Yep, seriously, a sanctioned embassy. You won’t be able to actually apply for a passport, but the information how such matters works will be there, as well as lots of pro-Sweden information I’m sure.

While there were individuals in Second Life calling themselves the “Canadian Ambassador” and “The United States Embassy to Second Life”, the Swedish initiative would however be the first officially sanctioned embassy in Second Life.

Wästberg hoped the embassy would open soon. In the longer term the Swedish Institute envisaged buying an island in the virtual world to create a home for Swedish companies.

Right. And The Pirate Bay wants to buy a nation. Sheesh. I’ll just go hide.

Originally posted on January 30, 2007 @ 6:32 am

It’s no surprise that the launch of Windows Vista is hitting the blogosphere big time. Most major Microsoft launches and projects affect our work since so many people are running their software. It doesn’t get much bigger than a new version of Windows though, and with the recent debate on the evilness of the OS, and Microsoft itself (an always living topic), Vista is a bomb in the blogosphere.

I was going to link to a bunch of interesting posts for people who want to dive into the Vista coverage, but Blogger’s Blog have made a great listing so you should just check that one out instead.

Personally, I haven’t updated to Vista, and I won’t for some time either. There’s no doubt that it’s a great OS, no matter what you think about Microsoft their track record with XP, being stable and all, is promising and nothing points to Vista being severely flawed. Sure, there will be bugs to fix and security holes to close, but that’s the case with every OS out there. Microsoft is getting it hard because they rule the OS industry and making a truckload of money on it. That’s fine with me, keep them on their toes, criticize security problems and whatnot, but don’t go all fanboy flamewar on them. That’s lame.

I digress. Read real in-depth stuff via Blogger’s Blog.

Have you updated?

Originally posted on January 31, 2007 @ 2:44 am

This was expected. AOL’s intentions to trim the Weblogs blog network portfolio has been known for some time. Unless I’m missing anything, diving blog Divester is the first one to go though.

AOL, Divester’s parent company, has decided to retire several of its smaller, less profitable long-running blogs at the end of the month. Unfortunately, Divester is one of those blogs.

I don’t want to paint AOL off as a big bad wolf for doing this. It’s all about business, and if Divester just isn’t doing well enough then the focus it surely requires should be shifted elsewhere. However, if I was AOL I would be gracious enough to offer the editorial crew of the blogs being closed down to buy it for a decent price calculated from the blog revenue. Perhaps they will, but I kind of doubt that.

Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, Inc., says he has approached AOL regarding buying Divester back, to no success so far it would seem.

Originally posted on January 30, 2007 @ 1:48 am

I still think it’s a really silly name, WTF. Where’s the Fire. No, I don’t like it.

Ever wonder why something is sooooo popular? Why are the hot topics hot? WTFs explain the buzz around people, things, and events. Who writes these WTFs? You do! Anyone can write one on any topic, and everyone can vote for the best explanations. The ones with the most votes rise up and the dreck sinks. Let millions of other people benefit from your genius… no blog required!

OK, so now Technorati is jumping on the user content bandwagon, going from tracking content elsewhere (blogs) to providing space for actual content online. And then add Digg functionality.

I’m not impressed. Actually, I’m pretty bored with WTF already, but I won’t be ruling it out already. Still, I wonder who will use this, since the Technorati crowd is blogger centered, so how are they going to get their users to blog on Technorati WTF when they can do it in their own turf? Most people are having a hard time cranking out their own blog posts as it is, so why would they want to do it for someone else, for free?

To me this feels like a mismatch.

Originally posted on February 1, 2007 @ 1:32 am

It appears that Technorati is getting ready to launch a Digg clone called WTF. Steve Rubel has screenshots, and tells us that WTF stands for Where’s The Fire, which I sincerely hope (but doubt) is a project name.

Apparently the WTF service was available for a short period of time yesterday, but displays a 404 now. Exciting!

So why? I don’t know. Why would a link tracking service like Technorati want to add direct user integration like this, and how will it complement the links from blogs on various stories? Time will tell, I guess, to say it’s a bit sketchy at the moment is a gross understatement.

Originally posted on January 31, 2007 @ 1:23 am