I normally absorb dozens of articles, blogs, and videos each week as part of keeping current on Social Media. And since this is a heavy travel time of year for me, I’m stockpiling a few to pass airplane-time on my iPhone, and web-clipping others to consume later when I have an internet connection in my hotel.

I thought I’d share a few of these this week:

• TED2010 recently wrapped up, and among the many entertaining and thought-provoking gems from every TED conference, I watched this talk from UK Conservative MP David Cameron on the Next Age of Government.  I’m not a political watcher by any means, but it may be worth your while to check out his answer to the question “How do we make things better without spending more money?”  The answer, of course, lies in the people-based technology we use today for the rapid dissemination of information.  *ahem* Social Media.  My take:  nice to see at least one politician thinking about spending less money, enabling transparency & accountability through more information, and  thinking we need to measure more than just GDP to assess community well-being (can anyone say Social Media Balanced Scorecard?)
• You can’t have a week go by without the the largest internet playah on the planet causing a stir, and last week was no different.  Google announced Buzz, a real-time lifestream integrated with Gmail, that some have called a Facebook/Twitter killer.  Mashable editor Pete Cashmore provides his early views on CNN, and also, Mashable reports on the backlash that is taking shape in a class-action lawsuit against breach of privacy.  There is also a privacy review here in Canada.  My take:  if you think Buzz is a breach of privacy, you probably don’t want to know how much Google already knows about you.
• The Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) released the “Guide To Disclosure In Social Media Marketing” this week.  December 2009 was the effective date of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.  WOMMA decided to create complimentary Social Media Marketing guidelines.  My take:  too cumbersome, which means, you’ll never get unscrupulous marketers to comply.
• Vator TV hosted an interesting interview from an internet analyst at CitiBank, Mark Mahaney.  Mark predicts that cash-rich notables will be looking to acquire smaller companies in the smart-phone, ecommerce, mobile advertising, and location-based services spaces.  My take:  could not agree more.  Mobile anything will be huge this year.  If you are an Atlantic Canadian business in mobile, this will be your break-out year.
• There are frequent company-bashing stories coming out of the social media space, but if you’re a teacher, you may want to read this story about a student who set up a Facebook page called “Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I’ve ever met!“   and encouraged people to post what they didn’t like about this educator.  The ‘Ferris Bueller‘ of Facebook was reprimanded and suspended.  She subsequently sued the school and the judge decided the school had over-reacted since “essentially the school was trying to control the student’s actions”, i.e.: chatting on a social network, outside of school hours  “when it was none of their business.”  My take:  sticks and stones may break my bones, but Facebook will never hurt me.