He's a Goofy Dancer, Not a Prophet of Peace

Burned-out video-game designer is now a web sensation

(NEWSER) - Fred Astaire he's not, but Matt Harding sure inspires the masses. The globetrotting former video-game designer, whose goofy dance set the Internet abuzz, is back at it. His latest video shows him dancing—OK, maybe flailing— with fans from Seattle to Fiji to Rwanda, and it's approaching 2 million hits on YouTube, Michelle Kung notes in the Wall Street Journal. More»

Meghan Daum: To be really popular, you have to be really unpopular

(NEWSER) - With Friday, 13-year-old Rebecca Black has a top 20 song on iTunes and a video that’s reached 35 million views—but what she’s most noted for is widespread derision. “We don't hate you because you're famous. You're famous because we hate you,” reads one of the printable tweets. But that’s what fame is in the age of the Internet, writes Meghan Daum in the Los Angeles Times : "To do anything in a public arena is to invite an insta-response that will echo just as loudly with harsh critics as with fans." More»

Nope, Kevin and Jill weren't the first

(NEWSER) - Jill and Kevin Heinz made a splash when their wedding-entrance dance video went viral—but they weren’t the first couple to surprise guests with their groove. E! runs down some of the most popular YouTube wedding dance clips:

• Thriller: Brian and Sandy Lundmark managed to impress the King of Pop himself, landing on his list of favorite clips.

(NEWSER) - A Minnesota couple's all-dancing wedding march has become a massive hit on YouTube, the Washington Post reports. Seven bridesmaids, five groomsmen, and four ushers strut their stuff down the aisle to the sounds of Chris Brown's "Forever" in front of delighted guests, followed by somersaulting groom Kevin Heinz and dancing bride Jill Peterson, who gets a standing ovation. More»

VideoBay streams content, without that pesky copyright stuff

(NEWSER) - If YouTube's limits on copyrighted material have exhausted you, the Swedish hackers who call themselves Pirate Bay have a solution: VideoBay, a new streaming video site that's utterly indifferent to intellectual property laws. The new service, rolled out just as Pirate Bay was sold to a Swedish software company that says it plans to take the site legit by paying for content, is built exclusively with open-source technology. But the programmers say VideoBay is still in "beta extreme" and caution: "Don’t expect anything to work at all." More»