Tuesday, February 21, 2006



Progress celebrates Pyrrhic victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coaches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it.
-Karl Kraus, The Discovery of the North Pole

It's as if there were an A-list of a few extremely lucky, well-trafficked blogs--then hordes of people stuck on the B-list or C-list, also-rans who can't figure out why their audiences stay so comparatively puny no matter how hard they work. "It just seems like it's a big in-party," one blogger complained to me. ... Coda - The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom

The Blog, The Press, The Media: How to Almost Live on Blogging
It's easier than ever to earn money blogging. But it's not a recipe for quitting your day job, says the author of a new book on keyword advertising. Wired News interview by Joanna Glasner

Enter a Google search for Harold Davis, and some resulting links will inevitably lead you back to Google.
As the author of two books on Google, operator of a blog called Googleplex and longtime user of Google's keyword advertising program, Davis is among the more hard-core followers of the popular search site.


Google Advertising Tools: Googleplex blog [ Googleplex ; ]
• · What's the best way to bring digital tools to young people in the developing world? One Laptop Per Child? One Cellphone Per Child? One Simputer Per Child? The race to bridge the digital divide is heating up Building something that can pass Koffi Annan's cursory inspection ;
• · · When social values collide, the results can be cataclysmic. But for the internet to become a true force of democratization, we must accept that we'll all be offended by it eventually In Defense of the Culture Clash ; Sam Decker, a veteran marketing and e-commerce pro from Dell, wound up at Bazaarvoice
• · · · For awhile, I've wanted to combat the news overdose by summarizing the day's stories in 10 words or less. Here's a first stab, from MediaPost's Online Media Daily: Today's Online Ad News: 10 Words or Less; The Internet makes markets more efficient and people more free, says Milton Friedman. It’s the best means we have to foster globalization Free Markets and the End of History
• · · · · Tim Blair is currently doubled up with laughter about the fact that someone submitted a Leunig drawing to an Iranian newspaper running a Holocaust cartoon competition. As I say, Tim Blair thinks all this is hilarious, though he was somewhat less keen to see the funny side a while back when he accused blogger Tim Lambert of misappropriating his work. Alarmed and amused ; If Australia is to keep pace with international production trends and to provide viewers with the range and quality of television experienced around the rest of the world, argues the committee, then now is the time to get serious about getting digital Digital television: who's buying it?
• · · · · · Digital TV growth and policy ; Whistleblowers, and governments, need more protection ; Last year in May bloggers and Crikey were warning Qantas managent about staff rorting. Nothing new under the Finnish sun ... Is Qantas in business for staff or customers? All things being equal, we read in the AFR that CEO Geoff Dixon is determined to remain at the helm until the beijing games are over. So expect more much More staff troubles for Qantas -- More worries for Qantas than its profit