our children’s ability to spot a fake?

update: here’s some sharp criticism. I like it.

AdAge, fake, Hubsters, knock-off, MySpace, MySpace.com, The Hub, Wal-Mart

I don’t watch TV, so I haven’t seen many images of the flooding in New Orleans until I found these. Amazingly, The Times Picayune is publishing PDF editions during disaster. The hurricane and flood damage are truly scary, but the worst news is on page five, which tells of widespread looting:

Law enforcement efforts to contain the emergency left by Katrina slipped into chaos in parts of New Orleans Tuesday. [...]

At the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, an initial effort to hand out provisions to stranded citizens quickly disintegrated into mass looting. Authorities at the scene said bedlam erupted after the giveaway was announced over the radio.

[...]

Inside the store, the scene alternated between celebration and frightening bedlam. A shirtless man straddled a broken jewelry case, yelling, “Free samples, free samples over here.”

Another man rolled a mechanized pallet, stacked six feet high with cases of vodka and whiskey. Perched atop the stack was a bewildered toddler.

Then Tulane University’s Scott Cowen reports:

It is difficult to describe what this situation feels like for those involved. It is surreal and unfathomable; yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Our focus is on the light and not the darkness.

tags: disaster, flood, flood damage, gulf coast, hurricane, hurricane katrina, katrina, looters, looting, louisiana, new orleans, new orleans la, photo, times picayune, timespicayune, wal mart, wal-mart, walmart

At least that’s the only thing a person can conclude from the stories at Copyfight earlier this week. This post reports on two stories where the photo services concluded that the photos to be printed were too good to have come from an average customer. Upon trying to order prints of her child, one Ofoto user found the following:

Your order has been cancelled because it appears your order contains one of the following… 1. Professional images.

And Wal Mart told another mother:

We can’t release the pictures to you without a copyright release form signed by the photographer.

At least Ofoto gave the mother the opportunity to sign an affidavit warranting that she was the photographer or had permission from the copyright owner. Wal Mart wouldn’t even accept that.

So, like I noted in the headline: Professionals apparently don’t use Ofoto or Wal Mart. I wonder if they promote that as a selling point…

Seltzer’s post notes the new copyright warning that Canon is putting in their camera manuals and the trouble that the developers of the open-source Gallery image management software project found themselves in recently.

Technorati Tags: camera, canon, copyright, copyrights, gallery, legal, legal trouble, ofoto, photo, photo services, photofinishing, photograph, photography, professional images, unintended consequences, wal mart, wendy seltzer