Both Google and Yahoo launched their mapping APIs at the Where 2.0 conference yesterday. You can read more about Yahoo Maps Web Services here and the Google Maps API here. You can also read Yahoo Web services evangelist Jeffrey McManus explain why the Yahoo product is better here. The most obvious difference is that Yahoo enables you to fetch maps by street address whereas Google allows only latitude and longitude. Unfortunately neither of them seem to permit me to use their maps within an internal application we have at work, since that would constitute private commercial use.

I’m going to have to do some digging to figure out how Yahoo’s newly announced My Web 2.0 differs from del.icio.us.

Update: Andy Baio has a rundown of what’s cool about My Web 2.0.

Ed Felten believes that BitTorrent would be safe based on his reading of the Grokster decision.

Tony Judt’s latest NYRB article on the state of things will keep you up at night. I’d pull some quotes, but the article is too wide ranging to effectively sum up with a quote. The subject is, of course, the “war on terror” and its consequences for this country.

Chris Allbritton is back in Iraq after vacation, and reports that things are not looking good. Cynical as I am, I was surprised to read that the airport road is worse than ever. I find the fact that we have not been able to secure this one road, which has gotten so much attention, to be a strong indicator that things are more or less completely out of control.

The Boston Globe has an article on people who are promoting products on the weblogs for cash. I guess I could write something about the credibility of the medium here, but if you haven’t already clued into the fact that there is no “credibility of the medium” when it comes to weblogs, it’s probably too late for you. The truth is that just like everything else, you have to rate the credibility of weblogs on a case by case basis. For what it’s worth, I’ve never been paid to say anything I’ve said here. Heck, I don’t even promote my own books very well. I have been shipped a few free computer books by a certain editor who’s a regular reader, and I specifically asked whether it was his intention that I review them for the site, and he said no. I had wanted to write about some of them anyway but I don’t think I ever got around to it.

Update: You can find a list of shillers using a Technorati search.

Dare Obasanjo points out that first Yahoo and now Apple have added proprietary tags to RSS in the process of adding podcasting support to their sites. I don’t believe either vetted their extensions with the community before releasing them. It seems to me that the probable solution is for the community to figure out a way to handle the functionality provided by these extensions in a standard way and then just transform the XML based on what’s requesting it.

Commenting on the same Joe Kraus blog entry about interviewing engineers that I mentioned last week, Nelson Minar says that about:blank is the start page for Yoda engineers. I like that.

Cameron Marlow, the creator of Blogdex, is working on his disseration, and if you’re a blogger, he needs your help:

The Supreme Court released its decision in MGM v Grokster this morning. The court ruled 9-0 that MGM can sue Grokster for copyright infringement perpetrated by its users. The implications of the decision are being discussed here at SCOTUSblog.

Update: Susan Crawford says that the BrandX decision, about which I know nothing, is more important than Grokster. Guess I have some reading to do.