Recently I wrote about the closure of free video-hosting services at both AOL and Brightcove. I suggested that no free hosting service can be relied on to be around forever, or even a year from now in the current economic crisis.

Today the Daily Telegraph reports that social networking sites, such as Facebook, face a ‘data cost crisis’, as advertising revenue declines from a position that wasn’t exactly lucrative in the first place.

Research by the consultants Deloitte suggests that the cost of storing electronic data ‘has soared to more than $100m (£68m) a year for larger sites, as users increasingly want to upload memory-hungry photos and videos’.

Sunday afternoon was the final day of the Queer Up North arts festival and a village fete was held in Sackville Park. There was a cake judging competition, stalls and a great punch and judy show.

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These are three photographs that I took on 11 February 2004 at about 6pm. At the time I thought they were rather odd and sent them to a few friends. Now it seems that other people have experienced strange circles and ‘orbs’ on digital images, so I thought I would publish them with some information.

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As a photographer myself, I broke out into a cold sweat reading how this poor man lost most of his image library in the Lever Street fire. Equipment can be replaced but unique transparencies, negatives and digital images can’t be.

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