DefinitiveInk

If someone at a meeting unexpectedly says, You're all doing a great job, and not to worry." Should you worry?

Times article on NameMedia, "the  company’s business is best seen as  an online property developer." They bought GardenWeb's competitior DavesGarden earlier in the year.

Hobos didn't carry these bags so why are they named after them?

Deadline Hollywood Daily on NBC changes at the top.

Rejoined Facebook today to experiment with their new openess. The intial reg process with its ability to pull names from multiple e-mail address books is great.  Integration not just the ability to place something on a site using an embed code.

Star Wars MashUps

Digg / API contest

Digg / API contestdata visualization of Digg using their API

(Via .)

Typepad introduces "pages" thereby becoming a great website creation tool, why would an author or small business need anything else?

TechCrunch article onMySpace

Users will also be adding applications to their site, where others can click and add it to their own profile. The apps will essentially look like any other Facebook application.

The payoff is two way. Not only do developers get deep access to Facebook’s twenty million users, Facebook also becomes a rich platform for third party applications.

Facebook’s strategy is almost the polar opposite from MySpace. While MySpace frets over third party widgets, alternatively shutting them down or acquiring them, Facebook is now opening up its core functions to all outside developers.

Huge!

PaidContent is a little less impressed.

Falcon chicks born at the top of the Throgs Neck Bridge

Nerve - Pickupedia-A Pickup Line Encyclopedia:"(Via Buzzfeed.)

"Those who read own the world, those who watch TV lose it"-- Werner Herzog speaking at Film forum last night during some QA after a Chris Marker's Sans Soleil

Fred Wilson blogs on the Wallstrip acquisition.

Several random thoughts:

- I realized, as our birth class instructor had my wife lie on a exercise ball and then proceeded to straddle her thighs while demonstrating a squeezing maneuver to relieve the pain of "back labor", that there are no opportunities for male childbirth educators.

- That if people can raise chickens in their apartments then I would like to raise chickens in our back yard. Bees too.

- Two skit ideas based on a short trip to the Meatpacking district to see our friends film.
-- A nightclub with bouncers my height five eight on a good day letting in or not letting in little people. The nightclub would be right next to a restaurant with enormous bouncers.
--It would be nice to see Will Farrell and Chris Kattan playing their characters Doug and Steve Butabi, just walking around the area window shopping, checking out the crowds.

- That there is actually a birth control pill called Yaz. I now know this as I was discussing SMS alerts and I had a who's on first moment when their mobile play was descirbed to me. I kept thinking of the band though others might think of Carl Yastrzemski.

- That I can't get my head around the fact that WallStrip was bought for five million dollars.

GigaOm has Joost invites,get joosted

Ruling on Roomate.com's libility for postings. Interesting ruling, "all three judges in the decision yesterday agreed that the site could be held liable for soliciting information from users through a series of menus about themselves and their preferred roommates and for posting and distributing profiles created from the menus. The choices on the menus included gender, sexual orientation and whether children were involved."

Amazing video from Talking Points Memo, of former Deputy AG James Comey's testimony. It reminds me of the brutal scene from the Godfather. It also brings my level of respect for Comey, Ashcroft, and Mueller up a ton. Go Schumer!

"All of the romance of the hansom cab without the equine unpleasantness"

Was the Seinfeld episode (#173,1998) about rickshaws in NYC the inspiration for pedicabs as well? Newman says,"All of the romance of the hansom cab without the equine unpleasantness"

Are these still around?

Widgets here, there, everywhere

A VC: (Over) Counting Widgets post on the need for metrics on widgets

ReadWriteWeb gets to write a nice lead, "Read/write widgets are going to be the next big thing on the Web" in a post about RateItAll's widgets and E-bay's widgets Also the announcement of some interesting widgets from mpire. (ReadWriteweb post via Susan Mernit.)

Links to all things Google

Simply Google: page with links to all of Google's services

(Via ReadWriteWeb.)

A link to the Suskind article in Esquire mentioned in Frank Rich's May 13th editorial

In his editorial,  Earth to G.O.P, the Gipper is Dead  (Times Select needed), Frank Rich mentions Ron Suskind's article Why Are These Men Laughing in which John DiIluio says "...What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis." Below is the author's note that sits in front of the article.   

Author Note: "Why Are These Men Laughing" contained a series of critiques of the Bush administration from an ex-White House official, John DiIlulio. DiIluio, whose thoughts were sent to the author in a polished, elegantly constructed seven-page memo, was the first ranking administration official to publicly criticize his boss. According to DiIulio, the political team at the White House was making every policy decision, ignoring the advice of experts. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, commenting on this article, said it was now clear that the Bush White House had "no interest in the substance of policy, caring only about political payoffs." Shortly after the article appeared in Esquire, the White House went on the offensive, forcing DiIulio to apologize for his assessments that drew a comparison to Stalinist Russia in the Washington Post.

(Note: I've had the distinct pleasure of working with Ron on the Esquire site and later in helping him put his valuable work online and I remember the blow-by-blow of the days that followed the initial posting of this article. There were at least three versions of apology issued. Other items of note on the Suskind's site are documents that are referenced in his book The Price of Loyalty. Among those are indications of regime change in Iraq being on the top of the agenda in Feb of 2001.)

Friday cat Jodie Foster blogging

Thanks David

Brooklyn Blogfest notes

Went to the Old Stone House this evening to attend Brooklyn Blogfest. I had forgotten to RSVP, in fact I didn't know you had to RSVP from the postings about it, so after a few minutes of stand by I was let upstairs into the packed room. The event was created last year by Louise Crawford, of Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn, and she invited a great selection of local bloggers among them Brownstoner,  No Land Grab, Gowanus Lounge, Atlantic Yards Report, CreativeTimes,  and Steven Johnson from Outside.in. I've just made a "blidget" of Outside.in's coverage of my zip code.Many of the bloggers mentioned should be represented in the headline flow. Themes covered were the opportunities created by the failure of mainstream media to cover local issues,the importance of blogs covering the Ratner development, blogging in areas that are gentrifying, and Brownstoner's somewhat cautionary account of trying to make a go of it his site as a full time gig. I introudced myself to Flatbush Gardener whom I very pleased is listed on GardenVoices.

'Psychic' Uri Geller sues over video clip on YouTube - could have predicted this. (Via techmeme)

Twitter vs. Blogger a look at their growth

A long and interesting post by Jason Kottke of the growth of twitter as compared to blogger or possible lack thereof (as he keeps updating the post). Growth of posts not users. Also a link to a chart of the history of adoption of technology over time.