Ivor Tossell has been writing columns about online culture for The Globe and Mail since 2005. A reformed web programmer, his writing on urban affairs, technology and culture has appeared in Canadian publications ranging from very glossy to downright inky. He lives in Toronto.
Twitter hands your data to the highest bidder, but not to you
Data mining services are now able to access to your timeline in ways that you'll never be able to afford
Drawing conclusions from a social gaming fad
Don’t weep for Zynga. The FarmVille creators should’ve known better than to bet the barn on Draw Something.
Digital killed the video store, what will replace it?
The problem is that the idea of ‘rental’ doesn’t translate well to the digital world
How Angry Birds became a cultural touchstone
The touch-screen game not only counts NASA among its promotional partners – it’s redefined the whole platform
Is this about Joseph Kony, or online activism?
A slick online campaign by an organization called Invisible Children starts with a nasty Ugandan warlord, but perhaps he’s just a springboard for a broader agenda
Have your cake, but don’t tweet it, too
Discretion about what to put online goes out the window when people start posting pictures of their meals
Toews’s 'child pornographers' gaffe aside, Bill C-30 has real dangers
So-called lawful access provisions would make it easier to unmask people using pseudonyms, require ISPs to enable permanent, warrantless wiretapping
Want to join Pinterest? You’d better like rainbow socks
Newish social network shares images with strong links to shopping; claims that it’s 60 per cent female may be low-balling it
Who are you really following on Twitter?
The ad-hoc system of authenticating only some accounts – and in the case of the Wendi Deng debacle, getting it wrong – stands to do more harm than good
Stuff ‘Girls Say’ meme airs our culture’s hilarious grievances
Comedy videos evolved into an all-purpose template for dissecting the way group A talks to group B
