This week I read some interesting, some bizarre, some funny but mostly mind stimulating articles. Here is a short selection that includes a must read post about the rise of narrative in social networks and a fascinating presentation by graphic designer Nicholas Felton.

• The Future of Social Networks. It is storytelling – or narrative based services such as Foursquare and GoWalla. This should be at the top of your reading lists.
• Tapping the network to facilitate innovation: Venessa Miemis argues that since “humans weren’t designed for mechanization” and we “designed to create” the rise of the social tools are bringing about a new co-creation ethic.
• A Brief Overview of Silicon Valley BS: Ivan Gaviria, an attorney with the law firm of Gunderson Dettmer, decodes some of the valley’s top cliches. Caution: colorful language.
• When it comes to privacy, Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus. Or something like that, in this New York Times dissection of Google’s current legal troubles in Italy.
• Pentagon Ignores the Warnings of Splice and Jurassic Park in Breeding Artificial Life: Forget Robots, the Pentagon is more keen on developing artificial life forms, writes Christine Fall for AMC TV.
• America, the fragile empire: Niall Ferguson writes a somewhat scary prognosis on the state of America.

Lastly, watch this video of graphic designer Nicholas Felton, the creator of The Feltron Annual Report. At PopTech 2009, he showed snapshot of The New York Times‘ front pages and what it means about America. Worthy of your time. And if you are interested in collecting personal data, check out Felton’s Daytum, a tool.