If you ever wanted to include images during your real-time Facebook chats, now you can!

Facebook Smiley Chat Codes gives you a way to convert an image to “text” (special numerical strings that Facebook knows to interpret as an image) that you can easily copy and paste directly into your chat box.

Facebook Smiley Chat Codes hosts your images for free but the site is supported by advertising so you may want to be discreet in your subject matter. This is not Snapchat for Facebook.

Happy photo chatting!

While most of us are still slack-jawed over Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, the Wall Street Journal reports Betaworks buys Digg for just $500,000. Once valued at over $160 million four short years ago (when Kevin Rose ruled the world), it is a reminder how fickle the Internet can be. Don’t blink, you might miss the next bubble burst.

There has been a lot of reporting of the dispute between Viacom and DirecTV. Since I don’t actually subscribe to DirecTV, I listened with passing interest.

When I read that Viacom deliberately stopped streaming content online in an attempt to thwart DirecTV, it seemed like the media giant was cutting off its nose to spite its face. Moreover, it is a complete disregard to the online viewers. In terms of dollars and cents, I’m sure the fallout is inconsequential but it is just one more example of how traditional media companies view their online counterparts.

I know, be patient. There is a bigger revolution taking place and soon we will no longer have lines between mediums. I guess still sore from how I went from programming paid by advertising to programming I pay for with advertising.

The United States Census Bureau has been a bit on edge ever since Congress suggested gutting the American Community Survey. So, in an effort to prove their worth, the Census has launched an online PR initiative called How Do We Know, which includes this nifty infographic just in time for Independence Day.

May the US Census Bureau and the rest of America have a happy, healthy 4th of July!

Chill is like the Hulu’s cooler little brother. But more than just catchup TV, Chill supports just about any video source from YouTube to ESPN.

Content can be high-def TV shows (supplied by premium content partners like Hulu) to videos taken from your iPhone.

The site has a sexy Pinterest-like grid layout with Turntable-like social viewing integration, including Path-like emoticons and a Facebook Timeline-like profile covers.

You sign up using Facebook Connect. Once in, you can start a Chill Lounge or hang out in an existing Lounge (Lounges are like DJ Rooms in Turntable). Chill users can create a livestream Lounge simply by selecting the Live Video Stream option available in the Chill Lounge creation flow. The feature currently supports Ustream, Justin.tv, Livestream, YouTube Live, and Twitch.tv.

Chill was founded by Brian Norgard and Daniel Gould less than year ago and as of last week has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Redpoint Ventures, Atlas Venture, Paul Kedrosky, Science Media, William Morris Endeavor, 500 Startups, Troy Carter, Mike Jones, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, and Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund. As of this post, Chill claims to have 19 million members.