RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP33

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 33 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
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My arch-nemesis Adam Curry parts company with Sirius:

Podshow and Sirius Part:

I’m surprised this hasn’t made Techmeme yet.

Podshow and Sirius have parted ways. Here are some thoughts on the divorce from P Dub and Chris. Let’s not forget American Cliche or Tartan Stories.

We’ll never know the numbers but I’d bet good cash that Podshow on Sirius sold more satellite radios to Podcasters than Sirius knows. People always support what they help create and now that “us Podcasters” are no longer part of the ever-less-important satellite radio scene, I see their numbers further flushing down the toilet.

Of what I read on this topic so far, nobody has suggested that this is because the value of the Podshow content wasn’t “worth it” for Sirius. I’m sure the token PodshowSucksAndAlwaysWill.com crowd will claim it was because Sirius staff wasn’t willing to sacrifice their first born to the altar of CurryBloom, but it sounds like the conversation is heading in the right direction.

There is value in the content. Podshow is showing us that.

There is also great value on the channel - and that channel is watching satellite radio, web radio, and all of her other “competitors” crumbling away.

The future of media, simply, is on demand and anyone who doesn’t provide that opportunity is as vital to our future as is black and white television.

Apple announced 10.5 million plus iPods sold last quarter and I just can’t believe that they were all purchased to listen to more Shakira.

I see blue skies ahead.

The most poignant comment on the blog post was this one, however:

Dana Gardner said.

This is actually quite a nice opportunity now for podcasters to go directly to any of the satellite media providers and make their own deals. What has not changed is the desire of media distributors like Sirius to get good content cheap. Podshow may have failed at proving sufficient value, but the people making the good content should now go direct. Or they should bulk up common content themselves and take a whole channel to Sirius, et al. Or they should create rich media casts and take it to satellite TV providers as a “social media” video channel. This cancellation simply shows the Podshow packaging model is a flop. The model for oher individual shows or aggregated channels to take their content where it is in demand remains undefined and unfulfilled.

In government censorship news:

Iran to Filter 'Immoral' Mobile Messages
b.cancer noted an article running on eweek about plans in Iran to censor phone messages sent within the country. At least it's not quite that bad here yet. But give it a few years!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Is it too little too late to save streaming radio? We discussed this story and get to the bottom of it:

A Virtual Ad Agency for Online Radio (Elizabeth Olson/New York Times)
AS more people listen to the radio over the Internet, radio stations have been looking to generate new advertising revenue from the medium. A start-up company, TargetSpot, is trying to turn this nascent field into a viable business, and CBS Radio is its first customer.

Who's legs are these? Click here! Wanna play Texas Hold'em? Click here!

Free Songs With Built In Ads Is Not The Answer
An idea that's been discussed for years and apparently is now a hot one for various startups is to try to create a legitimate file sharing system, where before you can listen to the music, you have to first pay attention to an advertisement. It's simple for recording industry execs to understand, so they like it -- but they seem to be missing the key point: it's not what music listeners want. Just look at how many people were willing to jump to satellite radio claiming the lack of ads on many satellite music stations was a key driver. Also, these file sharing systems need to recognize that they're still competing with the ad-free versions (also known as unauthorized file sharing programs). The trick to making money in these spaces isn't to saddle the content with some annoyance no one wants -- but to make it more valuable in a way that people are willing to pay.

Investing again

You know I really thing investing is a good idea. The more I learn about silver and gold the more I want to find all that I have and invest it somewhere or even put it away. I learned that the us gold coins have a currency value to them or they are really called Ingots. They are normally in silver but you can find them in gold as well.

I know I have talked about Monex Deposit Company before, but I really do believe they are a good company. The staff has always been outstanding and was quick to help me with any needs I needed. They have been around for over 30 years now and I even think my mother has a safe with them. That is awesome as well, if you don't want them to deliver what you want to your house then you can just get a safe box with them and they will take care of whatever you put in their. I was actually thinking about getting one for myself.

[This post contains a paid placement.]

Art Lindsey Incapacitated

Keep Art in your thoughts and prayers.  Details are sketchy right now, but some mutual friends of ours have informed me that he is in the hospital, and will be in for a few days.

--
/mark "rizzn" hopkins
For my blog, profile, and wikipedia entries, simply Google "rizzn"
--
intelligent discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/rizzncom-v83/
intelligent podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RizWords
--

Has Blogging Reached It's Peak?

There's a lot of things I could talk about today. It's definitely been a hellish week for the ol' Mr. Rizzn here. A lot of my stress has been brought on by this guy, but I've gotten my nerdy revenge, with my smooth SEO skills. Doing a Google Search for who is now, I suppose, a declared nemesis of mine, will yield my account of his atrocious behavior at Rank 5. Go me!

It's not been all bad. I'm also at Rank 6 for this Google Search, which is a good thing (I was, but now I'm at 11 and 12).

At any rate, I picked up this story today from ValleyWag for today's RizWords. It all refers back to the State of the Blogosphere release by Technorati recently that noted the end or at least stall of the growth of the blogosphere. There's been a lot of talk as to why this has happened, but no real concrete theories that set well with me and go towards really hitting towards the heart of the issue.

As you real Rizzn-ites know, it's darn hard to create a viable business model that supports the participants in any Indy-Journalism venture. I've attempted to create several such ventures here .. the most recent of course being the Oblong Box network, ModernOpinion and PoddedMeat. Other similar ventures in the past were things like BlipMedia and even my own blog, Rizzn.com, what you are reading right now.

I've never really publicly discussed why these ventures have failed, but I'll bet the intelligent reader can guess: Money.

It comes down to money, and the inability to properly monetize the production process of producing quality online content. Let's go down my list of ventures, and explore the sticking points.

When I started BlipMedia, arguably one of my most successful projects, I was just in the right place at the right time with a good idea. It was a free podcast hosting company, with the added benefit of having instant updates available to the content producers - they didn't need to be in their studio to create podcasts... they could simply call in from anywhere they could find a telephone. This was a novel idea at the time, and that feature combined with there being free unlimited hosting made for an explosive growth on the site.

Unfortunately, then, as now, there was a real problem finding advertisers willing to speculate with their dollars on monetizing such a bleeding edge media. This fact, combined with a devestating hurricane that destroyed our office in Florida, meant we could no longer keep the service alive. If not for that, we might still be around today, and we might be breaking even - as of current, there isn't that many people willing to venture out in the podcasting market to advertise, although this is quickly changing now, thanks to the efforts of companies like TalkShoe, PodTrac, and Blubrry.

After that, I started Oblong Box - and this was the offer I put out to a bevy of writers: Have a free domain name, free hosting, and free design. All you must do is post to the blog. I had worked out a series of monetization deals with companies like Blogitive and PayPerPost that should have subsidized all my expenses, and put us way out on top. Unfortunately, as in the Blip days, Blogitive and PayPerPost were very slow to sign up new advertisers, additionally they created very complex and restrictive posting policies that more or less strangled our financial growth.

As a result, I was unable to pass the cash down to the writers quickly enough to keep them around, and one by one, they ended up dropping off the network, and consequently, we only have a fraction of the writers on the network who still write - those that write simply for writing's sake.

ModernOpinion was based upon the same principals, but with an optimized website and domain status in an aim to get around the restrictive policies that PayPerPost and Blogitive had instituted. Unfortunately, it was not enough, and despite investing hundreds in promotion and advertising on the site, the money was not enough to pay the writers, and much like OblongBox, they lost interest, and stopped writing.

PoddedMeat is a similar story, although technically the company is not dead, simply on hiatus. We tried another bleeding edge technology - video podcasting, right at the start of the video podcast craze that iTunes was attempting (and continues to) fuel.

Again, though, we could not find advertisers that would keep pace with production costs. Simply put, there are no ad agencies out there that can get enough money to subsidize these types of ventures. At it's peak, PoddedMeat's two shows were recieving in excess of 60,000 views/downloads a week. Unfortunately, this was not enough to entice advertisers into making the leap to the new medium.

There are simply not enough ways for the average blogger and podcaster out there to make enough money to justify their habit. As I have seen, only those with a true passion for writing, podcasting, or video podcasting will continue, regardless of what it pays. And, it would appear, there are only around 15 million of these people in the world.

15 million is a large number, though, isn't it? That's still a lot of people, and with that number, someone should be making money.

That's an excellent point, and several people are making money off this. Just not the people who are doing the bulk of the work (i.e. the content producers).

Digg, Google, PayPerPost, Blogitive - these are the people who make a lot of money off these bloggers. However, when it comes time to reward them, they are handed a pittance. As I've said on the show many times, my blog has been here for around 10 years. I've been monetizing it for about half that time, primarily with AdSense, although I've used PayPerPost, Blogitive, BlogAds, and other smaller services ad various points.

AdSense, on my best month, produced around $24.00, shortly after I broke the Christopher Walken story and posted the pictures I took of Suge Knight being hauled off to the hospital after he was shot in the leg. In total, I've recieved about $200 over three years from AdSense.

Blogitive produced me about $600 over five months.

PayPerPost produced me about $200 over two months.

BlogAds produced me about $24 over one year.

I produce consistent quality content and have a significant audience that reads my words, and many of my ventures have grown to the point where actual percentage points of the internet have been exposed to me (at least that's what Alexa says). I have my own wikipedia page, for cryin' out loud!

Despite this, the blogosphere continues to punish me monetarily. I'm stubborn enough to keep coming back.

If you're looking for your reason why the blogosphere is slow to grow, though, that's it.

/rizzn

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP 32

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 32 - download now - subscribe now

(For some reason, the system has not yet processed the file. Look for it to appear later this weekend. To make sure you're updated first, subscribe in iTunes - or maybe from now on you should just listen live!)

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• Want $10 for free? Try Google Checkout today! Visit http://oblongbox.net/checkout/ to create your account and start with $10 off your first purchase.

Normally, something like this would be a complete non-story in terms of what we normally cover on the show, but so many of my friends (quite rightly so) decry the worthiness of the mainstream American media, and point to the UK's Guardian as the only bastion of credible American news, of course never forgetting to point out the irony that it's from the UK. Today, Art and I rip apart a very poignant article that best represents the feelings and opinions of the UK Guardian we've ever seen.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy - September 11th
2. Create a gulag - Guantanamo Bay

3. Develop a thug caste - Security Contractors (Halliburton), Homeland Security

4. Set up an internal surveillance system - Wiretap of Private Citizens

5. Harass citizens' groups - the American Civil Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war, environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents: a secret Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings, rallies or marches by American citizens in its category of 1,500 "suspicious incidents".

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release - People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peace activists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member of Venezuela's government - after Venezuela's president had criticised Bush; and thousands of ordinary US citizens.

7. Target key individuals - Various CIA people, Plame incident, Wesley Clark

8. Control the press - You won't have a shutdown of news in modern America - it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it's not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can't tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit.

9. Dissent equals treason - We US citizens will get a trial eventually - for now. But legal rights activists at the Center for Constitutional Rights say that the Bush administration is trying increasingly aggressively to find ways to get around giving even US citizens fair trials.

10. Suspend the rule of law - The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and its citizens.

In more humorous news, Jason Calacanis talks about how to meet Jason Calacanis (We're not sure we do):

Who Wants to Meet a Calacanis?
I've developed some deep relationships over the past couple of years blogging and I realize that those relationships manifest themselves in the links I find when I do my 28x a daily ego search over at Technorati. The quickest way to develop a relationship with me isn't to twitter me, call me, email me, or skype me. Heck, even posting a comment here--the second best way to develop a relationship with me--is weak when compared to the power of the link.

If someone writes anything about me or links to this blog I find out about it instantly with my various RSS alerts, Technorati, Google blog search, Bloglines, etc.

Some folks have figured this out and they get on my radar by writing a critical piece. That's a savvy move--to a point. I'd like to outline the best way to link bait a person like me:

The Blogosphere has stopped it's all encompassing growth. Am I the only one who sees Blobosphere when people write that? I guess the similarities from the blobosphere to the blogosphere end at semantics now:

Blogosphere is Expanding No More
It's the web media equivalent of the central cosmological constant: does the universe of personal sites expand ad infinitum, or else collapse under its own weight? And we may finally have an answer. The number of active blogs tracked by Technorati has stalled at about 15 million. Now that's still a remarkable number, even before one adds in quasi-blogs, such as pages on social network sites such as Myspace. But, compared with the conventional wisdom -- that every human, and household pet, will eventually have a blog -- the reality is sobering. (The irony: these numbers on active blogs were provided by Dave Sifry of Technorati, whose state of the blogosphere reports have created the illusion of limitless growth; and the data emerged because the blog index boss was asked to distinguish between active and inactive sites by a reporter at Business Week, the magazine that has done more than any other to hype up the medium.) After the jump, your take. I have my theories, but, first, why do you think the number of active bloggers is flat?

The $100 Laptop isn't $100 anymore....:

'$100 laptop' to cost $175
The founder of the ambitious "$100 laptop" project, which plans to give inexpensive computers to schoolchildren in developing countries, revealed Thursday that the machine for now costs $175, and it will be able to run Windows in addition to its homegrown, open-source interface.

Get in the Choppah!:

If You Want To Live, Send $40k To This Paypalcom.ru Account
Online extortion scams seem to be a recurring problem, even though script kiddies are killing the margins. The latest scam sees users being spammed with a note from a would-be contract killer, saying he's been paid to kill them, but will let them live for $40,000, then responds to emails with personal information stolen from other sites. The whole thing sounds about as believable as the average 419 spam, but given the number of folks who should have known better that have fallen for them, it's probably worth highlighting for the sake of the wealthy individuals who are being targeted. In particular, heed the last line of the original article, which relays that a security expert "recommended that no one reply to these e-mails" -- unlike all those other scams you keep replying to.

Oh noes! our pages are bl4nk!:

Glitch Has Users Fuming, Google 'Frantic'
netbuzz writes "A problem with Google's Personalized Home Page feature has apparently cost a lot of users their carefully crafted doors to the Internet. And Google, which says it is frantically searching for a fix, also acknowledges that it is not sure if it will be able to recover the lost settings. 'The problem is the latest in what seems a regular stream of technical glitches and availability problems affecting Google's online services. In the past six months, Google services like Blogger, Gmail and Google Apps have all experienced significant technical issues that have left users fuming. The problems highlight one of the risks of relying on hosted applications providers, which offer to house software and its data for individuals and organizations. Google is one of the biggest cheerleaders for this software provisioning model, which many see as a viable option to the traditional approach of having users install applications on their own PCs and servers.'"

And the same story, worded better from Google Operating System (if not a bit more sensationally):

Homeless Internet Citizens
So you open the door, you step inside and you discover that your house is empty: no furniture, no books, no family, no pets. Your home became empty and nobody bothered to explain why.

That's what happened to Google Personalized Homepage for some users today. Says Michael M.:

Today, I logged on at college and all was fine on my homepage. When I got home, I turned on my laptop and my homepage had reverted to the default, with all of the default gadgets and the default theme. I tried to re-add my gadgets, but it keeps going back to the default style. I've tried clearing my cookies/history and signing in/out.

The personalized homepage is the page I visit most on the internet, it tracks all my news and weather and lets me keep track of my schedule and chat to my friends on Google Talk.

My homepage looks the same, but there's a big thread at Google Groups with people who lost their homepages. Google's answer is so endearing:

We're now in frantic-chase-down-this-bug mode here at the Googleplex, and I hope to have more info for you soon. For now, we're not entirely sure of this, but it's possible that changing your homepage theme might cause the problem. SO, if you still have your homepage intact, please avoid changing your theme until further notice. The big question I know you'll all want answered is whether you'll get your homepage back once we sort things out... and the really honest answer is that I hope so, but I just don't know yet.

/rizzn

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP31

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 31 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• Want $10 for free? Try Google Checkout today! Visit http://oblongbox.net/checkout/ to create your account and start with $10 off your first purchase.

Sony tries to take on Google:

Sony Launching YouTube Rival on Friday

We’ve got a few sources - including, a few minutes ago, a release - saying that Sony will take on YouTube with its own video sharing site, launching on Friday.

But don’t get too excited: Friday’s launch will be in Japan only, with expansion globally at a later date. I don’t hold out much hope that the electronics and media giant can corner this market, although there’s plenty of reasons why they’d want to.

Sony already owns Grouper, acquired in August 2006 for $65M in cash.

In Telecommunications news, two very interesting things, the first one in our ongoing coverage of what we dub the Vonage Crap:

Vonage gets its stay, launches astroturf site

It's been a big week for Vonage--and at last some of the news is good. A federal appeals court stayed a trial court's injunction that would have prohibited the company from signing up new customers. The stay will remain in effect until an appeal of the Vonage's patent loss to Verizon heard. That appeal will happen sooner rather than later: June 25, which is legal terms is practically tomorrow. Vonage is also trying to rally public support, kicking off freetocompete.com, a corporate site designed to get its side of the patent story out. (The term for this kind of corporate-sponsored grassroots effort, by the way, is "astroturfing." It's not a complimentary term.) The only sign that Vonage is backing this--aside from the obvious one-sidedness of the content--is a small copyright note at the bottom of the web pages. And lastly, Vonage unveiled Vonage Text, which translates voicemails to text, which it then e-mails to you.

For more about Vonage's court win:
- read this article from the San Jose Mercury News
- see this website for more about Vonage's astroturfing
- read this article from Voxilla for more about Vonage Text

Related Articles:
Vonage granted stay, still in hot water. Report
Vonage endures. Report

The other promised telecom story:

Siemens CEO dropped in scandal fallout

A few months ago, the big story in telecom was the Siemens scandal, where several all sorts of internal financial shenanigans came to light and several high-level execs were arrested on charges of bribery. The fallout, which involved the industrial giant's telecom divisions, held up the spin-off of the company's carrier division to a joint venture with Nokia. Now the other shoe has dropped: Despite strong financial results, Siemens's board of directors has declined to renew the contract of CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. A new deal had been widely expected but reports say that some of the board members, themselves survivors of scandals at their own companies, thought that giving a new contract to an executive currently under investigation would call their own governance into question.

For more about the fall of Siemens's Kleinfeld:
- see the announcement from Siemens
- read this article from The New York Times

Related Articles:
Former Siemens telecom head arrested in scandal. Report
Siemens corruption probe widens: $556M. Report
Siemens in $250M corruption scandal. Report
Analyst urges caution on Siemens phones. Report

In Google News, two things of note:

Google surpasses Microsoft as world's most-visited site
It's official: Google rules the world. — The Mountain View search engine has outstripped Microsoft on two fronts, becoming both the most visited Web site and the most valuable global brand. — The events are major milestones for Google …

Try out Google's New Design before ANYONE ELSE DOES!
Google's latest design test for the search results pages and homepage is clever and has big chances of replacing the current one. The big change is that Google adds a navigation menu for its services placed at the top of the page. The list of services includes Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs (the last two are hidden under "more"). Under the search box, you'll see links to other specialized search engines that provide useful results for that search. For "Bush", there are many services listed, including news, news archives and blog search, but for most queries you'll see few services listed (for "Google", you'll see only news search; for "flowers", image search; for "c++", code search, blog search and groups).


Courtesy of Webbsnack, here's how you can test this new design.

Copy this code:

javascript:document.cookie= "PREF=ID=fddb01133a87d314:LD=en:CR=2:TM=1177334998:LM=1177334998:GM=1:S=OOg0FEVzpPplxe9J; path=/; domain=.google.com";void(0);

go to google.com/ncr, paste it in the address bar, press enter, then search for something clever. I absolutely love the new design, but if you don't like it, clear your Google cookie and it'll go away.

In other search engine news, we expect Google probably shrugged a bit at this story:

Ask.com Launches AdSense Competitor

Ask.com has announced a contextual advertising product for publishers today. As part of the Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL – not to be confused with Age, Sex Location) platform, parent company IAC claims the new service already reaches 34 million unique users per month via their network of sites, which include Match.com, Ticketmaster, and and Evite.

The company hopes to win over publishers by attacking one of AdSense’s biggest weaknesses – transparency. Ask.com plans to inform content partners of their revenue share up front, rather than leave them guessing about the fluctuations in eCPM one might notice in their AdSense account. The service will also include other standard contextual advertising management features, such as customizing the look of the ads and offering varying levels of editorial control.

Added transparency might win over the paranoid, but ultimately the battle for contextual will come down to who pays the most, and matching Google’s massive advertiser reach will be a challenge for Ask.com. For the curious, Ask.com’s contextual product will be available the week of May 21st.

Our political news came from Robert Novak today - Two very interesting pieces which for some reason reminded me of a piece I saw on ABC last night talking about the Star Wars Missile Defense program - we're going to try to talk more about that tomorrow... but for today, these two stories.

Gun Control
In the wake of last week's Virginia Tech shooting, Democrats' restraint on the gun control issue has been surprising. Even liberals such as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) have downplayed or disavowed calls for more gun control laws.

In seeking passage of the bill granting a vote in Congress to the District of Columbia last week, House Democratic leaders had two options in the wake of a clever Republican move in March that scuttled the vote by attempting to add repeal of the D.C. gun ban. They could have ordered their caucus to vote against the measure, thus pitting them against the gun lobby. They decided not to risk this. Instead, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) employed a parliamentary maneuver to prevent a vote on gun rights in D.C.

French Elections
Elections in France May 6 are now expected to bring about a regime far more friendly to Washington than existed previously. Nicholas Sarkozy, the nominee of the ruling center-right party of President Jacques Chirac, will face Socialist Segolene Royal in the runoff election. Sarkozy finished first in last weekend's elections and enjoys a large lead in the polls.

A centrist candidate, Francois Bayou, received more support than expected. This is interpreted as a sign that there is enough discontent with Royal that Sarkozy will take much of his support in the second round.

Sarkozy is the most pro-American of the top candidates, yet he has probably done enough of the America-bashing necessary in French politics to win. Critics hounded Sarkozy for even meeting Bush last September -- former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius called Sarkozy Bush's "lapdog." In a French poll last December, 75 percent of respondents said they want their next president to keep a distance from U.S. foreign policy.

Sarkozy agreed with Chirac's decision to stay out of the Iraq War and has also said that the hanging of Saddam Hussein was a mistake. He opposes military action against Iran but favors sanctions to force it to give up its nuclear program. He also opposes Turkish membership in the European Union. His election, however, would signal an end to the at times fierce antagonism in which Bush and Chirac have engaged.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP30

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 30 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• Want $10 for free? Try Google Checkout today! Visit http://oblongbox.net/checkout/ to create your account and start with $10 off your first purchase.

There's this really interesting meme running through the blogosphere right now... Essentially the Drama Pot was stirred by who else? Jason Calacanis. The headlines and blurbs from different perspectives tell the story:

Technorati all a'twitter over telephone interview

From Jason C.: WIRED journo won't do email interviews—ironic. — A WIRED journalist pinged me for some comments on Michael Arrington and his A-list blogger status. I told the journalist to send me the questions by email and he refused. He said Dave Winer did the same thing.

From Dylan Tweney: Calacanis Won't Do Phone Interview — Cowardly — Jason McCabe Calacanis is complaining about a Wired reporter who wants to do an interview with him, but refuses to do it via email. He says it's "ironic" that a magazine covering the digital age refuses to use email for its interviews. — Ironic?

From David Winer Transcription errors — Jason Calacanis was contacted by the same reporter who contacted me. I'm mentioned in Jason's post, but somewhere along the line there was a transcription error. I did not offer to do the interview via email, I made a different offer. — Here's what I said: "Not generally doing interviews these days.

Good laws, bad laws, laws as big as your head... Art cut me off on this story... said I was boring. You decide:

Wait, There Are Good Internet Laws?
Law professor Eric Goldman has written up an article where he wanted to list out the best and worst internet-related laws out there. Coming up with "good" ones turned out to be a challenge, with just the law banning new internet access taxes and section 230 of the CDA making the list. Of course, you could argue that the safe harbor afforded by section 230 (protecting sites from the actions of their users) is based on so much common sense that there shouldn't need to be a law to back it up. Of course, when it comes to the "bad" list, there were way too many to choose from. The DMCA makes a couple of appearances (for different parts) and there are some other blasts from the past as well. It's pretty frustrating to read through the list, in part because so many of the "bad" laws aren't just bad, but were obviously bad from when they were proposed. Lots of people have pointed out why those laws would do more harm than good, but so far, politicians don't seem interested in correcting the mistakes they made with them. They passed the laws so they could claim they stopped some "bad" thing from happening online, even if the law did no such thing. It would be nice if politicians were actually held accountable for the unintended consequences of their bad laws -- especially when those laws do little to actually achieve what they were proposed to do.

MySpace Turns it's Lonely Eyes to Washington:

Law professor Eric Goldman has written up an article where he wanted to list out the best and worst internet-related laws out there. Coming up with "good" ones turned out to be a challenge, with just the law banning new internet access taxes and section 230 of the CDA making the list. Of course, you could argue that the safe harbor afforded by section 230 (protecting sites from the actions of their users) is based on so much common sense that there shouldn't need to be a law to back it up. Of course, when it comes to the "bad" list, there were way too many to choose from. The DMCA makes a couple of appearances (for different parts) and there are some other blasts from the past as well. It's pretty frustrating to read through the list, in part because so many of the "bad" laws aren't just bad, but were obviously bad from when they were proposed. Lots of people have pointed out why those laws would do more harm than good, but so far, politicians don't seem interested in correcting the mistakes they made with them. They passed the laws so they could claim they stopped some "bad" thing from happening online, even if the law did no such thing. It would be nice if politicians were actually held accountable for the unintended consequences of their bad laws -- especially when those laws do little to actually achieve what they were proposed to do.

And speaking of social networking:

Social Networks Are The New Porn

Since the rise of the internet in the 1990s, pornography has ruled the internet. While difficult to measure accurately, the online pornography industry

is estimated to be worth about $1 billion, and counts for about 13% of website visits in America (compared to search engines, which account for 7%). But it appears that new uses are about to overtake pornography in terms of online popularity.

The Economist is reporting that according to Hitwise data, pornography-related web activity is decreasing in America (as a proportion of total visits), as more and more people are opting to participate in social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Since the data presented is limited to February, a definitive conclusion is hard to make, but traffic to these social networking sites may have already overtaken traffic to sex-related sites, and if not, will probably do so any day now.

...pornographic content is often the first to take advantage of new media, from photography to videocassettes to satellite television. "Sex is a virus that infects new technology first," as Wired put it back in 1993. Once a new medium becomes popular, its usage is no longer dominated by porn.

The resulting implication is that the internet has matured as a medium for disseminating information, and therefore people are switching from using the internet for pornography to other uses.

Start the rejoicing, another loudmouth silenced:

It's True -- Rosie will leave the "View!!"
Filed under: TV, The View, Rosie O'Donnell TMZ has now confirmed the buzz that we exclusively reported last night: Rosie O'Donnell will announce on today's show that she is leaving "The View." And TMZ has confirmed that "View" honchos are already searching for her replacement.

Stay tuned!

New Pictures of Jacob Li Hopkins

New pictures of Jacob Li. These sonograms were taken to determine whether or not we need to induce labor this week or if we can wait until the due-date of May 17th.

/rizzn

Bert Powell of Powell Properties Starts Fights with Expectant Mothers

I talked about this on the show today a little bit - here's the long version of the story, in text format so all the search engines can pick it up.

This is the story of how I almost beat up a tired, sociopath, middle-aged Tyler businessman this afternoon.

I'm referring, of course, to my landlord, Bert Powell. The whole verbal altercation started simply enough. The man, over the last year has stolen, by his own admission, around 3-5 campaign signs from either public property areas or from my house directly. Shortly after I left for work, he showed up at my apartment, and began berating my wife for an old bowl of rice I had poured out the window (we don't have a garbage disposal), and the campaign sign I had placed in the window of our bedroom. She repeatedly asked him to stop yelling, and that he couldn't come in, she was becoming upset, and the baby was kicking inside her. After about ten or fifteen minutes of her being verbally assaulted by Bert Powell, he then left.

She called me up shaken and asking me to come home, relaying part of the story, mostly that he yelled at her, and that he had upset her. I told her I'd stop by his office, and then come home.

My office, Bert's office, and my apartment are all within a tenth of a mile from one another. I dropped by the office, and the hapless maintainence man was there, but of course, no Bert.

Whenever Bert sets an appointment, there's about a fifty/fifty shot he'll be there. It depends on whether you need something from him or he needs something from you. He hired me a few months ago to do some programming work for him. I put together a simple ticket management program for his maintainence crew. Whenever it came time to talk deployment and pay the bill, of course, he would return no phone calls or emails nor show up for meetings.

I digress. I apologized for laying into the maintainence man, but he said he understood why I was upset, and that he would relay the message. I don't trust that method of getting to Bert, as it has usually failed me in the past, but I let it go and was prepared to go home and console my wife.

On my way out of the car, I decided to be charitable and to remove some stray pieces of the rice I had tossed out the window the night before. There, I spotted Bert talking to some neighbors.

A fence seperated us, and he approached the fence starting in on me, "Mr. Hopkins, I have some things you need to do...."

"Mr. Powell, let's first begin with the fight you started with my wife who is nine months pregnant! You simply don't start sh!t with a woman who is about to give birth!" I retorted.

The subsequent exchange of words is a little muddy in my mind, but I know I hurled some expletives at him since he then decided to escalate the argument instead of apologize. I do know that the jaws of the neighbors dropped when I kept on about him starting an argument with my expectant wife.

At some point, he said: "Fine, you're evicted, and I'm calling the cops." He then proceeded to run, not walk to his car, and peal out of the driveway.

I walked back around to the parking lot at a brisque pace to intercept him, as he was coming around the corner. He slowed his car down next to the parking lot and flipped me off and then tore off.

I jumped into the car, and sped away after him, chasing him effectively back to his office.

He ran up the stairs in such a manner I didn't expect possible from a wimp like him (I don't use the word wimp lightly here, as I myself am not a statuesque figure of manliness, but I definitely think the term wimp applies here). He stood at the top of his stairs looking down at me with arms at his hips and began berating me in much the same way I imagine he yelled at my wife, tossing out every minor infraction from the previous year and a half I've rented from him.

I, in colorful language, pointed out that in no uncertain terms I would not stand for him coming to my house ever again and yelling at my wife. He then accused me of abusing my wife, a claim that is absolutely ludicrous. During the course of this I had stepped up the stairway a bit, and he had come down a bit. We were nearly nose to nose at this point, and I was restraining myself not to escelate this argument to a physical one.

I told him that's a ridiculous claim, and he recalled a bit of something my wife had supposedly said about being afraid of me.

I told him despite he being an ass and dead wrong about my abusing my wife, if he wanted to fight someone, instead of picking on pregnant women, he should choose someone like me, instead.

"That's it," he said. "I'm evicting you as of today."

"On what grounds?" I queried.

"On the grounds that you're on a month to month contract," he replied.

He had me beat on that. For the last six months or so, I've been on month to month. He can legally terminate the rent agreement for no reason whatsoever, given he provides 30 days notice.

I reminded him that he wasn't completely without wrongdoing in all this either: "You evict me, I'll see you in court. You've broken into my household and stolen property."

"I've not stolen anything from you," he said.

"What about the campaign signs you admitted to stealing to my wife, you f*cktard," I retorted. Yes. I got to use the word f*cktard in a sentence, one of the few highlights of today.

"I'm calling the cops," he said, as he dialed 911 on his celphone.

"Fine. Call them," I said, as I began walking away. I could hear him describing his version of a domestic violence report that supposedly was in progress at my house.

I drove home and went back to talk to my wife. She was calmed down, but I related to her what had just happenned, and just as I was finishing my version of the story, the police arrived. We stepped out on the deck entry area, and related to the police what had occurred, leaving nothing out. He took my information, and asked who it was that called it in, and I told him Bert Powell. The officer started laughing.

"He pulls this [crap] all the time," he said. He put his notepad in his pocked and left.

During the show, my wife sent me a voicemail saying that Bert had dropped off a note terminating the lease.

And that is the story of how I almost fought my idiotic landlord this morning.

For more interesting soundbytes, listen to this phone call between myself and Bert, as he tries to evict me over an ashtray last year.

I've documented other run-ins with Bert here, and here is the project I was talking about he never paid me for.

/rizzn

Update (6:16 PM CST, 4/24/2007): A message from a former Bert Powell tenant via MySpace...

lol i saw yer post. yeah me and me mum rented a house from him way back in 97. The carpet was so unsanitary ( the previous tenant had small dogs) that he promised he would replace it shortly after moving in. Never did though. We almost went to court over it. Even after that, he only replaced it in the bedrooms, not the rest of the house. We did not renew our lease......

...

i dont mind [you posting my comment] at all. Infact, everyone I've heard of that has rented from him has had some form of problem or another. He's shady and the rent on his properties is always too high, especially once you factor in what you have to put up with.....

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP29

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 29 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
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I started off the broadcast talking about Bert Powell, and the events that almost led up to him getting beat up by me, this morning. Look for a blog update on that later today. After that, I went into the news:

Why Boycott Israel? [from the Washington Post]

By Richard Cohen

In Iran, the government overturned the convictions of six men who, among other things, killed a young couple because they were walking together in public. In China, local authorities seized about 60 women and forcibly aborted their pregnancies. In Russia, the Putin government expanded its control of the media. In Cuba . . . oh, well, you already know. But what you may not know is that given such a vast palette of injustice and depredations, the British National Union of Journalists made a truly original move: It singled out Israel to boycott.

The boycott, mind you, is not a journalistic one. Instead, it will extend to lemons and melons and that sort of thing. The boycott was issued as "a gesture of support for the Palestinian people," some of whom, as it happens, abducted a BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston. One group has claimed that it executed him, although no proof has been offered. Suffice it to say the situation is dire.

And in more technopolitical news:

Presidential Debates Get Webby
'Here's news guaranteed to tickle anyone who, like me, is both a geek and a presidential-campaign junkie: Yahoo, Slate, and the Huffington Post have announced that they're going to cohost the first-ever online presidential debates during the 2008 campaign. There will be one for Democratic candidates and one for the Republicans, and both will be hosted by Mr. Charlie Rose.

'The press release doesn't have a lot of detail, other than that the debates will be held after Labor Day of this year, and that the Democratic one will have opening remarks by DNC Chairman Howard Dean. So I have a few questions. Such as....' (PC World blog entry).

And in extremely geeky news:

'Kryptonite' Discovered in Serbian Mine
Rubinstien writes "A mineralogist at London's Natural History Museum was contracted to help identify an unknown mineral found in a Serbian mine. While he initially thought the miners had discovered a unique compound, after its crystal structure was analyzed and identified the researcher was shocked to find the material already referenced in literature. Fictional literature. Dr. Chris Stanley, from the BBC article: 'Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula — sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide — and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luthor from a museum in the film Superman Returns ... I'm afraid it's not green and it doesn't glow either — although it will react to ultraviolet light by fluorescing a pinkish-orange.'"

And in what's normally a boring corner of news, DNS stuff:

OpenDNS Adds Short-Cut Service
DNS is boring, but OpenDNS has added a new Shortcut feature that lets you visit URLs without all that nasty typing. Shortcuts are short, multi-letter abbreviations for your favorite sites. Instead of typing “www.nytimes.com,” you can just type “NYT.” You can also create short-cuts for popular search sites (”g monkeys” to search Google for Monkeys, for example).

And in followup to the Virginia Tech Story:

Ismail Cho was a Liberal

Rush is right on the money again. Apparently Ismail/Cho was leftarded. So it is hardly surprising that those animals at MSU were spewing invectives when there was an attempt to remember the victims of the Virginia tech shooting (check out the video here.) Check this out over at ABC News. The liberal hypocrites (libhyps?) over at ABC are appalled by this, I applaud it;

On the April 19 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show , the famous conservative talk radio host opined about the political views of Seung-hui Cho, the Virginia tech massacre madman.

"If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? " Limbaugh asked. "This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act. Now, the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them. That's exactly what they do every day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just pointing out a fact. I am making no extrapolation; I'm just pointing it out. "

Limbaugh went on to say that "back in the early '90s, when there was any kind of an incident, crime or what-have-you that attracted national attention, in the early days of this program, the drive-by media went out and they tried to connect the perpetrator to this program. They did everything they could. In fact, it went so far as Bill Clinton blaming me for influencing Timothy McVeigh to blow up the bureau building . These are the people sponsoring lies and distortion for the purposes of dividing this country and creating hatred. These are the people that invented this kind of tactic, if you will ."

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP 28

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 28 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
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In our ongoing coverage of the Vonage Crap stuff:

Verizon prior art found on Usenet
The quest for prior art in the Verizon/Vonage patent fight continues. Last week, I wrote about formal discussions regarding VoIP technology from 1996 and 1997. But the Internet never forgets, and someone has found a 1995 Usenet post that pretty much describes the interconnection and control of voice calls bridged between an IP network and the PSTN. It was posted on the TELECOM Digest, a highly respected moderated newsgroup; if you were in telecom in the mid-90s, you were either reading that newsgroup or you were faking it. Vonage's trial, as discussed previously, never really delved into the matter of the Verizon patent's validity. It's not clear right now where or how that discussion will take place.

For more about prior art affecting the Verizon patents:
- see the newsgroup posting from TELECOM Digest

The war is LOST! We're doomed. DOOOOMED!:

The Senate majority leader Harry Reid drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost. He did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."

In a large segment of the show in which we covered Advertising and Dying Old Media:

Clear Channel Continues To Cut Away At Ad Spots
A couple of years ago, Clear Channel announced that it would limit the number of commercials its stations aired in a bid to stay competitive with other modes of listening to music, like satellite radio and iPods (yes, they do compete). Clear Channel's experiment, however didn't have the brightest results as fewer commercials translated to lower profits, despite efforts to charge more on a per ad basis. Still, even as the company was reporting lower revenue, it promised to maintain its limited number of ads. Now it looks to be going further in this direction, as one of its stations in Dallas will go completely commercial free. Instead of running 30 second spots, the station will make money by having companies sponsor blocks of time, with the promise that their product will be talked about in some way. Again, the station will probably see a revenue hit, but what choice does it have? As long as competition continues to take its toll on Clear Channel's bottom line, it might as well take an aggressive, proactive stance. It's also likely that the company will be criticized for not drawing a bright line between content and advertising, since the DJs will be talking about the sponsor company. But the company will be clear that the company is a sponsor of the programming, which should ameliorate these concerns. Furthermore, there's always been a blurry line separating advertising and content, as the best advertising is that which makes for good content in its own right. As long as the company is being forthright, this should be a worthwhile experiment.

And this from Mark Cuban:

Ripoff Commercials = Stupid TV Stations and Networks

Apr 22nd 2007 12:05PM

Its hard to turn on the TV today and not see commercials for some of the biggest ripoff schemes in existence. From Get Rich Quick schemes around the internet, around trading stocks, around real estate and anything else scam artists can think of, to get fit, get trim, get pretty, get studly, get this, that and the other, rip off commercials are in full force these days.

Why are they on TV ?

There are few rules in business that are simpler and easier to understand than "DONT RIP OFF YOUR CUSTOMERS". Why is it that TV stations and networks and I need to include radio as well, have no problem running commercials that are blatant hustles of one sort or another ?

If you ever need an example of short term thinking at the expense of long term value, this is it.

Here we are at a point in time when the value of the traditional 30 second ad is being questioned and reconsidered because of industry wide fears that consumers will just TIVO right past them, yet the same industry places and runs commercials with a guy in a dollar suit sign running around selling a book that is questionable at best on how to get money from the government. Why ?

How stupid can you be to run these commercials ? Do you not realize that its not a commercial for the product, its a commercial to reduce the value of the brand of your station or network ?

HDNet wont run informercials or any ripoff commercials. We don't need or want their money and I would rather go without commercials than run them. My viewers are my customers. For some reason that is a strange concept to stations and networks these days. They would rather squeek out a commission on herbal enhancement pills and end up with a poorer, upset viewer than run a show without commercial breaks. Thats ridiculous. Its a brand killer

How about this for a concept: If you havent sold a commercial, dont run a commercial. The lack of a spot will hurt your bottom line far less than running a spot to ripoff your customers

And in somehow, less interesting news:

Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 2
Thunderbird version 2.0 has been released today. As MacWorld reports, Thunderbird 2 adds message tagging, improved searching, as well as enhanced spam and phishing protection.

And finally, in the death of Vista News:

Dell Bringing Back Windows XP For An Encore
Last year, when Microsoft announced that Vista would be delayed for the umpteenth time, there was some fear that by releasing it after Christmas, it would result in a significant lull in computer sales. But this thinking assumed that people were actually enthusiastic about Vista and wouldn't want to buy an older version of Windows with a new one coming out soon. In retrospect, that assumption seems to have been quite misplaced. Not only is Vista not leading to higher computer sales, but there's a significant subset of consumers that actually would prefer to buy an older version of Windows. This demand has prompted Dell to start selling a few PC models preloaded with Windows XP, which the company had discontinued earlier this year. This can't please Microsoft, which would like to concentrate, as much as possible, on supporting its new operating system. But with so many complaints about the resource demands of the operating system, and the amount of crapware that it comes bundled with, it's no surprise that many people are happy to go with the old system.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP27

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 27 - download now - subscribe now

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• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
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During the start of the show, we talked a little about FreeIQ. No one had a real idea about the service, no one had checked it out, but I stated my analysis as such:

FreeIQ - Paul Colligan talked about it today on PodcastTools. I've searched and found all kinds of positive press about the site, but I don't see the magic of what makes this site so special. Essentially, the best concise description of this site is YouTube for Affiliate Marketers, although it bills itself as a Marketplace for Ideas - which certainly sounds a whole lot more attractive. Anyone else have any info on this, and why I might be missing the boat?

This story made me go "huh?!?" as in "Don't we live in a democracy/republic?":

Arcane Senate Rule Helps Preserve Antiquated Senate Practice
Back in February, we pointed to a story about the absurd system that Senators use to disclose their campaign contributions. Unlike their counterparts in the House, Senators don't have to file their contributions electronically, and instead file them using a tortuous process that involves needless photocopying and hand entry of the data. Not only is this time consuming, but it also costs taxpayers $250,000 per year. That's not a whole lot by government standards, but since it's a total waste it's still depressing. It looked like the Senate was all set to scrap the old system, but just as it was set to come to a vote, another arcane Senate rule came into play as Senator Lamar Alexander stood up and announced that on behalf of an anonymous Senator he would block the vote. Yes, the Senate has a rule that allows an anonymous coward, as we'd call them around here, to block any vote. So at this point it's not clear if or when electronic disclosure will be adopted in the Senate. It's lovely how democracy works, isn't it?

Also in competition with GoToMyPC!

Google Acquires Marratech; Gets Into WebEx Territory
After reporting a monster fiscal quarter (the company has close to $12 billion in cash sitting around now and has hired nearly 2,000 new employees this year), Google made a quiet announcement on its corporate blog tonight - they’ve acquired Swedish startup Marratech for an undisclosed price.

This is the first I’ve heard of Marratech, which is broadly in the e-meeting space and certainly competes with WebEx (recently acquired by Cisco for $3.2 billion). Users are able to communicate via text chat, VOIP and video, and share applications in a virtual meeting.

Their service requires a download, whereas most of the newly released e-meeting solutions are browser based (and therefore have less functionality). The Windows version of the software is 31 MB; the Mac version is just 9 MB. Google already has software on many computers with their GTalk, Desktop and Toolbar applications. Bundling this in isn’t unthinkable.

Google’s enterprise ambitions move forward another step.

And in other Google News (is it just me, or are they just dominating news lately?):

Google Spreadsheets Adds Charts
Google Spreadsheets finally added charts. This feature has been developed for many months and was one of the biggest lacks from Google's spreadsheet application.

You can create more types of charts: columns, bars, lines, pie, scatter, add labels and a legend. Just select the columns you want to plot and click on the new chart icon. After inserting the chart in the spreadsheet, you can save it as a PNG image or edit it.

The charts are rendered as SVG in Firefox/Opera and VML in Internet Explorer, so they don't require plug-ins. As usually, Opera is not officially supported, so you'll find things that don't work as expected.

Art really went off on this story:

Goodbye Alberto?

Today’s hearing was disastrous for the Attorney General. Senate Republicans were hinting that he should quit left and right.

Take Jeff Sessions (R-AL) for example:

“At this point, I think (Gonzales) should be given a chance to think it through and talk to the president about what his future should be,” Sessions said, adding that he was most troubled by Gonzales’ inability to recall attending a meeting at which the firings were discussed. Documents provided by the Justice Department show he was present at the Nov. 27, 2006, meeting.

Psst. Alberto…maybe you should (wink,wink) talk to the President about your future (nudge, nudge) and say no more, yes?

Then Tom Coburn (R-OK) just came right out and said it:

“The best way to put this behind us is your resignation,” Sen. Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record) of Oklahoma bluntly told Gonzales, one conservative to another. Gonzales disagreed, rejecting the idea that his departure would put the controversy to rest.

Alberto, your top aide is already gone. Another one is pleading the fifth. Nobody really cares about them except that they lead back to you. If you quit, this will put this controversy to rest. You got caught in a lie about something you didn’t even need to lie about, and now you have to pay the political penalty for losing your party’s trust.

But will he quit? I certainly have my doubts since he’s stuck in there this long. I thought for sure he was going to be gone a week ago.

But with this President’s numbers where they are, I think we’ll be seeing Alberto’s walking papers sooner rather than later.

Yesterday, we discussed the possible Death of Digg... is this going to keep them alive?:

Digg API, Digg Party, and Digg Dominance?

Just caught this on the Digg blog: they’re officially launching the public API and a Flash application toolkit.

Additionally, they’re launching a contest to find the best visualizations and applications built on the API and toolkit. I haven’t been privy to any projects built on Digg before, but as far as I’m aware, there was already the ability to build a few things on Digg.

Just like the Facebook API, this is likely to solidify Digg’s position at the top of the tech news food chain. Once you have an easy API, and hundreds of apps plugging in, there’s really no way for the competition to catch you. It also means, most likely, that getting on Digg becomes even more valuable, and the brokenness of that system is exacerbated.

/rizzn