interview In the year since Imgur was founded by Ohio University undergrad Alan Schaaf on a shoestring, the minimalist image hosting site has sprouted into a hotbed of online culture (i.e. funny, anonymously posted pictures), with a dominant presence on social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg and almost 20 million pageviews served this past month. This weekend, Schaaf announced -- on Reddit, appropriately enough -- that Imgur had added individual user accounts and paid pro accounts, though it's still keeping in place its speedy process for anonymous submissions. The site is still quite a ways from becoming a Flickr or a Photobucket, but is that the direction it's headed? Unlikely. Recently, Mediaite swapped emails with Schaaf about the rise of Imgur, the impact that personal accounts will have on the site and its vibe, and -- yes -- his plans when he graduates from college in June: (more...)

Rex Sorgatz is Mediaite's site designer and an occasional columnist. This list originally appeared at Fimoculous.com. #main .slice .posts .d { border-top:1px dotted #CCCCCC; margin:0px; padding-top:10px; clear: both; } #main .slice .posts .post0 .i { float:left; border:2px solid #275f7d !important;; margin: 5px 5px 5px -7px; } #main .slice .posts .p { margin-top:0; margin-left: 70px; } While compiling this list, I asked a few people a dumb question: What was the biggest online event of the year?

Random answers included Oprah joining Twitter, Michael Jackson's death breaking on TMZ, and Susan Boyle coming and going. Someone even tried to argue that a writer who detailed his firing from The New Yorker on Twitter was momentous. Sigh.

Today's Gawker Media redesign unveils a new feature that attempts to optimize the loyalty of the network's already robust fan base. Gawker Open Forums now exists on all of the group's nine blogs, integrating social networking, crowdsourcing and standard discussion forums, leaving each blog as not only a conversation starter, but a channel where news can be broken, shared and commented on by readers, all in one place. (more...)

The viral posters that compared Obama to the Joker and to Hitler feel tame compared to the latest nasty meme to hit the Internet: insinuating that Glenn Beck raped and killed a young girl in 1990. And the meme may not go away anytime soon: preliminary evidence suggests that Anonymous, the powerful, collective behind such massive, coordinated stunts as attacking the Church of Scientology and flooding YouTube with porn, may be behind it. Update #3, 4:30pm: "Glenn Beck murder" and "Glenn Beck rapist" are now top suggestions when you do a Google search for Glenn Beck. (more...)