January 09, 2009 CES Buzz On The Rise As New Gadgets Are Unveiled
Blogosphere buzz around the Consumer Electronics Show is steadily increasing this week as consumers discuss the latest gadgets and gizmos being showcased, with more than 1.5 % of buzz volume on January 9th .
December 11, 2008 The Game is on this Holiday Season
With the holiday season in full swing, video game systems have been generating lots of buzz. Microsoft's Xbox has kept its edge over the Wii and Playstation 3, accounting for .25% of all blog discussion over the last week.
June 11, 2008 Apple iPhone experiences Big Buzz from Announcement
Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone with 3G capabilities and the blogosphere responded with big thumbs up! Blogpulse is sprinkled with references to it from the iPhone Ads in the top videos to the listings in the Top Blog Posts. Below is a chart showing the tremendous buzz the Apple announcement generated.
October 17, 2006 Cute Little Things That Change Culture
Happy (pending) Birthday, iPod! Steve Jobs' interview in Newsweek, (today's No. 2 most-cited news story) on the heels of the iPod's upcoming fifth anniversary, indicates not only how ga-ga bloggers can be over technology but how one little device changed the way people listen to music. This BlogPulse Trend graph illustrates how discussion about the iPod remains steady....at least until Apple announces new features/lineups/products (note the Sept. 13 announcement spike):
When I saw what today's most-cited link was (Apple/Mighty Mouse), I had a flashback to the days of "Captain Kangaroo" and the old Mighty Mouse cartoons, and yes, I realize I'm really dating myself with that reference. But today's Mighty Mouse reference is about Apple's new wireless mouse, not the flying cartoon hero who battled Crabby Appleton. Wired for Gadgets has more details, including the $70 price tag.
Random blog findings... Don't think tension is the Middle East is confined to the Middle East; one of today's top blog posts involves blogger coverage of a rally in Boston where tensions also ran high. Engadget reports that Parker Brothers' popular board game "Monopoly" has gone electronic, and Jay Rosen reports on latest idea-stage efforts to revamp journalism electronically (and monetarily) with the launch of NewAssignment.Net. Taking bets: will it succeed or flounder?
Videos and images are big in the blogosphere today, what with Gawker Media's video clip sites (take your pick) among today's most-cited blogs posts.
Video flashbacks Over at Pitchfork, they've culled YouTube.com for 100 Awesome Music Videos, which is also today's No. 5 most-cited phrase, so if you've wondered whatever happened to Adam and the Ants, or the Village People, or the Go Go's, knock yourselves out (for an entire day, says Box of Jack blogger, assuming you get addicted).
Suing MySpace Who's at fault when a 14-year-old and 19-year-old meet online for sex? Read the comments on this Austin American-Statesman article (today's No. 5 most-cited news story) about a Texas lawsuit filed against MySpace...and you'll find opinion overwhelmingly blaming MySpace users (and clueless parents?) for what transpires on the Internet. What would Willie Nelson say? "Mamas, don't let your children grow up to be naive..."
May 26, 2006 "Yay Taylor" Is Just one of Today's Blogosphere Surprises
Sometimes, you just gotta love technology. Like today, when BlogPulse's list of the most-discussed personalities in the blogosphere includes the name of "Yay Taylor," who isn't a person at all but rather a very common utterance among bloggers who typed a congratulatory "Yay, Taylor!" (or "yay! Taylor won...") on their blogs after singer Taylor Hicks (today's most-blogged personality) was crowned winner of "American Idol" Wednesday night. Yay, Taylor, indeed.
Happy Memorial Day! BlogPulse will continue to spit out data over the holiday weekend, and the Newswire blog will return next Tuesday. In the meantime, enjoy the holiday and whatever it brings...
May 24, 2006 Listen to Your Shoes, and Watch the Internet Tonight
Mark Twain said death and taxes were two of life's certainties, but so too, apparently is the march of technology, whether we want it to or not. Hence, today's No. 1-2 most-used phrases in blog discussions bring home the point: Google's AdWords program is now incorporating video, and the blogger at European Underachiever Tails has a demo and some questions about the program's impact. Will people click on more ads...or click away more?
May 10, 2006 Today, It's All About Gadgets, New and Old
Gadgets, they're everywhere...beeping, ringing, buzzing, vibrating, working behind the scenes in computers and cell phones and handheld everythings. And as today's No. 5 top blog post from Fosfor Gadgets points out, lots of them used to be a lot BIGGER than they are now. "Makes you feel like you're living the future already to compare them," says the Age of Aquariums LiveJournaler, to which I can only respond (having lived through all of them!), you're right. It IS the future. Appreciate it now, because it used to be a lot heavier AND slower. And baking a potato in the pre-microwave-everywhere 1970s used to take an hour. Honest.
April 25, 2006 The Thrill (Sigh) of Changing Political Stripes (Yet Again)
Oh sure, there's lots of unrest and frustration with today's political scene, and much of its capturedi n today's No. 2 most-cited blog post from Libercontrarian Nicholas Horianopoulos...about why he's' changing parties (again), this time from Libertarian to Independent. The comments are as insightful as Hornianpoulos' own disappointments.
Speaking of politics, we took a little BlogPulse poll, using the Trend Graph feature to track phrases that discuss the upcoming 2006 mid-term Congressional elections and the 2008 Presidential election. The Prez won.
Just for fun Hey ladies! Always forgetting somtehing important when you grab the purse and run out the door? Thought so, which is why Gizmodo's RFID-enabled pursue is featured in one of today's most-read blog posts. It was developed at Simon Fraser University in Canada (RFID stands for radio frequency identification, a technology that uses tiny transmitters/receivers to track the movement or locations of items (or, what beeps when you walk out of a store with one of those tags that the clerk forgot to deactivate when you bought it. Hopefully). That piece links to another technology-enabled service, the Get out of Date Free card from SecureSingles, which sends you a pre-programmed bow-out message if your date's not going so swell.
Care to dance, monkey? Some people are big-picture people, and that obviously applies to the creator of today's No. 10 most-cited link, Ernest Cline's Dance, Monkeys, Dance!" Anyone who attended grade school in the 1960s will remember the "ding!" sound from the film-strip format.
Up, up and away... And oh yeah: the phrase "gas prices" now has 49,701 blog results attached to it (and is the day's No. 24 most-cited phrase). Speaking of up and coming things, we turned to BlogPulse Trend Graphs today to gauge "buzz" about the upcoming 2006 Congressional mid-term elections and the 2008 Presidential election:
April 12, 2006 The Language...of Immigration Debates, Elections, Lost Hats and Beer-Flavored Ice Cream
The blog universe can be such a fickle place -- early in the week, liberal-leaning blogs were all over Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article about U.S. military plans for attacking Iran (since Sunday, it remains the blogosphere's top new story and most-cited link), while here at mid-week, conservative-leaning bloggers are all over the immigration rallies taking place throughout the U.S. But some of the best language on the debate comes from Hispanic blogger La Queen Sucia (today's No. 18 top blog post), who addresses point by point some of the issues raised in recently snarky e-mails she's received.
Which raises the issue: just what are the issues du jour over the past six months?A BlogPulse Trend Graph takes a look at some of them:
Phone jamming and other discoveries The name of James Tobin appears among today's burstiest (No. 3) amid charges that some of the phone-jamming (for which Bush campaign operative Tobin has already been convicted) of Democratic call centers during the 2002 elections might have been directed from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Still speculation at this point.
Meanwhile, another country is looking at building another fence, the Engadget crowd reports that Microsoft's Vista has been successfully installed on a Mac (and Daring Fireball has more thoughts on Apple's Boot Camp Mac-to-Windows download), world traveler Michael J. Totten is trying to drive back into Iraq, and for beer lovers who also love ice cream, Ben & Jerry's is rolling out Black and Tan ice cream (today's No. 17 most-cited link). Fer real. Sold by the pint, one blogger points out.
If you're a techno-phile curious about what's ahead, feast your eyes today on news of Microsoft's coming innovation, the Ultra-Mobile PC (featured in today's most-cited link), the prototype result of the long-awaited Origami Project (today's No. 15 top link). Microsoft's official press release about the go-anywhere, connect-anywhere, handheld PC ranks No. 27 today among top links, and Intel's companion announcement ranks No. 26. Microsoft's Channel 9 blog also has a brief blurb.
What time is it? Maintaining the high-tech theme, today's No. 9 top blog post from ProductDose.com features the Top 10 Geek Watches, with eclectic nods to James Bond, Frank Gehry, Mr. Gadget and the Stanley (Tools) Ruler Watch. Timely discussion ensues.
Occupational buzz A BlogPulse reader e-mailed recently and suggested a Trend Graph that plots "buzz" about various professions, so we gave it a whirl on several fronts (and will feature others in coming weeks). First, journalist vs. blogger vs. pundit:
And secondly, jobs in the news recently: coal miner vs. longshoreman/port worker and Enron executive.
Creativity in Legos, on film As someone who has wrestled with more than her share of Lego creations in the endeavor known as motherhood, let me congratulate the winners featured in Tech Blog's Top 10 Strangest Lego Creations, today's ninth-most-cited link (and I thought the helicopter thing was hard). Equally creative is today's No. 2, 4 and 7 most-cited links, the opening credits to "The Simpson's" acted by real people with real nuclear plant smokestacks and scaneed grocery-store babies. D'oh! says MorgansMinstrel at LiveJournal. Too much time on someone's hands? asks an otherwise impressed Laist blogger.
Leakbusters? When the news leaks out, and it's rarely good, who's the White House gonna call? The FBI and CIA, apparently, according to today's most-cited news story from The Washington Post, which is threatening news reporters with espionage laws for "leaks." Conversation is already fairly hefty.
The BoingBoing campaign BoingBoing's campaign against Smart Filter, whose filtering technology found a photo of Michaelangelo's "David" and classified is as "nudity," is picking up steam, according to BlogPulse Conversation Tracker, now that BoingBoing is asking other bloggers to post the photo of their web sites, too.
Passings Today's burstiest person, Linda Smith, a British comedienne who died this week, continues a several-day pattern of deaths of famous performers and actors. "I am gutted," mourns the Incurable Hippie blogger, calling Smith "one of the funniest people ever."
Oscar Buzz: Best Foreign Film Check out today's BlogPulse Spotlight for a look at potential winenrs in Sunday's "Best Foreign Language" film category at the Academy Awards ceremony.
Just goes to show you that a little media exposure goes a long way, which explains why singer Kelly Clarkson, the "American Idol" winner who snapped up a few Grammy Awards this week, is today's second most-blogged personality and why a real-estate evaluation web site called Zillow.com is among today's most-shared links after being featured this week on NPR.
Apple/iPod speculation abounds Two other popular blog posts today discuss Apple and its iPod/iTunes domination, which will either expand if the company acquires Palm (today's No. 3 top blog post) or diminish if open-source Songbird takes off (the No. 2 top post) as an iTunes competitor, depending on whom you believe. Jake's Blog isn't all that impressed with Songbird; neither is the blogger at Insignificant Thoughts, pointing out that as an open-source application, "there will be 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 point releases fixing one bug at a time 30 times a week."
The cartoons...debuted in Egypt? Today's top blog post, from Rantings of a Sandmonkey, notes that the editorial cartoons of the prophet Muhammed, the ones causing riots in the Middle East, also appeared without comment last fall in Egyptian newspapers. The Freedom for Egyptians blog (No. 10 blog post) seconds the motion. Operating on the notion that humor might perhaps work some magic, Iowahawk blogger offers satire on a similar cartoon brou-ha-ha brewing in the Midwest, as in Wisconsin.
Valentine's Day is for...eating? If you wanna know what your sweetie has in mind for Valentine's Day this year, get ready to chow down:
January 11, 2006 Steve Jobs Grabs the Spotlight Again...but Let Us Know If We're Annoying You, OK?
When Steve Jobs announces new stuff from Apple Computers, people listen, which is why Apple's newly announced MacBook Pro laptop and the revamped iMac are the stuff of today's most-cited link in the blogosphere. Moreoever, the laptop's innards represent today's most-blogged phrase. The bloggers are Makezine predict Apple TV by the end of the MacWorld event.
First, will someone please define "annoying"? You can nominate a blog now for the Sixth Annual Best Weblogs Award program (the "Bloggies,") but don't say anything annoying on your blog, or if you do, at least sign your John Henry. Maybe because it's such a surprising find, but a CNETNew.com article about a hidden provision in a recently passed bill takes positions 1, 2 and 3 among today's most-cited news stories by bloggers. Writes CNET's Declan McCullagh: "Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity. In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess." The penalty? Up to two years in prison. Hmmm....
Reaction? Plenty. "Hey, there's a whole bunch of people who annoy me online and live in America. Finally I can do something about them," says the PeanutsComment blogger. But Boing Boing digs deeper and finds an (anonymous!) legal analyst who says the new wording simply updates legislation that's been on the books from the telephone era: "In other words, the latest amendment, which supposedly adds Internet communications devices to the scope of the law, is meaningless surplusage."
News of the weird Here in Cincinnati, we've been following the bizarre news of today's burstiest person, the late Johannas Pope. She died more than 2 years ago at age 61, but told her caregiver she didn't want to be buried, so her body was left in an upstairs air-conditioned room, where it mummfied. Police and coroner officials discovered it over the weekend. "This is just disturbing," one LiveJournaler's reaction, sums up sentiments quite nicely.
Unknown general: Identifying himself only as "General Wager," a Vietnam vet has a few choice words for Sen. John Murtha at a town hall meeting...and then walks out when Murtha responds. Michelle Malkin provides a link to the C-Span video (today's No. top blog post). Discussion leans mostly right.
Unknown men Also among today's blog disucssions are the names of two men, recognized for vastly different reasons. First is Hugh Thompson, a Vietnam vet (and today's No. 26 burstiest person) who died of cancer last week. He's best known as being a 24-year-old helicopter pilot who intervened and helped put an end to the slaughter of the residents of the village of My Lai. MarineCorpsMoms offers a tribute. Also on the list is 100-year-old Albert Hoffman, the Swiss inventor of LSD, and the subject of a New York Times article that's today's No. 4 top link.
The joke's on you? For topical grins, check out today's No. 18 top link titled "Dean's Song," appropriate with the start of today's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito. But if you're looking for the best blonde joke ever (the subject of today's top blog post), I get the feeling the joke's on you. You can keep clicking, and clicking, and clicking, and....
December 09, 2005 The Gender Barrier Crashes at the Hundred Acre Wood
Sure, there's all sorts of Internet announcements today, including Yahoo! Answers (today's No. 10 top blog post and the Yahoo! version of Ask Jeeves), and Google's new Transit Planner (which is today's No. 3 top link), a Google Maps service applied to public transit (and currently limited to Portland, OR).
Major changes ahead But major changes are in store for the Hundred Acre Wood, where Christopher Robin (today's burstiest person) will be replaced by a yet-to-be named female character in 2007 to make the whole Winnie the Pooh franchise more, you know, marketable to a broader audience. USA Today coverage of the gender shift is today's No. 2 most-cited link and the subject of today's top blog post. And lots of commentary, including a "dream on, Disney" lecture from DebbieSchlussel.com. she's joined by this invective from a LiveJournaler: "Clearly TPTB at Disney need to be smacked repeatedly with the smitey book. These people are clearly of very, very little brain." What's next...Hey God, It's Me, Michael? Arnold Bedilia Strikes Out? "The Ghost and Mrs. Chicken?"
Mother Nature's wrath You'd think that "December = snow" would start to sink into the public consciousness after all these years, but the snowstorm that swept the U.S. midsection Thursday created this scenario: it took me longer to drive from the airport to my house (25 minutes TOPS on a normal bad-traffic day) than it took me to fly from Rochester NY to Cincinnati, all because of a rush-hour snowstorm. Still, hurricanes have it all over Mother's Nature's snow and floods in the blogosphere...
December 05, 2005 Strange Legal Twists, and Finger-Pointing Ads
Some the law works in your favor, sometimes it doesn't. Two cases from the legal annals make BlogPulse news today.
At least three of today's top 10 blog posts (American Street, Shakespeare's Sister, and Pandagon) describe their outrage at the case of a 17-year-old Oregon teen who claimed three men gang-raped her but was found guilty herself (of filing a false claim) when the three were found innocent because she didn't act "traumatized enough" in the days after the alleged assault. In fact, traffic to American Street is so heavy that the site won't load easily; Shakespeare's Sister has a rundown. Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly questions the prosecution's decisions; "this goes way beyond blaming the victim," says Bamapachyderm.
November 09, 2005 Zen, Feminism and Technology: It Doesn't Get Much More Inclusive Than This
Perhaps it's an issue you never seriously thought about, but blogger Garr Reynolds did: Does Apple's Steve Jobs or Microsoft's Bill Gates possess more Zen-like qualities during public appearances? Jobs obviously wins in the "simple is more" department. "Wow," says Lee of Australia, while author/marketer/blogger Seth Godin points out that the contrasting images in Reynolds' comparison are a "vital and essential warning sign to anyone who has ever considered giving a presentation." Just for curiosity's sake, which computer mogul captures more blog buzz? (Jobs' June spike coincides with Apple's Intel chip announcement).
VOD, and the Ping of Death First came Apple's deal to load ABC's TV shows into the video iPod for $1.99 a show, and now NBC and CBS are getting into the video on demand (VOD) biz as well (today's No. 19 top link). Or as Good Morning Silcon Valley describes the agreement: "New from Comcast: Pay $.99 to watch an episode of a show you could record for free on DVR."
And what's the ping of death, you ask? It's among the top 10 worst software bugs, as chronicled by Wired News (today's No. 5 top link). Others include the Mariner 1 space probe (wrong computer code), Therac-25 medical accelerator (which delivered a bit too much radiation to hospital patients), and the Ping of Death, the code responsible for the ever-popular "blue screen of death."
Chemical weapons...found? And todays' disturbing blog discovery is a claim made in the most-shared news story from The Independent Online -- that U.S. troops used "white phosphorus" for more than illumination purposes during the 2004 assault on Fallujah? Juan Cole at Informed Comment offers an analysis; "hope like hell this isn't true," says John Cole at Balloon Juice.
November 04, 2005 Technical Innovations, Embarrassing Emails, and Distrubing Riots
Technical and Internet innovations move to front-and-center today, including a sneak peak at Yahoo!'s new maps from Jeremy Zawodny (today's No. 2 top blog post). SearchViews likes the new features, including multi-point driving directions; Tom Rafferty is less-than-impressed.
Microsoft's Live This week, Microsoft also pulled the veil off its new portal page, Live. The beta version has already inspired so-so reviews from Joel on Software (today's No. 4 top blog post). Gear Live wonders, "is Microsoft scrambling?" to compete with Google and OpenOffice.org? Other techie issues being debated in the blogosophere include bloggers' discovery of anti-piracy embedded rootkits in Sony BMG compact discs and the launch of Google Print, a scannable libary of 10,000 books.
Heck of a job, Brownie... One more reason to be careful what you say in your work emails: they might come back to haunt you. Especially if you're former FEMA director Mike Brown, who's back in the not-so-flattering limelight (today's 12th-most blogged-about personality) because of the online publication of some of the e-mails he sent during and after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast (today's most-shared link) and No. 3 top news story). The Louisiana Congressman who got access to the emails posted them online. In a Sept. 4 exchange, a FEMA rep advised: "In this crises (sic) or on TV you just need to look more hard-working...ROLLL UP YOUR SLEEVES." During exchanges about breached levees, missing Superdome roof tiles and ice shipments, Brown jokes about his clothing and asks for dog-sitter recommendations. Read 'em...and yeah, sigh. (Then weep). Maybe those kinds of emails explain these kinds of poll results (today's No. 5 news story)?
The ability to download day-old TV episodes into an iPod for $1.99 certainly captured the attention of bloggers, who wrote about the development in nine of today's top 40 blog posts and three of the day's top 5 links. In fact, spikes in iPod buzz closely mirror recent product announcements about color screens (June), iTunes update (July) and the iPod nano (September). The early June spike for Jobs reflects Apple's switch to Intel chips.
Forget your dedutions? Today's most-shared news story is a New York Timesarticle about tax cuts...and not the ones for rich people. Seems a tax panel thinks that a flat tax is a bad idea and so are the popular (and middle-class) deductions for mortgage interest and health insurance. "Bad policy and bad politics," says American Prospect blog. Wampum figures it'll be as popular as Social Security reform. "Who's crazy now"? asks Suburban Guerilla.
Feet to the fire? As special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald seems to wind down his investigation of who leaked CIA Agent Valerie Plame's name to the press, speculation heats up about who's being targeted. Is it Vice President Dick Cheney, wonders the Huffington Post (today's No. 2 top blog post). Insiders Karl Rove or Andy Card? wonders Talking Points Memo? Cheney staffer Lewis Libby? asks the National Journal. Is the investigation widening? wonders Raw Story. Is all this speculation making the President nervous? asks the Washington Post (today's third most popular news story).
Passings... The title of today's No. 16 top link caught my eye: "the best obituary ever." Guess it depends on one's political persuasion.
The Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court seems to have curious staying power, particularly among conservatives who remain unconvinced that she's court-worthy. BlogPulse, in fact, was interviewed over the weekend on NPR about conservative reaction to Miers.
Why have conservatives (today's No. 3 top blog post) mobilized so strongly (No. 5) against Miers? Why so much emphasis on her and comparatively so much less on now-Chief Justice John G. Roberts? BlogPulse trend graph shows the disparity:
New from Yahoo!...podcasting Now in testing phases is Yahoo! podcasting. Cool and plentiful, says Bobnar Blog, but with this caveat common to many Internet users: "Ever seen that Far Side cartoon where the kid asks his teacher if he can be excused from class because his brain is full? My brain's gonna pop if I keep trying to cram everything that happens on the Internet into it." Speaking of full brains, blogger Bill Hobbs is taking a blog break from a "rather time-consuming and uncompensated hobby" (today's 19th top post).
The Internet opened communications and commerce in ways that its founders (Al excluded) never intended, and now it's taking on the features of a self-help movement. Evidence, please?
Roll your own.... First, there's a new web site called Rollyo (today's 10th most-shared URL), in which users create customized search engines, based on Yahoo! Search. Blogger Susan Mernit likes the idea and speculates about its ability to catch on; Rollyo's already being noticed in Germany and Korea.
Pixels for sale Secondly, the Million Dollar Home Page (40th top link) is the invention of an entrepreneurial 21-year-old college student who's selling real estate on his web site for $1 a pixel; he's already sold 205,000 and covered his college costs. AdJab offers some insight on the idea that's catching on.
News in context Bloggers are still lit up over the indictment of Sen. Majority Leader Tom DeLay (more blogged-about than Harry Potter!), the lightning-swift swearing-in of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, the Middle East tour by Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes, the political motivations of Texas DA Ronnie Earle, and the did-he-REALLY-say-that comments of former drug/education Czar William Bennett, but a tempered look at hot issues puts things in perspective, doesn't it?...
Other Races of Note There's a race on to change language in hopes that no one notices the "war on terror" isn't going so smoothly. Today's No. 6 link from the New York Times points out that Bush officials no longer refer to the war on terror; now it's the "global struggle against violent terrorism." "This is important" for a more comprehensive approach to the problems inherent in terrorist thinking and tactics, says the QandO blog, while Needlenose blog can't help but point out the sense of Orwellian language-shifting inherent in the new wording.
How's John G. Roberts doing on his way to Supreme Court nomination hearings? An op-ed piece, "The Faith of John Roberts" from the LA Times,(today's No. 2 blog post) draws some commentary from the Get Religion blog. As they're wont to do, some bloggers are attacking the messenger, not the message.
Listen up, Will Robinson! If you've already got NASA on the mind, check out today's No. 19 top link from NASA's Cassini mission: woo-woo radio emissions from Saturn.
Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. Build a better computer keyboard, and you'll be Optimus, the most popularly shared link among bloggers today. From the Russian Art Lebedev Design Studio, the patent-pending keyboard features stand-alone display keys that enable easy, intuitive switching between programs and languages. "It's a concept I really really dig," says Laurie Duncan at The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Seconding the motion is Fosfor Gadgets..."brilliant idea."
Hot seat warms up In the nation's capital, coolness is not in abundance. Hot words, in fact, continue on several fronts, including the Karl Rove brouhaha. Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose CIA wife was outed, thinks Rove should be fired (Link No. 32), generating plenty of blog spin; Republicans are ganging up on Wilson (No. 27 link), generating even more blog spin. Buzz about some of the key players shows the following:
War and terror Politicians and the public are getting conflicting information about U.S. treatment of prisoners/detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, while the Warrior Class Blog finds that continued terrorist attacks may be changing Islamic attitudes for good...and toward freedom.
Just plain sad Speaking of indigation, there's plenty over the Florida murder trial of today's burstiest person, Ronnie Paris Jr., charged with boxing his 3-year-old son to death as a way of teaching him to be manly. I have to ask: is there something in the water in Florida? Have too many hurricanes muddled the collective mentality of the entire state?
June 09, 2005 Today's Forecast: Stormy Weather, Stormy Words
Cool things first. Ever wondered what it's like inside a tornado? National Geographic accomplished the feat with flat conical video cameras that stayed on the ground while the tornado roared overhead, and the footage (about 5 minutes) is today's No. 7 top link.
The ITLnet blog calls it a "technological first." Webslog describes it as "some of the most memorable photgraphic images on the planet."
Before we get to stormy words, how are you spending your first weeks of summer? At the movies? Glued to the TV watching reality and courtroom news? Kickin' back? Had to share this BlogPulse graph:
A word storm has also picked up in Washington D.C., bringing White House aide Philip Cooney to the top of today's bursty people list. Seems the former oil lobbyist, now a Bush aide on environmental policies, has edited global-warming reports to tone down language linking fossil-fuel emissions with global warming. PublicTheologian asks, "Aren't you glad lobbyists are keeping those pesky government scientists in line?"
The Articulatory Loop blog has a posting of a poster, and it's creating a stir as well. The "Watch, Ride and Report" poster now appearing in D. C. subways has bloggers asking: Is it Orwellian? Fake? A WPA/Art Deco throwback? Or a Soviet-style invitation to spy on one's friends? ? Red Wolf blog calls them "terrornoia posters," while Core Dump notes their content/stylist resemblance to 1930s-era Communist propaganda art. What do YOU think?
Passings Bloggers mourn the Monday death (cancer) of actress Anne Bancroft, the original Mrs. Robinson and wife of comedian Mel Brooks.
June 07, 2005 Apple-Intel Marriage Dominates Blogosphere Buzz
Whoa. Apple's CEO Steve Jobs make a decision, and the blogosphere erupts. More than half (21, in fact) of today's top BlogPulse links refer in some way to Jobs' announcement Monday that Apple is switching from IBM to Intel chips in its computers by 2007. Apple VP Phil Schiller is No. 4 among burst people for his appearance before Apple's developers in San Francisco for his "running Mac on Windows" talk at the big announcement.
Among the reactions: There's the official Apple announcement, blogger commentary on PC vs. Mac by MacManX, live coverage of the event from MacObserver and the blogger at Northwest Noise offers some insights on the merging of Apple and Intel, two differently cultured corporations.
Also getting notice, but not as much attention, is Monday's Supreme Court decision that honors the federal government's jurisdiction over marijuana laws, regardless of state initiatives that allow its use for medically prescribed purposes. Diane Munson and Angel Reich, two California woman who filed the suit, are today's No. 1-2 burstiest people, and both say they're willing to be arrested on principle to keep marijuana available for chronically ill patients.
The artistic side of blogging Several discoveries today caught the eye. First, a Spanish web site voting on the Spain's 20 best blogs. And today's No. 4 bursty person is artist Dave Devries, whose MonsterEngine web site (today's No. 9 link) is getting noticed for its unusual premise: Devries turns children's drawings of monsters into professional art. The Noise to Signal blogger calls it "amazing." And if it's Beethoven you love, it's Beethoven you'll get -- all week long on BBC Radio. Listen, and then download later.
Two recent blows by Dutch and French voters to hopes of a unified Europe and single currency brought Tony Blair back into the limelight today, now that he's given up on the EU mission for now and is focusing on Africa instead. A Fistful of Euros blog discusses the Brits' bailing out of EU charter idea.
Just curious: since much of the EU discussion centers around currency, how do three of the major currencies stack up? BlogPulse takes a visual look:
Leaving Iraq...Today's No. 11 link is a Washington Post discussion of theory vs. reality in the war in Iraq, while Rod Nordland, Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief for the last two years, gives a pessimistically honest assessment of what's been lost...and gained....in the ongoing conflict. When the world's most powerful army can't protect a two-mile stretch of highway from downtown Baghdad to the the airport, or collect its own garbage, how is "progress" for Iraq ever to be defined, he wonders?
Elsewhere in politics, Democratic National Party Chairman Howard Dean is making friends but not his fund-raising goals, according to reports. And Google is testing Sitemaps to help sites improve their coverage in Google's index.
BLOGPULSE TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: A look at the world's hot spots....
In Rome, the world awaits for Catholic cardinals to elect John Paul II's successor. BlogPulse follows the excitement with a graph that tracks mentions of the phrases "white smoke" (the signal of the election of a new pope) and "black smoke" (the signal of no decision on a new pope):
Do YOU feel safer now? The Bush Administration's continuing, all-out war on terror now includes this piece of news: after 19 years, the State Department will cease publishing an annual report that tracks global terrorist attacks. Why? The 2004 report shows more attacks (625 "significant" attacks) than any year since 1985, when the annual report was first published. In 2003, a total of 175 attacks were logged, according to Knight-Ridder. (The newest bumper sticker on my car reads: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." And this is why).
April 15, 2005 Omnnipresent Technology Stuff: It's Everywhere, All the Time
Browse through today's BlogPulse traffic and you'll find that Internet technology has invaded every nook and corner of everyday life. And music. And art. And law. And research. And beer. And...
Music: Don't know who these entertainers are, but the members of the acapella chorus geeks (today's No. 14 top link) may be starting a fad of video-game musical performances, a la Nintendo. Elsewhere, there's buzz of a prototype iPod DJ music mixer (No. 30 link) for folks who want to mix their iPod tunes on a DJ-style turntable/console.
Law: Taking the No. 8 spot among today's top links is the The ESQlawtech Weekly blog for lawyers keen on " technology tips, tools, and tricks."
Research: Hand it to crafty students at MIT to come up with the SCIgen, (No. 12 link) a "program that generates random Computer Science research papers "for amusement, rather than coherence." One of the fake papers, "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" was recently accepted at a national conference.
Beer: If you can't deal with human bartenders, how about a virtual one? (No. 24 link).
Politics: Liberal and conservative bloggers (No. 36 link) are teaming up to support a campaign finance amendment that exempts the Internet from regulation. And House Majority Leader Tom DeLay isn't the only politician with family members on the payroll. The San Francisco Chronicleprovides a complete list.
April 06, 2005 Would You Like a Satellite Photo With Your Map?
If you're not good at reading maps, how about following directions on a photo? Google Maps captures the No. 2 link among BlogPulse discoveries today for a new feature offering users the option of a road map or a satellite image to locate themselves on Planet Earth. Google's up-close satellite images are more readily available for big-city locations. And if you can't decide between Google or Yahoo!'s search, try the hybrid YaGooHoogle that someone has created.
Pope John Paul II's death continues to generate blog discussion, and even as funeral preparations near, discussion intensifies over his possible successor. BlogPulse's trend-graph tool provides this picture of papal succesor buzz so far:
Other blog highlights... ABC newsman Peter Jennings is in the news with Tuesday's disclosure of his lung cancer diagnosis, and Republican Sen. John Cornyn appealed to the base Monday in a speech in which he blamed recent courthouse violence on...of all people..."activist judges"...instead of the law-breaking citizens who bring weapons into courthouses or attack judges, courthouse employees and others.Bloggers discuss the brou-ha-ha.
Blogging white paper This week, Intelliseek (which owns BlogPulse) and Edelman released a white paper on blogging. Download it here (quick registration). Trust MEdia: Why Real People Are Finally Being Heard describes the blogging phenomenon and helps non-bloggers and veteran bloggers alike maneuver the Blogosphere intelligently.
March 17, 2005 More Technie News, and a Squeaker Vote on Alaska Oil Drilling
Yahoo! and Apple users seem pretty excited this week.
Yahoo! has announced Yahoo! 360 a single source for social networking that allows users to create a blog, send text/photos froma mobile phone, post phots, recommend favorite stuff and post reviews. It's today's No. 8 link in BlogPulse.
And it's no surprise to newsmakers that conservative Bush advisor Paul Wolfowitz jumped 38 spots among Key People overnight and placed tops on Bursty People list, now that he's been nominated by President George Bush to head the World Bank. Convicted murderer Scott Peterson also made jumped in people-related blog rankings based on his death-penalty sentence Wednesday for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci.
Normally, I don't spout off much on topics, but it galls me that the Senate on Wednesday snuck through on the budget bill an amendment that allows oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (read those words again...."oil drilling" and "wildlife refuge" and scratch your head) in Alaska. But I'm spouting off. Why?
My husband, in the 1970s-early 80s, flew nearly every inch of the ANWAR area by helicopter during the heyday of the construction of the Alaska oil pipeline to Barrow. He air-ferried geologists who were looking for geologic formations that would indicate the presence of oil. And guess what? They found none, which is what today's critics predict. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Which leads me to believe this current "exercise" in oil drilling is more for the tax credits that a certain Texas president's buddies stand to earn than any actual solution to domestic energy production and conservation. Besides, I've been to Alaska. It can't be described (not enough superlatives), and it's too awesome for photographs (no camera lens can do it justice). Some places should not be fouled up by humans, and that's one. Off my soapbox now.
And here's an interesting question being discussed in the blogosphere. Are bloggers too un-diverse? Too much of a white guy's club to be representative?
February 09, 2005 Big Celebrations...and New Maps To Get There
Happy Mardis Gras, happy Chinese New Year...and how about a Google map to get you where you're going to celebrate? Check out the new Google map interface (today's top link), and see if you do what I did: click on a U.S. state to see maps from that particular state? Didn't work. But once you figure out the search and direction capabilities, it's pretty awesome.
If it's snowflakes you want to visit, check out the today's No. 8 link to the Snow Crystals web site by Kenneth Libbrecht of CalTech. Mother Nature's pretty incredible, eh?
Seems hard to believe, but baseball's spring training is just around the corner, and former MVP Jose Canseco is stirring the pot with a new book about steroid use in the sport that claims to be the great Amreican pasttime. The Baseball Savant blogger and Functional Ambivalent blogger both offer commentary on the messy issue.
From the "do you think he gets it?" department comes the story of single-mom Mary Mornin, (today's second-bursty person) who works three jobs to take care of her three children. She discussed her plight with President George Bush during his Social Security tour. Is it "fantastic" (his words) that someone has to work three jobs in this economy to provide basic benefits for her kids?
For the latest on gay penguins, you'll have to go to Germany. For news about a pseudo-journalist who's been accused of attending White House press conferences to ask softball questions of the President and his staff comes news of Jeff Gannon's (pseudonym) resignation from the Talon News Service, allegedy because he was also linked to gay/porn web sites. (Hint to public figures: there's ALWAYS an easy-to-follow trail of information leading directly to you!)
BLOGPULSE TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: Will this week's news from the Middle East, of Israel's and Palestine's promises to cease attacks on each other, make a difference? Will the Middle East leaders bring about what others haven't been able to accomplish?
January 12, 2005 Cool New Apple Stuff Catches Attention
Let PC users bash Apple/Macintosh all they want, but Apple's newly announced $99 iPod Shuffle, its $500 G4 Mac mini and some other cool stuff announced at this week's Mac Expo is certainly grabbing attention among bloggers. Those two products emerged at the top of today's top links and the Mac mini was today's top phrase among blog postings.
To prove the copy writers in Cupertino continue to have senses of humor, the second footnote at the bottom of the iPod Shuffle web-site page carries this reminder: "Do not eat iPod Shuffle".
Also in techie land, Yahoo's Desktop search application, just announced, is getting some buzz among bloggers.
Newly nominated Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff a federal appeals court judge, jumped to the top of the bursty people list today amid lots of speculation among people who knew very little about him until President George Bush nominated him this week.
And I don't know about you, but I'm appalled that the defense attorneys representing the soliders charged with abusing/torturing Iraq prisoners could even think of using the cheerleader defense. Because cheerleaders arrange themselves in pyramids, it's OK to do the same with naked, handcuffed prisoners? Or claim that holding prisoners in neck tethers is standard procedure. If I were a cheerleader (and the fact that I once DID carry pom-poms for the freshman boys' basketball team at Immaculate Conception Elementary School a looooooong time ago doesn't really count), I would sue for defamation of character.
Guess who's back in the political blogland? Howard Dean, announcing his candidacy for chairmanship of the Democratic National Party. Will his Blog for America have the same impact on this campaign as it did on the 2004 presidential election?
TSUNAMI IMPACT: This interesting find from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory discusses the planetary impact of the earthquake/tsunami on the earth's rotation, the location of the North Pole and the length of each day. Is Mother Earth trying to tell us something with her latest displays of extreme power? Earthquakes, tsunamis, snow storms, landslides, floods, (cicadas?)...what's next?
On the other side of bizarreness, have you ever wondered what you'd be worth on the open market? A web site called Human for Sale claims it can determine your value, based on "subjective" criteria. I'm curious, but not curious enough to actually find out.
BLOGPULSE TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY:Key Iraqi cities continue to be discussed as the late Jan. deadline for Iraq's first democratic elections nears.
June 30, 2004 Iraqi Politics and Computer News Galore!
The handover of partial sovereignty to Iraq two days early certain made its presence felt in BlogPulse, but the boys at Apple Computers grabbed their share of the limelight, too. Among Monday's top links, Steve Jobs' double-whammy announcement of Apple's upcoming update to OSX 10.4 (called "Tiger") shared the spotlight with Apple's new 30-inch flat-screen monitor. Let the drooling begin... Apple, in fact, appeared in eight of Monday's 40 top links. (By comparison, Fahrenheit 9/11 was mentioned in five top links, and the Bush Administration's ceremonial hand-over of power to the Iraqis is mentioned in six).
Meanwhile, couldn't help but notice an item about the predicted swelling of the call-girl population in New York City during the Republican National Convention, as reported by the New York Daily News).
Most of Monday's bursty phrases and blog bites were a mix of the comings-goings in Iraq (Bush, Bremer, Iraqi officials) and the Supreme Court's decision that enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay are entitled to basic legal rights. Yaser Esam Hamdi, the American-born citizen held in Cuba as an enemy combatant, was Monday's burstiest person, no doubt because of the coverage of his suit before the Supreme Court. In the No. 3 position is essayist Larry Eastland, who takes voting-pattern analysis to a whole new...and totally theoretical....level.
