Amidst the political consternation of who knew what and when they knew it about you-know-who (hint: recently resigned Congressman), some sound business advice rises to the top of the blogosphere in the form of today's most-cited blog post, "Top Ten Geek Business Myths" from a scientist-turned-venture-capitalist blogger at Rondam Ramblings. "Outstanding," is one blogger's review. "Particularly useful" for those of us who still think having an idea is the essence of business success," writes Open Business. "It actually isn’t."

Election buzz
A BlogPulse trend graph examines references to voting Democratic or voting Republican in conjunction with the mid-term elections on Nov. 7. Do you suppose it's the Foley effect?

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 02:12 PM

If you want to know how online consumers, including those in the blogosphere, are having an impact on today's advertising industry, check out a new blog, Engagement by Engagement, launched by Nielsen BuzzMetrics as part of the upcoming Consumer Engagement conference, co-sponsored by the Advertising Research Foundation and American Association of Advertising Agencies next week (Advertising Week) in New York City.

The blog is led by Nielsen BuzzMetrics' own Max Kalehoff (VP Marketing), CMO Pete Blackshaw and and others, but submissions (short! pithy!) are being accepted from others with something to say about advertising (send an email to Max at max (dot) kalehoff (at) buzzmetrics.com.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:19 PM

One of the great things about blogging is the opportunity to share wisdom and experiences, and BlogPulse features two great examples today.

One of this week's top blog posts and most-cited links comes from Odeo, Inc. founder Evan Williams at the evhead blog. That's where he shares his "Ten Rules for Web Startups," with advice ranging from "be narrow" to "be picky" to "be greedy." Although it has shades of the late 1990s, it's rooted in experience that other bloggers find helpful. "An excellent post packed full of purpose," says DevDawn. "Great real-world advice and insight," agrees Dig Tank.

Tender moments...and passings
Blogs also serve as sources of intimacy, sharing and condolence, and such is the case in Byzantium's Shores, which chronicles the death of Kelly Sedinger's child, Quinn, who had struggled with various health problems for his short life. It's touching, heartfelt and tender, and the Buffalo blogger has received personal sympathies from across the blogosphere. "Deepest condolences," offers Apostropher. And as Sedlinger himself notes: "I'd like to thank everyone who has dropped by and left good wishes either in the comments or in my e-mail. Words may seem inadequate to you, but to me, I treasure each and every one of them. Warren Ellis occasionally likes to note that 'The Internet is made of people,' and that is absolutely true."

Other Blog Notes
California Congressman Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham is among the week's burstiest people, now that the Republican has resigned for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors. More than one blogger noted the occasion with a headline along the lines of "another one bites the dust." And from memeland, (memes are specific threads or interfaces that bloggers pass around freely through links), comes this one from a LiveJournal blogger, titled "how to stop rape." Originally posted Nov. 21, it's gaining traction this week.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:36 AM

Judging by today's blog discussions, you'd think that nearly everyone in Washington D.C. is or has been involved in clandestine, secret, closed-door, anonymous-source meetings, and has been doing so for a long time.

Washington Post editor (and Watergate reporter) Bob Woodward is today's burstiest person and third most-discussed personality for revealing that one of his sources (still unnamed) told him Valerie Plame/Wilson was a CIA operative almost a month before now-indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby allegedly told New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald a bumbling Clousea? wonders Wizbang blog? Will the late admission tarnish Woodward's reputation? wonders The Moderate Voice. Promethus 6 points out that Libby's been indicted for obstructing justice, not leaking anyone's name. Which raises the point: who WAS Woodward's source (hmmmm...where have we heard that question before?)

A BlogPulse trend graph tracks Woodward-related buzz in May (when Deep Throat's identity as the secret Watergate source was revealed) and now:



More secret meetings: oil execsToday's second most-shared news story details what some have suspected for a while: that leading oil company executives met with Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force in 2001, according to documents uncovered by the Washington Post, despite repeated denials from Cheney (today's top key phrase) and the execs. "No wonder we're running out of oil," comments the Sierra Club; the blogger at Thoughts of an Average Woman is outraged.

Google...again
But what's utmost on bloggers' minds? Google, of course, which this week launched Google Base (today's top blog post), a new service allowing users to load content (including free classified ads, job postings, etc.) to Google's database. "Yuck" and "ugly," says TechCrunch; a "major undertaking," says John Battelle at SearchBlog; "time will tell" says SearchEngineWatch.

Foreign media only?
>Can't help but notice that only foreign media, particularly the BBC, (today's 9th-most-cited news story) have been covering the use of "white phosphorus" (a flesh-burning agent, similar to napalm) by U.S. troops during the assault on Fallujah. We've found the chemical weapons, says twistedchick at Free Speech Zone...and they're ours?

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:36 AM

It's Halloween today, and for those who want to have a little fun, today's No. 5 top blog post offers us a cornucopia of recipes for Halloween-themed dishes, such as Buttered Brains (using spaetzle) and roasted pumpkins seeds (for anyone who saves the pumpkin guts). Speaking of pumpkin guts, if you prefer a virtual pumpkin, carve one digitally at today's No. 13 top link. And speaking of OTHER guts, who knew "Saw II" would have such a great weekend at the box office? Halloween enthusiasts, obviously:



Indictment fallout
The Booman Tribune, (appropriately named as today's top blog post), offers one of many assessments of last Friday's indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Joining the discussion is former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose Los Angeles Times column "Our 27 Months of Hell" (today's No. 10 blog post) discusses what's ahead for his now-outed wife. Other reaction ranges from calls for Karl Rove to be fired or resign while the investigation continues, to Don Surber's analysis of what he calls a "dumb case."

Curiosities in blogging
Bloggers did a curious thing over the weekend: attacked (No. 2. top blog post for Saturday) and chewed up (No. 4) a Forbes magazine article titled "Attack of the Bloggers" (Saturday's No. 19 top news story; registration required). From here, seems like PR pro Jeremy Pepper took the high-road perspective at WebProNews.

Blogosophere here and there
Prince Charles will try to talk some sense into President George Bush about Islam, the TaxProfBlog takes a look at oil company profits and their effect on taxation, battle lines already are being drawn over President Bush's latest nomination for the Supreme Court and Trekkies are absorbing last week's announcement that George "Mr. Sulu" Takei is gay.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:19 AM

Battle lines are being drawn today on several fronts: continued conservative hand-wringing vs. liberal confusion over President's Bush's nomination of his lawyer friend Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court (still today's most blogged-about personality), and Google's decision to take on Microsoft's Office suite. That's right, let's get ready to rumble!

But before we get into the meat of the issues, let's take a time out for this Internet first (today's No. 24 top blog post): the first Internet marriage proposal via search engine. Will Ask Jeeves will put its now-unemployed butler to work at the wedding reception?

In this corner, Google...
So is Google really putting together the services and brains to offer its own version of Microsoft Office? Navel Contemplation is just one blogger looking forward to the possibility. Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble describes the move as "interesting times" and offers a video link to the new MS Office 12. "Huge news," says The Stalwart. How do the two computer/search giants compare in blog buzz?



Technical briefs
Other techie news today: the introduction of a social-networking tool called Ning, (today's No. 2 top link) and Jakob Nielsen's Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005. (Granted, usability is his forte, but perhaps he should consider this Design 101: "too much text and no graphics makes for a dull page.")

The Miers thing
There's plenty of teeth-gnashing and head-scratching over the Miers Supreme Court nomination, and we'll just assume it'll go on for a loooooooong time. Reactions today range from Patrick Ruffini's "Coalition of the Chillin' (Supreme Court division)" campaign to David Sirota's Huffington Post essay on cronyism gone amok, from George Will's reasons for Congress to say no to Miers' nomination to plenty of blog citations of Alexander Hamilton No. 76.

Passings...
Heaven must be turning into a funny place, what with Get Smart's Don Adams, who died Sept. 25, now joined by comedian Nipsey Russell, who died this week at 82 from cancer, and British comedian Ronnie Barker, who died Monday at age 76.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:57 AM

Bloggers become big-hearted in times of peril, and, as was the case yesterday, their chatter is full of news and concern about Hurricane Katrina, which cut a path of ruin across the Gulf Coast. News stories about the hurricane dominate our Top Links today, with the no. 1 being a newspaper blog with blow-by-blow reports about the storm. "Terrific journalism," says this blogger. CNN Anchor Miles O'Brien also has a blog in our top links, and no. 7 is this New Orleans webcam. The warm response of bloggers to crises has become the norm, whether it's a tsunami, a terrorist attack or a hurricane: As in those times, one of our top links shows people how to make donations to the Red Cross.

Bad Words And Coffee
Even hurricanes can't keep controversy out of the blogosphere, as evidenced by a few of the other things that popped up in BlogPulse today — a school in England will allow students to curse at teachers up to five times during a lesson. A parent calls this "ludicrous" and bloggers are agreeing. "This is a policy that will, of course, prepare these students for the real world. Where cussing at your boss or co-workers will likely not be tolerated at all," writes the aptly named Say Anything blog. Then there's this story, about a conservative group objecting to a quote on a Starbucks cup about being gay, prompting Zero Boss to ask if they're mixing their messages: "For months I've been seeing this ad on conservative blogs which shows a picture of Hilary Clinton with a cup of espresso, with the text railing against "latte-sipping liberals". How many fundamentalists even buy designer coffee? An economic boycott of Starbucks by the far-right wing would cost the company, what, $40?"

Posted by Philip Ewing at 11:17 AM

Remember Burger King's Subservient Chicken? The burger chain has built on the chicken's success with another web-driven campaign called Sith Sense, a Star Wars tie-in where online users try to stump Darth Vader by playing an online version of 20 Questions. Blogger Jeremy Wright at Ensight describes his encounter with the Dark Side, and Microsoft's Robert Scoble points out how many times he's been sent the link by fellow bloggers.

A similar "viral" blog, called PostSecret, has been active for several months...a place where bloggers can write their most intimate secrets (anonymously) and post them online for the world to see. The Sith Sense took off when "Revenge of the Sith" hit the theaters May 19, while PostSecret has chugged along on its own:



"Bad" Books
Today's top link ought to make every library patron shiver to the core: a list of the top 10 "worst" books, as ranked by leading conservative scholars (only one woman?). Among the books: Mein Kampf, The Kinsey Report, The Feminine Mystique and Beyond Good and Evil. (Maybe they just don't like politics OR sex?)

Deep Throat, Cont.'d
From obscurity to top spot -- that's where former FBI honcho Mark Felt finds himself just two days after revealing he was the "Deep Throat" source for the Washington Post's Watergate coverage. Other Deep Throat sightings: the Post's Bob Woodward offers his take on the revelation. Vanity Fair outlines its scoop of the year. Wikipedia has an updated entry on Felt's revelation, and the blogger at Politics Schmolitics notes that even non-Watergate-era folks can consider Felt a whistleblower hero.

Blogging at Yahoo!
Yahoo! has published its guidelines for employees who want to blog, and the Ink-Stained Banana blog describes it as "wonderfully transparent."

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:07 AM

John Bolton, the man nominated to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, breaks into the top five blogged-about personalities, no doubt because senators sent his name to the full senate for a vote but shied away from endorsing him on Thursday.

Another Bush appointtee, Dr. David Hager, (today's burstiest person), member of an FDA women's reproductive health advisory committee, is again in the news for claiming he wrote the minority memo that kept the agency from approving over-the-counter emergency contraception. (Hager's long been a subject of e-mail petitions because of his extremely conservative views about women).

Lotsa Web tools
Topping the list of today's links is the BBC's recently announced the test version of BackStage, a developer network that allows users to build their own news content. (BlogPulse is happy because it's offered as one of the built-in tracking features for the project).

Bloggers are also sharing the release of Mozilla 1.0.4, the Pew Typology Test for determing red or blue status, and Funny Fox promotional videos touting officer users' reactions to Firefox. Google and Dodgeball.com, menawhile, have teamed up for online networking/meet-ups.

Unanswered questions
Comedian Dave Chappelle is a topic of speculation for news-based rumors that he is seeking mental health treatment. (Could be true.....or is this a Comedy Central-staged scam?)

And how many folks next Thursday will call in sick with a case of "sith-itis"?

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 07:39 AM

Where to start today? How about at today's top link, which takes you to the blog of Jason Kottke, who's quitting his real job to do blogging/web stuff full-time...and is asking for everyone else to donate to his cause to make it financially viable. (Hint Hint, Wink Wink: BlogPulse's address is available on the Intelliseek web site in case anyone cares to "donate" to my "cause").

Also quitting is Korn's rocker guitarist Brian "Head" Welch, who has found religion and is leaving the rock scene to pursue it. He helped co-found the band in the early 1980s.

Stirring up the blogosphere this week is journalist Ted Rall, who's obviously not making any blogger friends for describing what he feels is happening in the land of blogging. Everyone's titlted to an opinion, right?

And the folks at Apple Computers are getting more attention with their 6 GB iPod Mini and 30-60 GB version of iPod Photo. Both rank among today's top 5 key phrases.

On the legal front, attention is focused on two difficult issues: the rights of private developers to use eminent domain laws for a private development (heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this week, and isn't eminent domain supposed to be for "public use" projects?) and the ongoing Florida saga of Terry Schiavo, whose husband has tried for years to be able to remove the feeding tube from the comatose woman.

And the winner is....well, the winners are many in the 2004 Koufax blog awards. Other techie winners are singled out by Mobile PC's Top 100 Gadgets of All Time." (Without reading the list first, I was preparing a joke about the incredulous absence of Ron Popeil and Ronco products....until I actually READ the list and found the Popeil Pocket Fisherman at No. 92 and the Ronco Inside-the-egg Scrambler at 84. Egg on my face). The No. 1 Gadget? Apple's 1991 Powerbook.

BLOGPULSE TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY:Is it spring yet? Almost, given that baseball's spring training camps have opened and March Madness buzz is building. So which spring sports are foremost on the minds of bloggers? Leave it to soccer.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:13 AM

Carly Fiorina is today's burstiest BlogPulse personality after being booted from the CEO's office at Hewlett-Packard.

And someone who used the name Jeff Gannon to gain press credentials to White House briefings has also been outed by bloggers as a Republican operative. Gannon's now-shuttered web site is terse. But today's Blogosphere includes more info from Daily Kos and a letter to the White House from Congresswoman Louise Slaughter demanding an explanation.

But the cultural values issue of the day is: underpants! That's right, the state of Virginia is considering a bill that would levy a $50 fine on anyone whose underwear is exposed in a "lewd or indecent" manner. Two Virginia legislators -- Lionell Spruill Sr. against it and Algie T. Howell for it-- climbed into the Top 10 bursty people list today because of the attention the bill's getting. Here's what boggles the mother in me: Most teen fashion statements (backwards overalls, tight-roll jeans, midriff shirts, M.C. Hammer parachute pants, platform shoes, etc.) tend to boom and fade in a matter of months, no matter which generation sports them. How has this "show your boxers" phenomenon lasted for YEARS?

Random stuff: Someone somewhere has created an ebonics version of Google called Gizoogle (the search function actually works), and if you've ever hankered for a moon walk of your own (on the real moon), check out these Apollo mission images from Panoramas.

BLogPulse Trend Graph of the Day: Is the President's campaign to overhaul Social Security getting traction?

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 11:18 AM

Happy Thanksgiving to all BlogPulse visitors. May your turkey be plump, may your gravy be lump-less and may the relatives who voted/leaned differently from you in the Presidential election be, shall we say, tactful?

First, to the news of the swim-in-the-ocean sharks, or the Jaws vs. Flipper match-up. Seems a great white shark was drooling over a group of New Zealand swimmers back in October. Out of nowhere, a group of dolphins surrounded the swimmers and protected them for up to 40 minutes, until they could swim to shore. The judges award points to Flipper.

On the economic front, it's more of a Bulls vs. Bears vs. Doomsayers confrontation, judging by Wednesday's top link. The Boston Herald is reporting that Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach, in a private meeting to which the press was not invited, is predicting an economic "Armageddon" soon because of America's tailspinning dollar, growing trade deficit and increasing household debt. And maybe pending bankruptcies. Happy 2005?

Numerous bloggers are taking credit for the downfall of CBS veteran newsman Dan Rather, who announced this week he's giving up the anchor's chair at the network but will remain an investigative reporter.

For today's grins, Colin Purrington at Swarthmore College has taken on the Christian/religious community and its continued assault on the nation's science textbooks and curricula. This page of textbook disclaimer stickers offers a variety of alternative stickers for parents/idealogues interested in protecting their children from disinformation of any kind. (Only the first sticker in the bunch is an actual sticker now pasted on actual textbooks). Which explains this as well.

Remember when U.S. troops were rolling into Bagdhad during the early days of the U.S. invasion of Iraq? How every street, every building, every public park had huge photos, images, paintings and statues of Saddam Hussein? Does this Florida billboard strike anyone as oddly reminiscent? Even a little bit creepy? It's sponsored by Clear Channel Communications, a worldwide organization that owns 700,000 billboards and 1,356 radio stations. (Do you suppose any of them broadcast Air America?)

Other quick finds: voters who still aren't happy with November's election results are plotting a Turn Your Back on Bush happening during inauguration festivities in D.C. And that grilled cheese sandwich with the supposed image of the Virgin Mary? That solitary sandwich sold for $28,000 on eBay. Honest. One sandwich. $28,000. (Hey! Maybe a bunch of government-sponsored sandwiches on eBay could raise enough money to stave off economic Armagedon?)

TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: The long Thanksgiving weekend is always a good time for avoiding the shopping crowds by catching a flick or two. So which action director gets more buzz in the blogosphere: George, Steven or Quentin?

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 10:34 AM

Tuesday's top BlogPulse phrases should give everyone a reason to pause and think about the line that separates what's claimed as reality from true reality. Take charter schools, for instance. This week's Department of Education report finds that students in charter schools -- despite ongoing claims of better education and specialized attention -- perform worse than comparable students in public schools on basic tasks such as reading and math. Which begs the question: which children are being left behind?

And there's all sorts of chatter about New York Times editorialist Paul Krugman's "Saving the Vote" column, which raises doubts about the veracity of the votes that will be cast in Florida (and elsewhere) in the November election. Especially votes cast on electronic voting machines without even those pesky hanging chads as evidence a vote was cast. Let's hope those international observers coming to the U.S. can assure us that our own elections are tamper-proof.

And what's happening to Appalachia? Or to those Quakers in Colorado who had FBI agents knocking on their doors recently? Or the poor little First Communion recipient whose sacrament has been invalidated (for lack of a better word) because she got a wheatless wafer. (Hmmmm...what WOULD Jesus do in that case? Get bureaucratic on a little kid?)

Time for lunch. All this pondering and wondering what's real and what's not makes my head spin....

TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: And how about those Olympics? How are the Olympic games stacking up against other sporting events? Pretty well.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:37 PM

"Let private enterprise do it." That pretty much summed up the sentiment when private investors this week blasted a rocket into space and landed it safely in the Mojave Desert in California. The X-Prize Foundation is offering money to the group that pulls off the first privately financed manned space flight. Pilot Mike Melvill appeared among June 21's bursty people, and many of Monday's top-appearing phrases included the White Knight Jet that launched the rocket into space; Scaled Composites, the company that pulled it off; and Burt Rutan, the company's owner. Off we go, indeed.

Government intelligence-related links and phrases keep appearing with regularity, and Monday's second-most cited key phrase makes one wonder about the amount of intelligence (or lack of it?) that goes into background checks for politcal appointees. Seems Thomas B. Griffith, a Bush Administration nominee for a federal appeals court seat, has been practicing without a state law license in Utah for four years -- a habit he apparently developed during a similar three-year no-license stint in Washington D.C.

And dare I go out on a limb and admit that I actually liked playing dodgeball, lo, those many years ago in elementary school? Dodgeball the movie, which ranked first at the box office in its opening weekend, kept actor and Dodgeball star Ben Stiller alive among this week's key people in the blogosphere.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:39 PM

Who or what is Dooh Nibor and why are references to him/her/it suddenly showing up in BlogPulse? Seems that New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman's June 1 piece about Bush's economic and tax policies is being passed around and linked liberally among bloggers (2nd on the bursty people list, 4th on the bursty phrase list). "Dooh Nibor" is Robin Hood spelled backwards, and it's Krugman's way of describing the Bush Administration's tax and spending policies that, in his opinion, represent "a large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the very affluent." You know, steal from the rich, give to the poor...only backwards.


Also getting some play is a movement called Spirit of America, which is the top BlogPulse link for June 1. It's an organization promoting and organizing "informal humanitarian activities" by Americans for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. These are good-hearted folks teaching Afghan children how to play baseball, collecting plumbing and electrical supplies for Iraqi contractors, rounding up sporting goods and academic supplies for schools and orphanages...and open to any ideas from the general public. If you're asking yourself, "But what can I do about these foreign conflicts?"...Spirit of America has some ideas.

On the media front, which news outlets are linked to most often in the blogosphere? June 1 tallies show the Washington Post with six of the Top 40 Links, with NewsMax.com, Time.com, the Baltimore Sun, Public Broadcasting System, San Jose Mercury News, New York Daily News and CNN.com in the media mix.

Posted by Sue MacDonald at 02:26 PM