June 2004

ChuckB writes “According to this story on RatherBiased.com, CBSNews.com’s sales director David Ghiraldini confirms the relationship but refuses to specify its character. However, it seems to entail CBSNews.com receiving click-through revenues from their “Buy the Book” link pointing to Amazon.com’s page on the Clinton memoir:

The article suggests that the partnership raises ethical questions concerning the boundary between marketing and journalism.”

Karen writes “This week’s Tampa Tribune Citizens’ Voice column highlights the Trib’s Archive and Research Department and their essential role in research, reporting, and maintaing the news archives. From the News Center at
newscenter.tbo.com“

The new Senate bill aimed at punishing companies that encourage people to steal copyright materials is getting more than a little coverage. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch who compared peer-to-peer networks, which allow people to exchange any digital content over their computers, to villains of literature and film, including a character in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang who lured youngsters into danger with false promises of free lollipops. Wired, Reuters, CNET, and Many Others are covering this story.

Today’s Toledo Blade reports that the Toledo-Lucas Public Library must install porn-blocking filters, or lose its federal telecommunications funding (an amount over $200,000). The library’s board of directors is expected to approve the policy this morning at its monthly meeting.

http://search-engines-web.com/ writes “
Government Computer News

Before Technology becomes Mainstream and Free or Low cost – there are a few who are getting a peek into what the masses will experience in the coming decades

This article outlines what will await the current crop of computer/ Internet users”

C3PO sends “this story from USA Today. ‘A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, Del Rey Books published the first spinoff novels based on George Lucas’ wildly popular Star Wars films. Nearly 30 years later, the books are a thriving enterprise in the ever-expanding Star Wars universe.'”

Placement Ranking Positioning writes “News on some interesting moves at google:
“There have been a lot of conversations in the company in the past two months about (how) . . . it’s time for us to give something back. So our technical director, Craig Silverstein, has started a project to look at all the Google code and start figuring out what parts of it we want to give back,” Rosing said.
“I’m not saying we’re going to open-source Google, because that would be a little dumb when we have these Microsoft guys making noise,” he said, referring to the practice of giving away the raw computer instructions to a software program.

He says it isn’t fair for Google to draw smart people from all over the world and “just keep it all for ourselves”.

kctipton writes “Here’s the official announcement and full details about the Fourth Annual New York Times Librarian Awards. Nominations for 2004 will be accepted until September 17, 2004.

Winners will be announced in The Times in December and will each receive $2,500 and a commemorative plaque.”

Pete writes “The future of the internet promises to be bright, according to Dr Paul Mockapetris who created the now familiar system which gives net pages names such as “.com” and “.co” in this BBC Online article.
“Ten years from now, we will wonder how it was so hard to find things on the network too,” he told BBC News Online.
“At best we are at the Bronze Age, we are not even at the Iron Age stage in the network.””