The website called highDEAS has mastered simplicity.  They feature cannabis drenched ideas from people that are experts in getting high and pontificating about “astronaut weed” and “finding your Romulan” after a big night of partying.  The folks at highDEAS are contributing to a new form of website content to which Texts from Last Night or Overheard in New York would top their respective hats.

Web content, like products from the Industrial and early Information Ages, is evolving at a breakneck pace in an attempt to match pace with our ever-dwindling attention span.  Though more people are understanding and brainstorming on ways to utilize user generated content (UGC), few are doing anything about it.

Along with websites like Fail Blog and Twitter accounts like ShitMyDadSays, highDEAS is delivering content that is highly targeting groups of people that either smoke pot or that have met a weed smoker that pukes-out a “highDEA” .  I fall into the latter.  I don’t smoke pot, but I have met plenty of pot smokers that have ideas that verge on the cusp of brilliance.  No kidding.

As the number of people contracting critical cases of “social networking fatigue” continue to increase, community and social networking sites will have to devise ways to engage people on terms dangerously close to “uber niche”.  Yep, you read that terrible term here first.

Let’s get serious for a second.  Though sites like highDEAS aren’t social networking sites, they compete for the same mind-share that Facebook and Twitter do.

How many people do you know that have been on either end of the “unfriending” trend in Facebook or Twitter?  It’s becoming a big trend that will affect you soon; if it hasn’t already.   Running parallel to this trend (and arguably springing from this trend), is the reality that people are spending less time on Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, etc.  But, they are not closing their collective laptops.  They are choosing to go to other websites.  For lack of a better way of describing it, they are “content surfing”.

…In comes highDEAS serving-up funny UGC that people can’t get anywhere else.  They have the right idea.  In the last few months they have enjoyed 15K hits per month.  For a young brand, they are doing something right.

What other “uber niche” sites have you come across that are getting it right?

There was an odd story a few months ago involving Facbook, a Nepali ski team member disappearance  and France.  I had to write a bit on this in case some of you missed it.

A few months ago a member of the Nepal Ski Team was lost in the Alps and was found via a Facebook.  If that isn’t interesting enough, by the time a concerted effort of 400 people located him, he had wondered hundreds of miles by foot across France.  I can’t make this stuff up, people.

You thought Facebook was only good for sharing photos of your cat, Gypsy, and sharing your high score on World of Warcraft.  Think again!  I’m here to tell you that Facebook is not only a source for learning what your best friend ate for a snack, but is a bona-fide search and rescue safety device.  Who knew!?

Uttam Rayamajhi, a 17-year-old from the Nepal ski Team, disappeared from the ski team’s base camp in the Alps.  Apparently, he left on his own will over frustration of the dissolution of his country’s ski team.  He didn’t seem to have a well thought out plan, as he left with no extra money or clothes.  If we were to leave Brendon David Ski Team  I’d at least leave with a couple of bones in my pockets or steal a beanie.

There really is no way to predict all of the infinite applications of social and community platforms like Facebook and Twitter.  The fact that people used Facebook to notify their network that Rayamajhi vanished is not so earth shattering.  What is notable, in my mind, is that people chose to listen and do something about it.  It gives me hope for the evolution of our species.

Getting back to the fact that Rayamajhi disappeared with a plan weaker than a menacing plot from a Scooby Doo villan…

I asked myself, “How did he make it hundreds of miles walking with no cash?”  Though I’m sad to bust your bubble, I am happy to report that it was via the kindness of the French people feeding him.  Gasp!  I know that flies in the face of the common stereotype about the French, but I know you’re secretly glad to know that they gave him more than cigarettes and a pair of skinny jeans.   Oui!

Your good pals in law enforcement want to be your BFF on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  You can now slap mustached high fives with your buddies.  The FBI is now making themselves seen and heard on the Internet via social media. Heck, maybe they’ll want to make some comments on your latest photos.  Sounds like the boys at the FBI are embracing social networking and SEM.  But wait…what about MySpace?

*crickets*

It seems as though MySpace draws too much attention from “the fuzz” and media for the brethren of J. Edgar Hoover.  I can’t blame them.  With all of the people being accused of bad stuff on MySpace, there’s no telling who else will be implicated in anything fishy that pops up on that site.  *wink wink*

With all of that said, the FBI is no stranger to widgets.  Apparently they are still employing them and still analyzing the data they’ve collected.  Not sure what that means.  Sounds kinda creepy if you ask me.  Should anything else come up in the social networking and law enforcement worlds, we’ll be the first to let you know.  But hurry, they’re already have over 1,000 members on Facebook!

The website called We Are Hunted is lurking in the dark corners of your blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and any other place they can to learn what you are listening to. They post the top 99 songs on their website so that you can learn about the newest, local and indie bands.

Pump your brakes. Let’s think about that for a second.

Are you dying to know what live show people in Los Feliz are talking about via their Twitter posts? Need to know what bands are huge in the punk/art scene in Omotesando in Tokyo or on 6th Street in Austin?  Maybe you can’t believe that Passion Pit is so awesome and you never would have heard about them if it weren’t for this website.

The great thing is that you can purchase the music you like.  That’s a good way to help put some cash back in the pockets of those poor musicians trying to make it in this freaky music industry climate.

We Are Hunted exists only to report the top 99 sweet bands that are being talked about via blogs, micro-blogs (Twitter) and social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, etc).

Thanks, WAH.