InformationWeek Weblog: Is Google Investing In An Obsolete Business?

I startled myself the other day when I realized I didn't know whether my laptop computer has a modem. I had to think about it a couple of minutes. It's been that long since I've used a dial-up connection.Not long ago, having a laptop computer without a modem was like having one without a display or keyboard--completely useless. But these days, everywhere I go, I can count on a high-speed Internet connection, and in many places I can get a Wi-Fi connection. That's been true for quite some time.That's half of America Online's problems right there. AOL built its business on dial-up access, and dial-up is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Read more at www.informationweek.com...

FT.com / By industry / Media & internet - Google’s founders named Men of the Year

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are on Friday named as Men of the Year by the Financial Times, harbour hopes that reach well beyond their search engine business to “make the world a better place”, a promise made at the time of Google’s initial public offering last year.“I don’t think we particularly restrict ourselves or have a 20-year vision or anything like that,” Mr Brin told the Financial Times. “I don’t think we’re averse to doing something new.”Applying the vast computing power that lies behind Google’s internet search engine to solving other complex problems in fields such as microbiology could be one area for expansion, according to the Google founder. “We have certain core assets and understand certain kinds of technology well,” Mr Brin said, though he added: “It takes a little bit of discipline to focus on the things that can be really impactful.”

Read more at news.ft.com/cms/s/86e14...

Internet News Article | Reuters.com

"We have a right to our own name and Google has allowed the use of our name on Blogspot without our permission," said Susan Perlman, associate executive director with Jews for Jesus."Our reputation is at stake," Perlman told Reuters.Google's Blogspot and Blogger services allow people to set up Web logs, or online journals known as "blogs" for short, for free. A Google spokesman was not immediately available for comment on the lawsuit.

Read more at today.reuters.com/news/...

Google Goes For Ad Revs Growth - Forbes.com

"Banc of America Securities analyst John Janedis maintained a "neutral" rating on Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news  - people ) with a 12-month price target of $420 after Google on Tuesday sealed the widely anticipated deal to buy a 5% stake of Time Warner (nyse: TWX - news  - people ) unit AOL for $1 billion."The deal will extend Google's contract to operate AOL's search engine (set to expire in 2006) by five years and also include a host of new features," said the analyst in Wednesday's report."Google continues to take share in a growing market at a faster rate than its peers. In addition, we continue to think Internet ad growth will be at multiples of the overall ad market for several more years," the analyst said."

Read more at www.forbes.com/markets/...

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Janet Jackson biggest hit on Google

"Internet users in 2005 were more interested in the private life of a 39-year-old pop star than any other news, it has emerged.Incredibly, Janet Jackson was the most-searched term on internet search engine Google News - ahead of Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami."

Read more at news.scotsman.com/lates...

Google plugs 'obscure' phishing holes | CNET News.com

"Google has fixed a security flaw that had opened the door to phishing scams, account hijacks and other attacks, security researchers said Wednesday.The flaw, known as a cross-site scripting vulnerability, existed because Google did not properly secure its mechanism for two error pages, according to Web security company Watchfire, which discovered the problem. Watchfire posted to a security mailing list an advisory on the issue."

Read more at news.com.com/Google+plu...

Google-AOL: The First Step to VoIP Interoperability?

"Word is that now that Google has purchased a stake in AOL, the two companies will allow their VoIP services' users to talk to each other.The end result of that, in my opinion, is two fold. To begin with, this interoperability should give the two companies an advantage over rival Instant Messenger-like VoIP services offered by Skype, MSN and Yahoo. Google, in particular, is likely to benefit: Until now, many Internet users might have hesitated to use Google's VoIP service for fear that they'd be left out of communications loop since all of their friends used AOL Instant Messenger (IM). Now, they won't have to worry about that."

Read more at www.businessweek.com/th...

Cross Site Scripting Discovered in Google

"This is reported as a Google.com bug, which is partially true. But this is only one half of the problem. The other half of the problem (mentioned in the full article) is due to a dubious feature in Internet Explorer: when it gets a page without a specified character encoding, it does not rely on default values for the encoding (which should be iso-8859-1 for HTML or UTF-8 for XHTML).Instead, Internet Exploerer tries to guess the encoding of the contents by looking at the first 4096 bytes of the page and checking the non-ASCII characters. In the case of the cross-site scripting attack decribed here, the problem is that IE would silently set the encoding of a page to UTF-7 in case some characters in the first 4096 bytes looked like UTF-7. This silent conversion to UTF-7 by Internet Explorer in a text that Google assumed to use the default encoding allowed the attackers to bypass the way Google was filtering "dangerous" characters in some URLs.The article puts the full blame for the vulnerability on Google.com. I think that a part of the blame should also be shared by the Internet Explorer designers (and any other browser that does unexpected things while trying to guess what the user "really meant")."

Read more at slashdot.org/comments.p...

Apple Hums a Happy iTune

"Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) continues its leadership as the most visited Web site, attracting 104 million unique visitors in November, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. But Apple posted by far the strongest year-over-year gain, showing a 57% jump to 31 million unique users. That's the biggest gain of any top Web brand, fueled by the exploding popularity of its iPod media player and iTunes service."

Read more at www.thestreet.com/_yaho...

AOL's Choice of Google Leaves Microsoft as the Outsider - New York Times

"But for Time Warner, it was Google that appeared to be the safe choice in uncertain times. Google's search technology has been the leader in innovation, its advertising network has been a volcano of cash for AOL, and its brand is the hottest of all Internet companies.Moreover, under this deal AOL will get assistance from Google that it did not have before. Google will help AOL in sending traffic to AOL's free, advertising-supported Web sites. It will also give AOL the ability to offer its existing advertisers search ads for the first time and will allow AOL's sales force to sell display advertising on Google's extensive network."

Read more at www.nytimes.com/2005/12...

Gender Gap in Computer Science Growing

"That point of view is sexist, politically incorrect, and probably absolutely true. All of these "gender gap" studies (in any field) seem to start with the premise that every field of work should have basically a 50/50 gender split. I think that is patently absurd. The differences between men and women extend beyond just plumbing. My personal experience is fewer women enjoy computer science -- not because they're uneducated or incapable, but because they simply prefer to do something else. Should we be trying to force them into a field they don't enjoy just because it conforms to the way we think things should be? I think our loftiest goal should not be to promote a 50/50 gender split at all costs. Nor should it be to exactly match the demographic for any other group. It should be to make the profession available to anybody who cares to pursue it. If that means that only 1/4 to 1/3 of the profession is composed of women, as long as that reflects the actual number of women who wants to do it, there's nothing wrong with that. If we try to artificially inflate the number to 50% just because we arbitrarily decide that's what it should be, we end up with a lot of women in the field who would really rather be doing something else."

"I don't know if the number is statistically significant, but from my own anecdotal experience I know a number of women who went into CS because of the gender difference and because they were more interested in finding a financially stable husband than in learning about computer science. I know several women who became engaged and/or married and then switched degrees or dropped out. I imagine the same is true, in reverse, for certain fields dominated by women. I know at least one guy who joined the cheerleading squad to meet women."

Read more at it.slashdot.org/comment...

Gender Gap in Computer Science Growing

"I've noticed whenever I hear about a gender gap study or story, the gender gap is a about a shortage of women in good, clean professions with upward mobility and high pay. I've never hear or seen a story about a shortage of women in garbage collecting or ditch digging, or other lower pay and often "dead end" jobs. I've only seen one female garbage collector ever, out of dozens of male garbage collectors, in the various places I've lived.P.S. I have nothing against garbage collectors... they just happen to be the most visible "down and dirty not high paying" job I can think of. They do a great service for us, I'm not putting them down. I would like to see more women going into CS as well. I'm just pointing out something I've noticed."

"Also, they rarely ever talk about the lack of men in female dominated jobs. Some of these fields are pretty stable, and growing. Think of nursing, daycare, and many other female dominated professions. Maybe it's just that women aren't interested in computers, just like men aren't interested in taking care of children."

Read more at it.slashdot.org/comment...

Trinary

"Just as the hard-wiring of binary mathematics spun the entire twentieth century about a simple yes-no axis, the invention of the three-state switch promised to revolutionize twenty-fifth century computing. After all, with three states (negative, positive, and null charges) on nanoswitches, computers could now think in terms of yes, no, and maybe, greatly humanizing their internal logic.This would have brought many, many more female engineers into the field of computer science (hence accelerating the pace at which computers could do useful things besides transmit, compress, and enhance pornography), except that the same abbreviational logic that turned "binary digit" into "bit" turned "trinary digit" into "tit." This nomenclatural error set computing back nearly three hundred years, and two entire generations of promising computer scientists were lost trying to keep abreast of bad puns."-- The Tayler Corporation. "Plotting to take over the world since 1998"

Read more at it.slashdot.org/comment...

In computer science, a growing gender gap - The Boston Globe

"The shortage of new computer scientists threatens American leadership in technological innovation just as countries such as China and India are gearing up for the kind of competition the United States has never before faced.The US economy is expected to add 1.5 million computer- and information-related jobs by 2012, while this country will have only half that many qualified graduates, according to one analysis of federal data. Meanwhile, the subject is becoming increasingly intertwined with fields ranging from homeland security to linguistics to biology and medicine."

Read more at www.boston.com/news/loc...

The Ladder Theory

"If you thought something like this you are very likely the average woman. If you read it and went "Hmmm..." and then you went back to doing physics, then you have a case.Looks are not to be discounted. I see many girls revert to about a seventh grade emotional level when they see some guy at the club, or some guy from a crappy movie. I think everyone has seen this phenomena, and it seems to have become an alarming trend in women of increasing age."

Read more at www.laddertheory.com/ra...

Gender Gap in Computer Science Growing

"So we have two options of handling these kinds of differences. If we think that differences are bad and scary and inequitable then we can shout as loud as we want and pretend they don't exist. We can pretend that guys are not actually stronger then girls, or that girls aren't socially smarter than men. We can obfuscate, complain, and trash anyone who makes the mistake of pointing the obvious out. But this is at best living in la-la land and at worst dangerous. When we have to lower standards so that we can hire enough women firefighters I think we've just gone to far. As my mum said (in reference to rules changes that said instead of a fireman's carry dragging a victim down the stairs was sufficient to become a firemen) "Who are these stupid feminists? I don't want some 5'2" woman dragging me out of the building, I want a 6'2" giant to carry me out!"Sure, some men are 5'2". And there are some women who are 6'2". But how many of either do you know? And how many women do you know that are 5'2"? Or men that are 6'2"?Look, the reason I say "I don't want to be harsh" is that I understand what it is that you don't like. You don't like it when people use a generalization to apply it unfairly to an individual. That's discrimination - and in many cases it's mean, evil, wrong, etc. But trying to make discrimination go away by trying to outlaw generalizations is like trying to make electrocution go away by outlawing electricity. It would be stupid to try and in the real world it's not possible anyway."

Read more at it.slashdot.org/comment...

Gender Gap in Computer Science Growing

"Looks like finding a compatible girl geek in the computer profession is becoming even harder, as an already wide gender gap among Computer Science majors is becoming larger. From the article: 'A Globe review shows that the proportion of women among bachelor's degree recipients in computer science peaked at 37 percent in 1985 and then went on the decline. Women have comprised about 28 percent of computer science bachelor's degree recipients in the last few years, and in the elite confines of research universities, only 17 percent of graduates are women . . .'"

Read more at it.slashdot.org/comment...

deliciously without del.icio.us

I'm having a lot of power trouble too. Looks like it's not just me. The cyber world is really seriously affected by the physical world's energy problems.

"Due to the power outage earlier in the week, we appear a number of continued hiccups. We've taken everything offline to properly rebuild and restore everything. I apologize and hope to have this resolved as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued patience."

Read more at del.icio.us/

Honda says to mass-produce solar cells from 2007

Honda Motor Co. said on Monday it plans to start mass-producing solar cells in 2007, eyeing growing demand for environmentally friendly energy sources.Japan's third-biggest automaker said in a statement it would build a new factory for solar cells on the site of a car plant in Kumamoto prefecture, on the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu.The company aims to generate annual sales of 5 billion to 8 billion yen ($40 million to $70 million) from solar cells once the factory's output reaches full annual capacity of 27.5 megawatts, enough to power about 8,000 households.Honda will be competing with major solar cell manufacturers such as Kyocera Corp. <6971, Sharp Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.A Honda spokeswoman did not say when the factory would hit full capacity and declined to disclose the size of the investment, which the Nihon Keizai business daily estimated would be just short of 10 billion yen.Honda said its solar cells would be composed of non-silicon compound materials, consuming half as much energy and generating 50 percent less carbon dioxide during production when compared with conventional solar cells made from silicon.The company aims to sell the solar cells for both residential and industrial use. It will initially target the Japanese market.

Read more at ca.today.reuters.com/ne...

del.icio.us is down

"del.icio.us is down for emergency maintenance. we'll be back as soon possible."

I almost experienced withdrawal symptoms. del.icio.us is that good. Really.

Read more at del.icio.us/

Google Personal Computers

Google is planning to launch PCs for markets in India and China. According to a report by India's leading printed newspaper, the Hindustan Times, Google will launch the new PCs in cooperation with California-based Wyse technology.

The computers will have only a small CPU for connecting to the Internet. They will be bundled with a display, keyboard, and mouse, and will connect to a Google-hosted server to use a remote OS for storage and function management. This will protect the computers from viruses and provide a secure storage solution for user data.

The software will be developed by Google; hardware and production will be managed by Wyse technology.

The PCs will be available for Rs. 9,000 (INR), or approximately $200 US.This creates the possibility for a Google OS, Google web browser and Google office suite.

Read more at www.techbulletin.net/te...

roboppy.net

"bagillion". My friend Aaron used this word today.

aaron: ok, I'm installing this thing called gaim-vvlet's see if it works!then we can make long distance phone calls...woohoololaaron: are you anxious?aaron: I hope not, beacuse I am getting like a bagillion compiling errors=)

Read more at www.roboppy.net/archive...

Recruiting IT Students?

Make internships available. That's how companies are going to find the best talent. I know the company that gives me my first internship will be near the top of my list for potential employment.

"If you want to solve the problem of low enrollment in IT programs -- it's not to do with the job market. It's to do with the lack of INTERNSHIPS and REAL EXPERIENCE that employers are looking for. Unfortunately for me, the career services center in my school was useless, and I had a VERY tough time, and after lying on my resume about experience in years, I finally landed a crappy IT job. I'm much better off now, but the fact remains -- how can you expect students to line up for IT programs in a school, if you don't teach them what BUSINESS needs are important to keep met, instead of teaching them about "blahblah theory of x and y". Those theories make you competent programmers, but the 'quick and dirty' method of coding is often what's used and in business, it's what people want -- results."

Read more at ask.slashdot.org/commen...

Paulasaur.us/Rex

Paulasaurus Rex. Hahaha. Check out the URL: it's awesome.

Reminds me of my friend Lawton Pybus. I told him to buy pyb.us when it was available. He could have had lawton.pyb.us for a URL. Or even just pyb.us.

Read more at paulasaur.us/rex/

Flash » Epic 2015

Who could write about web culture without considering the future? No Flash video has gotten as much notoriety as this one.

The video claims that Google buys, after Picasa and Keyhole, TiVo. Microsoft takes Friendster. Google's stock allows them tremendous financial power and control.

The video names "Googlezon" and the "Google Grid" as its ideas for what Google's future services will be.

This is real: everyone can comment on what they see. Google's recently released Firefox plugin facilitates this.

It's easy to see an age where computers can filter everything and "write a new story for every user." In fact, this is nearly happening already, with personalized RSS feed readers (newsreaders).

The question of copyright law violations is a big one. Google takes all the information on the Internet, and in effect, uses it as its own. Google profits only because there are other websites it returns in its searches. The pages aren't Google's making; only the organization of them is.

Google Grid becomes a "summary of the world." Watch for it; it already exists, but under a different name. And it's getting larger and more comprehensive everyday.

Read more at www.albinoblacksheep.co...

Christmas - Google Search

Commenting on Google.com has got to bring in some visitors. If you're seeing this, leave a comment :)

Read more at www.google.com/search?h...

Gmail

Bloggin my Gmail inbox, just as Morgan Sinclair did. Using Google's sweet little Firefox plugin.

Read more at mail.google.com/mail/

Time Warner Plans to Sell 5% of AOL to Google - New York Times

Funny to AOL still around. Who still uses it? (Yeah, I know: lots of people.)

"Rebuffing aggressive overtures from Microsoft, Time Warner has agreed to sell a 5 percent stake in America Online to Google for $1 billion as part of an expanded partnership between AOL, once the dominant company on the Internet, and Google, the current online king."

Read more at www.nytimes.com/2005/12...

MS and Google team to fund net lab | The Register

It's good to see huge, psychopathic corporations join forces for the sake of education.

"Arch rivals Google and Microsoft have combined with Sun to fund an academic research lab which aims to pioneer the development of new approaches to software development. The three companies will provide $7.5m over five years to fund research at the Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed systems laboratory, or the RAD Lab, at the University of California, Berkeley."

Read more at www.theregister.co.uk/2...

Blogger Web Comments for Firefox

I love this Firefox extension. Not only does it make it easy to blog, but it's also fast, lightweight, elegant and powerful. Just what I'd expect from Google. And I'm expecting more in the future.

Read more at www.google.com/tools/fi...

Mario Kart

Mario Kart for the Nintendo DS looks incredibly sweet. I'd love to get this for Christmas. The combo looks interesting: since MK can play multiplayer with only one game cartridge, we can use our existing DS and play Mark Kart with the new one, with only one copy of the game.

Read more at www.mariokart.com/

Nice to Be Good, but Champs Often Feel Lucky

By PETE THAMEL
Published: October 17, 2005

Often in a college football season, serendipity transcends a coach's play call or a quarterback's audible. When it helps push a team toward a national title, it develops into the lore of that team's historic season.

If top-ranked Southern California finishes undefeated and wins its third consecutive national championship, its victory at Notre Dame on Saturday - the Trojans' 28th in a row - will stand out as a defining moment in one of college football's most surreal runs.

As often happens on the high-wire line to a national title, U.S.C. combined a thrilling drive with fortunate circumstances to beat Notre Dame, 34-31.

"To have the kind of year you want to have, something has to happen that you can't explain why it happened," Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden said earlier this season. "Something has to happen that you can't coach."

Bowden offered that explanation the day after Miami botched a snap to give his Seminoles a victory in their season opener. It also sums up the circumstances that led to U.S.C.'s victory Saturday, and to so many other moments that have fueled national-title runs.

Since the start of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998, U.S.C., Ohio State, Miami and Tennessee have benefited from bizarre plays or sequences en route to winning national championships.

Quarterback Matt Leinart may win the Heisman Trophy again this season, but a backward fumble and a possibly illegal lunge into the end zone are perhaps the most important plays he will make all season.

Leinart fumbled after an ill-advised dash to the end zone on second-and-goal from the Notre Dame 5-yard line when the Trojans did not have any timeouts remaining.

If he had been tackled, time would have expired. Instead, Irish linebacker Corey Mays popped the ball out of Leinart's grasp and out of bounds, a bounce that helped save the Trojans' winning streak.

Leinart not only lost the ball, but he also lost it in the right direction; a forward fumble out of bounds in the end zone would have also ended the game.

But instead of creating the biggest party in South Bend since Notre Dame's victory over No. 1 Florida State in 1993, the fumble will live in Irish infamy.

Replays showed that the ball flew back at least a yard, but officials placed the ball's nose just inches from the goal line.

Leinart then sealed the victory with another charmed play. After pushing into his offensive line unsuccessfully, he twisted his body to his right and was pushed into the end zone by running back Reggie Bush. With two hands, Bush shoved Leinart's chest to allow him to stumble backward over the goal line through a gap between the center and the left guard.

Bush admitted to pushing Leinart into the end zone after the game, even though it is a violation.

According to Section 2, Article 2b of the N.C.A.A. rulebook, "The runner shall not grasp a teammate; and no other player of his team shall grasp, push, lift or charge into him to assist him in forward progress."

One rulebook's illegal push is another man's heady play. The rule is often ignored, much like a three-second violation in basketball or a second baseman in baseball needing to touch the bag while turning a double play.

"We've had a lot of experience winning tough games and playing tough games," U.S.C. offensive lineman Fred Matua said. "This is what it's all about. This had all the ingredients for a great game."

Last season, the Trojans escaped with a victory over California, even though Bears quarterback Aaron Rodgers tied an N.C.A.A. record by completing his first 23 passes. Rodgers missed his final three, however, including a pass in the end zone to Jonathan Makonnen that preserved U.S.C.'s 23-17 victory.

Ohio State benefited from good fortune in overtime of the national title game in January 2003, when an official threw a flag late on Miami defensive back Glenn Sharpe for pass interference in the end zone, allowing the Buckeyes to force a second overtime against Miami.

Throughout that season, the Buckeyes pulled off fourth-quarter comebacks, none more dramatic than a 37-yard fourth-down heave from Craig Krenzel to Michael Jenkins for the game's only touchdown in a 10-6 victory at Purdue.

The previous season, Miami's Ed Reed returned an interception 80 yards for a touchdown to seal a victory over Boston College, 18-7. B.C. had driven 61 yards to the Miami 9 before a pass hit cornerback Mike Rumph's knee and was intercepted by defensive lineman Matt Walters. Reed took the ball from Walters and scored.

Tennessee needed a fourth-down pass-interference call by Lee Dyer, a Southeastern Conference back judge, to extend the winning drive in its opener at Syracuse in 1998. Later that year in Knoxville, Arkansas quarterback Clint Stoerner fumbled without being touched with less than two minutes remaining to set up the winning touchdown for the Volunteers.

Going back into the annals of college football history, Colorado used a touchdown on a fifth down against Missouri in 1990 on its way to a national title, and Nebraska forced overtime against Missouri in 1997 when wide receiver Shevin Wiggins kicked the ball in the end zone and it was caught by his teammate Matt Davison.

Leinart's fumble and Bush's shove put them in good company, and may push the Trojans into the record books.

Penn State Receiver Out for Season

Penn State sustained more damage than just a last-second loss at Michigan on Saturday. The Nittany Lions will be without the freshman wide receiver Derrick Williams for the rest of the season because of a broken arm.

Williams, considered the nation's top receiving recruit last year, has 22 receptions for 289 yards and a touchdown this season. He carried the ball 22 times for 105 yards and averaged 21.1 yards on kickoff returns.

Penn State plays at Illinois on Saturday.

Blogging Burnout

It started with a simple question -- what do all good things have in common? The answer led me to the person who invented blogging. I shook his hand. Made him comfortable in a chair opposite my workstation. Then, banged his head on the glaring monitor. Stretched his eyebrows to his forehead so he could read the text in front of him clearly. And whispered in his ears, "Look what you have created, Frankenstein!"

Am I a psychotic junkie? Anti-institution? Mentally disturbed?

No.

I am an ordinary netizen suffering from repeated overdoses of junk blogs.

Bloggers on board

A few years ago I began my day with a daily dose of news that mattered. Then someone said the guy behind the noise-emitting-module had started 'blogging' its development. Cool! Then one day, the guy talks of another guy who tried using the module but couldn't produce any noise, so he patched it up. Cool! Another interesting guy. But this one had a day-job and a family. He not only blogged about his experience making sure the module produced adequate noise, but also the 1000-year old fossil he found in his backyard, his son's first steps, his daughter's recital. And look he has pictures too.

So this friendly neighborhood blogger is very popular as he is on the noise-emitting-module guys 'list of blogs to read'. He inspires Gulliver from Liliput to blog. Mr. Gulliver opens his heart out, crying over his inability to find a sizable mate, wondering why all his friends are midgets, his eating habits, and yes his occasional troubles with his over-sized paper-weight and punching machine.

Meanwhile, since the original guy's project has become very popular, there are many folks working on it and blogging about it as well to let everyone know what's up. He decides to get everyone under one roof, that gets its name from an astronomical body. Soon a corporation joins the project and hires a few guys to work on it. Part of that same astronomical group, these guys unable to understand their function, blog their daily list of development/compilation tasks. Wow. Transparency. Very rapidly the number of such heavenly bodies multiply.

And, wow, everyone gets lots of reads and comments. Online Poker and Texas Holdem seem to be very dedicated readers, giving their valuable feedback to each and every blogger, over and over again.

So, wow, since this blogging stuff lets you read each others mind, the corporation decides to ask its every non-technical employee to blog as well. The stylish employees who make all the money for the corporation, see this as an opportunity and talk at length about their lovely company and their down-to-earth CEO -- the guy with the yatch.

Then comes the new century and election day. Suddenly no one's listening to the news anchors. Blogs steal the show. This throws the human civilization into a debate -- can bloggers substitute guys in suits and a microphone?

No one has stopped the bloggers from doing anything? Why question now? There's a new ruler and he hates people who ask questions. So shut the hell up. Everyone concurs.

Over time everything pans out. Blogs bring to kids what their Biology classes couldn't, exclusive images from certain desert confrontations, a few terrorist rituals and much more.

Blogs are a success. The information age has found a new vehicle.

So, what's wrong?

The numbers. They are wrong.

Blogs were supposed to get information. But all they now get are colored, underlined lines of text. A computer assembler strikes a deal with another component vendor. There's a press release and a few news reports. A few thousand new age blog journalists link to the same report. Those with gray hair, without the senior editor scrutinizing their report, made outlandish claims of this announcement and brand it exclusive. Another thousand link to this.

Unfortunately I spend the first few hours of my day reading some of these thousands of blogs. I scroll through their personal life troll to get to that hidden jewel of information. But all I now get is "...and oh here's a nice report...", or "...do take time of to read this report...", or "...if you are into computers this report...", or "...what! you haven't read this report..." and another thousand permutations.

And then someone asks me: so why don't you blog?

The answer to this brings me back to the question I began with: what do all good things have in common? Burnout. And its smelly aftermath.

-- Freedom of speech and all that.

http://geekybodhi.net/articles/blogging_burnout.htm

Divorce through the eyes of a Deaner

According to the National Center for
Health Statistics, approximately 41 percent of new marriages in the United
States end in divorce. That may not be
         much of a surprise considering divorce is as much a part of
American culture as baseball and the NFL. Apply that percentage to the
University of Southern California's population and we
         are left with about 11,480 students who are the products of
single-parent households out of the 28,000 students attending USC.

         For me that means if the number of divorces per marriage continues
to rise, I am soon to be a minority in that my parents are married. Growing
up, I became used to coming over to a
         friend's house and saying hello to only one parent or not being
able to hang out with a friend on certain weekends because her other parent
had custody of her for that time.

         To me, it was a nuisance; to her, that was life. But in school,
did the fact that my friend lived with one parent affect her grades or her
drive for academic success? Was she a disadvantaged
         student because she had one parent to help her do her homework,
one parent to show her right from wrong, and one parent as her dominant
role-model instead of two? I decided to find out.

         Around 3 a.m. two nights ago when I was avoiding studying like any
good USC student does, I was in a conversation with some friends about how
crazy it is that so many couples end
         their marriages in divorce. I made the observation that the kids
in our dorm that I'd talked to came from married households. I live in the
Deans' Halls, otherwise known as the Nerds Halls
         and I immediately wondered just how many Deaners have married
parents back home. Would that number have any correlation with their
receiving scholarships and then indirectly their
         placement in the honors dorms?

         Assuming that academic success is more prevalent in two-parent
households, I figured that the majority of the Deaners, as scholarship
students, would have married parents. Intrigued and
         looking for another excuse to procrastinate, I surveyed all the
students that I could get a hold of in Dean's Halls and discovered that the
numbers were overwhelming. It wasn't by a small
         margin that the number of married parents outweighed the number of
divorced parents. There was a gap that made us, as Deaners, look like the
Puritans we descended from.

         According to my survey, in both Marks and Trojan halls, 97 Deaners
claimed to have two parents in the home during their high school years while
only 11 Deaners claimed to have one.
         The population surveyed totaled 108, leaving approximately 90
percent of Deaners with married parents.

         Though the basic gist of the idea was evident, the survey
definitely left a lot of room for error. To begin with, I defined the
students of married parents as those who had two parent-figures
         in the household during their high-school years. That meant some
students had remarried parents or step-parents. I counted separated parents
as being divorced because they didn't live
         together.

         It's also important to note that not all Deaners are on
scholarship, many were placed in the residence halls, just as many
scholarship students chose not to live in the Deans' Halls. Of
         course, in doing the survey not all the Deaners were in their
rooms when I came around. However, of those that I did survey the results
quite obviously showed some correlation.

         What does this say about the impact of the marriage status of
parents on a child's academic performance? How does divorce lower a child's
willingness to succeed? Picture a high-school
         student bent over his books in his bedroom, the radio blasting,
his eyes intent on the page, and suddenly over the music he hears two
familiar voices yelling at each other about something
         that doesn't even matter.

         These are the two most important people in his life, the two
people who care more about him than anyone in the world, and the same two
people who used to encourage him to do well.
         He turns up the music in an effort to drown out the sounds but
concentration is impossible.

         It's a scene that's become so mundane and common to him that when
two weeks later his dad moves out, the house seems empty of not just his
father but of the yelling and bickering too.
         In a youth's mind, marriage represents stability, success,
comfort, and even though this parents yelled at each other all the time, at
least somewhere in the back of his head he knew he just
         knew that they loved each other. And now without even that to
depend on S something like that just tears a person up inside. Family
dysfunction, parent conflict, the bitterness and
         friction don't just dissipate, they rub off on a child.

         The low self-esteem, the anger, and questioning, all of it is
reflected in the child's attitude toward his schooling. The frustration
comes out as rebellion or indifference and the grades drop in
         sync with the student's self-confidence. With so many problems in
the household, it's impossible for a child to study or be a normal kid.
Besides, where is the motivation when parents are
         too distracted to care?

         The fact that so many Deaners come from married households doesn't
mean they come from happy homes, it doesn't even mean their parents
encouraged them to learn, it just means that
         the environments they come from included two parent-figures to
look up to, giving these students something to strive for.

         Role models offer a child a glimpse at his or her potential
future. Without the distraction and negative effects of divorce, a student
has a lot more room to breathe, a lot more room to
         achieve, and a lot more room to succeed.

Source

China is coming

"China is the fastest-growing Internet market in the world, and it will be the largest Internet market in the world in a couple of years," said Jerry Yang, a Yahoo! co-founder and current director who has played a leading role in the company's China strategy. "In Alibaba, we saw the chance to combine it with Yahoo! China and become the largest Internet company in China, period.

U.S. Internet companies have been tripping over themselves to rush into China's Internet market, which is expected to surpass the U.S. in overall users in the next few years. However, most Chinese Internet users have spent the bulk of their time on online video games first, ecommerce second and Internet searches last. That's contrary to U.S. and European behavior, in which search has dominated.

Is Your Business Podcasting? Well, It Should Be.

Copyright 2005 Rodney Rumford

It has been said that podcasting is where Blogs and radio
intersect. It is my belief that podcasting is quickly
emerging as a media that stands completely on its own.
Podcasting is nothing like radio in the traditional sense.
It is only similar in the fact that you can listen to
audio. That is where the similarities end.

Podcasting will not be anything like Blogging in the very
near future. It already is only slightly related to
Blogging from the perspective that anyone can create and
publish, and the fact that some Blogs can produce an RSS
Feed output. That is where the similarities truly end.

The potential business uses of this media are limited only
by a smart marketers imagination. Marketing managers and
advertising executives should embrace this technology as a
media tool that can deliver results to achieve goals in
your companys marketing plan.

Corporate Podcasting: There are many valid reasons why
corporations may want to embrace and leverage podcasting.
Corporations can set up internal or public facing podcasts.

Corporations and businesses (both large and small) have an
opportunity to create a loyal listener audience that can
extend their brand and communicate to the target audience.

Businesses can also use this technology both externally &
internally as a communication medium to keep local, virtual
and world wide groups of clients or employees informed.
This could be used for sales meetings for companies that
have employees in worldwide locations. It is also an
effective medium for distance learning, or in helping to
get the entire team on messageon any specific topic.

Example: Consultants could use podcasting to interview
clients, convey success stories, interview other thought
leaders, expose business trends, and become a trusted
advisor and source of valuable information. This can
produce additional clients, increased reputation within a
specific community, and extend your valuable brand
perception with customers and prospects.

Creating the actual podcast is only a very small part of
the success equation. If you need more information about
how you can design and execute a proper and fully leveraged
podcasting strategy you should work with a qualified
consultant that has experience in this media format from a
technology, best practices, strategy planning, marketing,
and execution perspective.

You can get a free copy of the Podcasting Whitepaper to
learn more about this technology and how you can leverage
this new media technology for your business. This
whitepaper also includes 13 podcasting best practices. Get
on the podcasting train soon, it is filling up fast.


----------------------------------------------------
Rodney Rumford has over 18 years of experience in the
technology field. He has held management positions in
Marketing, Business Dev, Enterprise Consulting, Sales and
Engineering.
He does corporate consulting in the areas of RSS &
Podcasting strategy, execution and marketing. He has
developed software solutions in the areas of RSS Feeds,
Podcasting and PPC Advertising.
He is the CEO of The Info Guru LLC., which operates several
web properties that include: http://www.podblaze.com