John Robb says that Google’s decision to add content modification features to their toolbar via Auto Links could give Microsoft the ammunition to kill them. I’m not sure I agree, but it’s an interesting thought. Update: Ed Felten says that Google’s Auto Links don’t cross the line in terms of damaging publishers.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been following the debate about Larry Summers’ comments regarding the lack of women in the science and engineering fields with interest, mainly because it seems like every big brained person around has weighed in. The debate has encompassed gender differences, differences in how men and women are treated in the workplace, and academic freedom, and much of it has been fascinating. Of particular interest are the comments of Richard Posner, Brad DeLong, and William Saletan. My own opinion on whether there are biological differences in aptitude between men and women? I honestly have no idea, and I have no idea how you’d prove the case for either side. One thing that comes out is that Summers did himself a great disservice by keeping the transcript under wraps for as long as he did. Rarely do people sound as bad in context as they do when they’re taken out of context. Summers should have published the transcript as soon as his comments became news. ...
The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC), my local paper, takes on bloggings by way of the Public Editor’s column. The writer, Ted Vaden, drops this bomb toward the bottom of the column: (There aren't many good local sites yet, but for an example, check out OrangePolitics.org, a lefty look at Chapel Hill politics.) That hurts. It really does. I won’t feel personally insulted, though, because I rarely bring up my locale. ...
Jay Rosen has many interesting things to say about the New York Times acquisition of About.com. He also explains the weblog approach to search engine optimization: And they're finding themselves without much knowledge of how to show up in search. I'm a blogger, not a company. I couldn't tell you if this page has the proper meta-data-- or any. My search engine optimization method is to get a lot of links by writing something original and useful that people will elect to recommend at their own sites. It works (sometimes.) But only because my links don't expire. Anil Dash has already proven that this approach works. For what it's worth, Anil's entry is still the number one result in Google for nigritude ultramarine.
Rogers Cadenhead looks at the new AutoLinks feature of the Google Toolbar and rules it overly invasive.
Hunter S. Thompson died yesterday, via self inflicted gunshot wound. Sad but not surprising.
It’s not because you can read a great “takedown” of someone in the MSM or because you can read a fine “fisking” of an op-ed that you didn’t care about in the first place. Rather, it’s because you can get the inside scoop on where Savile Row tailors hang out for a pint on Friday evenings, straight from a member of the species. Spotting tips included.
Google has ignited a bit of a tempest by including a feature in their new toolbar that creates links on Web pages by scanning the content. So, for example, if there’s a tracking number on a Web page, Google will create a link to the package tracking page for that number. Or if it finds an address, it will add a link to a map to that address. Needless to say, there are some issues here. If I’m an Amazon.com affiliate and the Google Toolbar creates links to the Barnes & Noble Web site when it finds ISBNs on my site, they could very well be taking money out of my pocket. On the other hand, if I’m visiting the Web site for a local restaurant and there’s an address on the home page, an immediate link out to a map definitely improves my user experience. The balance that has to be struck is that links are currency, and by adding alternatives to the links already on a site, Google is in some ways taking away from the people who created those sites. I think that in this case, the utility of the added links is outweighed by the interests of the people who created the Web sites in the first place. The two apt examples here seem to me to be Microsoft’s Smart Tags, which everybody is mentioning, and Gator, the spyware that popped up advertising relevant to the Web pages that you visited. For this whole Web thing to work, the browser companies (and, in this case, browser add-on companies) need to respect the people who build the Web sites. Update: Anil Dash argues the counterpoint. (So does Jason Levine.) ...
Jazz composer Maria Schneider won a Grammy Sunday night for an album that was distributed exclusively online. If this isn’t a prime example of the long tail at work, I don’t know what is. Jazz is very much a niche market, but I obviously I think she’s on the leading edge of a larger trend.
So tonight my wife and I tagged along to a meeting with a guy who’s running for the chairmanship of the Democratic party at the county level. He told us what his plans were, how he believed he could improve things, and why we should vote for him. I’m not used to anything related to local politics, so rather than talking about why we should preserve Social Security, or the dangers of teaching creationism, the discussion centered around whether the calendar should have more fundraisers than Valentine’s Day potluck. However, before we left, he told us that the one essential book everyone had to read was George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant because the future of the Democratic party depended upon it. He then gave one of the worst examples of reframing I had ever heard. What I found humorous about this was that last month Mark Schmitt wrote a post about this very book and the cult that has sprung up around it. Here’s what he said: ...