The sensational trial of Casey Anthony, the mother accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, has become the biggest media courtroom circus since O.J. It's also proving to be the most brand-laden trial since O.J. Simpson modeled gloves.Continue reading...

Food for thought on two high-profile cases with online behavior at the heart of them: As New York Congressman Anthony Weiner watches his political career go down in flames, following the release of an even cruder picture that he admitted today he tweeted, his naivete about social media is a "tweet road to oblivion," as Washington Post op-ed writer E.J. Dionne Jr. puts it.

In an entirely different drama grabbing America'a (and the world's) attention, the trial of Casey Anthony — the young woman accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee — is rife with evidence from online activities: Photobucket uploads, Facebook posts, MySpace images, and (today's focus) cached web searches for incriminating terms (84 searches just on "chloroform") on Wikipedia and Google, plus text messages and cellphone pings tracing her whereabouts.Continue reading...

The fallout over whether or not Congressman Anthony Weiner did or did not tweet a photo of his personal "member of Congress" (Weiner says his Twitter account was hacked; follow the flap on Twitter at #weinergate) could spell the end for one social media brand.

"Just had the FBI show up at my apartment, my first thought was: "She said she was 18"...turns out they weren't here for that" tweeted Noah Everett, the founder of Twitpic, this afternoon as the scandal was escalating. He may have been was half-joking but the challenges facing his social media startup are deadly serious.

(Editor's note: Everett was indeed joking about the 18-year-old, as we surmised, and confirmed to us — see below — that he did receive a visit from the FBI. he also corrected us that the lewd picture tweeted from Weiner's Twitter account was hosted on yfrog, not Twitpic, for which we apologize. NPR's headline got it wrong, and so did we.)

Twitpic, the service that piggybacks on Twitter allowing users to link photos to tweets, is already reeling from bad publicity. After the brand announced a licensing deal with WENN.com which would allow the celebrity gossip service to license its images, several celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres said they would abandon the service.Continue reading...