Are You An Intelligent Writer?

Call yourself a writer? Consider yourself intelligent? The Atlantic needs the world’s 300 smartest humans to write essays for their websites. This would be one serious gig. It’s not precisely blogging, but it may further the profession of blogging as a result. That is, other media outlets are very likely to follow suit, opening up even more opportunities.

Analyzing Digg

Three Georgia Tech students have done what appears to be a fairly indepth study into Digg, interviewing a number of top Diggers about their socializing and digging behavior. It is a fairly long paper, and I’ve admittedly only scanned it. Most of the Diggers they interviewed seem quite young, with maybe the exception of blogger extraordinaire Om Malik.

The paper seems to focus on the socializing amongst top Diggers, not so much on things like the Digg effect. There is a section on “Deviant Behavior”, referring to the small group of increasingly nasty commenters. It also mentions that the Diggers interviewed cover a spectrum of religions and locations around the world (and ages, too, though the majority of the top Diggers mentioned appear to be under 30.

If you read between the lines of the report, I at least get the impression that while there may not be an actual “Digg mafia” burying posts, it almost seems that there really are a few subgroups who are intentionally promoting certain causes. (I’m not saying these are bad causes, just pointing out a concerted effort.)

Sidenote: While 901am’s Muhammad Saleem is not mentioned in the paper, he is in the bibliography.

WebEx Now Part of Cisco

WebEx, the web conferencing software that you’ve probably used at some point, to view a software or other demo online, is now part of Cisco. So Cisco is going beyond networking hardware and software and getting into the telepresence market [via PaidContent]. The business could generate a billion in revenues. WebEx already had US$380M in sales, so Om Malik thinks that the $3.2B Cisco spent is a smart move, and possibly a competitive gambit against Microsoft.

Originally posted on March 15, 2007 @ 9:57 pm

In the wake of Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against Google, the company’s lawyers have said that not only are their actions completely within the protection offered by the Digital Millinnium Copyright Act, but that they are ready to defend the company aggressively.

“Here there is a law which is specifically designed to give Web hosts such as us, or… bloggers or people that provide photo-album hosting online … the ‘safe harbor’ we need in order to be able to do hosting online,” said Alexander Macgillivray, Google’s associate general counsel for products and intellectual property. “We will never launch a product or acquire a company unless we are completely satisfied with its legal basis for operating,” Macgillivray told Reuters in an interview.

Read more.

Originally posted on March 15, 2007 @ 2:45 pm

AMD To Compete With Apple’s iTV?
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has a new technology, active-TV, that will wirelessly stream content from a computer in one room to a TV in another. It uses a remote control but also requires a set-top box or other device – connected to the TV set – which will be loaded with special software. [via ComputerWorld] So far, it doesn’t sound like much of a threat to the Apple iTV.

Money For Nothing: Going To Digital TV
The US government will be spending about US$1.5B to help consumers convert their televisions to receive digital broadcasts. Consumers will receive up to two $40 coupons. Each coupon will defray the $50 cost of a converter. All this is in preparation for the end of analog TV broadcasts in Feb 2009. [via NY Times (reg required)]

Battlestar Galactica Homebrew Site
All you fracking Battlestar Galactica fans can now upload your own homebrew videos to a special area on the Sci Fi website. What’s more, they’re giving you 20 a/v effects to play with, for various digital formats. One fan video will be aired on an upcoming episode.

Money For Nothing: Online Video Sites
Light Reading has a list of 75 video sharing sites, and point the ones that are sharing revenue with contributors. [via TVover.net] If you’re looking to get a bit of a return on your short films, check out this list. Also, don’t forget to check out the online video festival site Short Movement by 901am’s Minic Rivera.

Originally posted on March 14, 2007 @ 5:38 pm

The Hollywood Reporter reports that the Vatican will launch a TV network to bring news and original entertainment worldwide. The network, called H2O, will be available in seven languages and will not be “destructive”, as Pope Benedict XVI criticized the media of being a while back.

The idea is to launch H2O by the end of the year. Hopefully they’ll broadcast online as well so that everyone can take a closer look at what a Vatican powered TV network looks like, and therefore get to know how media should be to not be destructive.

Then again, who cares if they broadcast online. It will all end up on YouTube anyway, and then the Vatican will sue and the Pope will declare it immoral or something. Right?

Originally posted on March 14, 2007 @ 1:59 am

Democracy Player to Change Names
Video junkies that haven’t heard of the very cool, configurable, near-programmable Democracy Player should now look for Miro. Nicholas Reville explains the name change. Interesting to note: Cory Doctorow, science fiction writer and co-founder of Boing Boing, is on the board of directors and had original tried to talk the company out of the name Democracy Player. No dis to Cory, but I like the name and am disappointed in the change to Miro. Not to mention, the current site’s homepage is a PR7 (pagerank).

But then, Joost started off life as The Venice Project. Maybe Babelgum will change their name too. Is this going to be the new cool activity for 2007? At least Topix.net (which has nothing to do with video) is only switching over to .com.

Washington Post Buys MBA Student’s Site
These sorts of stories are great to hear. An MBA student, Zoey Rawlins, at the University of Maryland set up a website called Shop DC (now DC Scout). She used US$7,000 in seed money from a student entrepreneurial program at the Robert H. Smith School of Business. Now, the Washington Post bought her site, though she says she’s still running the show.

That’s a smart move for the Post. Now, normally, $7,000 is excessive for starting a website, but it was an ecommerce site, if I understand correctly. The really nice thing is that Rawlins is paying it forward by planning to use some of the proceeds of the sale (terms undisclosed) to help other entrepreneurs at the school.

Media Mogul’s Trial Today
Canadian-born media mogul Conrad Lord Black is being tried in Chicago today in US Federal court on fraud charges. The Chicago Sun-Times publisher, John Cruickshank, promised to be fair to Black. If Lord Black gets convicted, I’m just wondering if future mothers will be waggling their finger at their baby media moguls, telling them to behave or end up like Black.

Originally posted on March 14, 2007 @ 2:21 pm