Archive for October, 2005

Can Newspapers Be Saved?

Was talking to a few friends over the weekend about a Florida Today article. We got to talking about newspapers in general… the general decline of their business (due to the net)… their need for new revenue sources… and then the overall blandness of their articles.

In essence, we rarely feel that we are getting the “inside scoop” anymore. In fact, most of our local paper (Florida Today) is filled with AP wire stories. The local stuff is only somewhat interesting.

Who Let the Blogs Out?

Who Let the Blogs Out"" : A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of WeblogsJust finished reading a great book on blogging called “Who Let the Blogs Out?” by Biz Stone. There’s probably not too many books on blogging yet. The ones I’ve seen are more “how to” type books. This book has a little of that, but also contains a lot of the social dynamic that goes into blogging (history, the “why’s” of blogging, etc).

It is pretty entertaining as well, even if you don’t want to blog, but want to get a bit of understanding into what the blog craze is all about. But the author includes lots of tips about blogging as well, including information on how to make money with your blog - if that is your goal.

Al Qaeda puts job ads on Internet

Are we so dumb we can’t nail these Al-Qaeda guys on the internet yet? We have people in South Korea being hospitalized from playing video games for days on end - and even dying - (and the US is likely to follow - just look at the massive hype over the new Xbox 360 or PSP3). Our children are busy failing math at an alarming rate. We have IT guys busy creating server farms for Microsoft, security guys busy keeping PayPal and eBay secure from hackers, and national law enforcement busy trying to restructure itself and get away from their infamous “jack-booted thug” image they worked so hard to earn with such lovely showdowns as Ruby Ridge, David Koresh, and Elian Gonzalez.