Microsoft, Yahoo link instant messaging systems
YAHOO and Microsoft announced that they would tear down the wall
between their formerly exclusive instant messaging services and allow members
to mingle beginning Wednesday. The union of Yahoo Messenger and Windows
Live Messenger systems would create the world’s largest combined IM
network with nearly 350m users, the US companies said in a joint
release.
Click here to read the full story.
Source: AFP, Middle East Times
“Subscribe to MySpace magazine”
Well, not yet, but you might be hearing that request in the near future, because MySpace is considering launching a magazine in conjunction with Nylon magazine.
Click here to read the story …
You know, I can see the good side and bad side to this. On one hand, MySpace has the publisher’s *dream* readership: 57 million (their numbers) young people with disposable incomes and a thirst for popular culture. On the other hand, it’s a bloody website and became popular for what it has been and is — does the world need another “young people focussed” magazine? Then again, it seems that MySpace management are aware of the risk such a venture could be to the MySpace brand … and if they’re gonna do it, they’re determined to do it right.
Nylon … hmm, not a bad choice, but definitely only established in the English-speaking world. I don’t see kids in Spain, France or Finland running out to buy a copy — so will the project be strictly limited to/focussed on the majority American and British audience? But doesn’t that defeat the mandate of the truly global community that MySpace was first to successfully offer? Well, whatever.
Clearly MySpace has indeed collaborated with the mag in the past, but perhaps considering the significant financial and global/cultural implications of the possible move, I reckon the venture would stimulate a great deal more analytical discourse if it perhaps considered collaborating with The Economist.
Ooohh, Rupert must be getting excited.
So, would one have to email bulletins and comments to a MySpace magazine?
That son of a Bush
Bush ‘helped Israeli attack on Lebanon’
Monday August 14, 2006
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles, The Guardian
THE US government was closely involved in planning the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, even before Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raids in July. American and Israeli officials met in the spring, discussing plans on how to tackle Hizbullah, according to a report published yesterday …
Stop Googling things, says Google
This just in, from the European Journalism Centre:
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Stop Googling things, says Google
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GOOGLE has issued letters to media organisations asking them to refrain
from using its name as a verb. In order to ‘protect its trademark’, and
prevent it becoming a generic term, the search firm has sent letters to
publishers advising them on its proper use.
Google’s letter includes helpful examples of appropriate and
inappropriate use of the company’s trademark. For example: ‘I used
Google to check out that guy I met at the party’ is fine, but ‘I
googled that hottie’ is not. Similarly, it’s OK to say: ‘He ego-surfs on Google
to see if he’s listed in the results’ but not ‘He googles himself.’
The key distinction is whether Google is used to describe searching in
a general, non-specific sense. ‘With constant generic use, trademarks can
lose their special status and their proper name capitalisation,’ said
Google in the letter. ‘It has happened to once-trademarked products
including yo-yo, trampoline and nylon. Trademark lawyers call it
‘genericide’.’
Source: – VNU Net
Iran’s president launches blog
IRANIAN President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has joined a burgeoning international community – by starting his own weblog. The launch of www.ahmadinejad.ir was reported on state TV, which urged users to send in messages to the president.
Mr Ahmadinejad’s first posting, entitled autobiography, tells of his childhood, Iran’s Islamic revolution, and the country’s war with Iraq. The blog includes a poll asking if users think the US and Israel are trying to trigger a new world war.
Source: BBC
School of Vice discusses: The BNP on Muslims
FIRST read this from the British National Party (BNP) website … click here
NEXT, here’s something relevant out of Vice magazine’s message board … reaction to posted picture of the crowd of idiot BNP dorks rallying to “Keep Muslims out of the Christian Church” (I know, really funny) … some even read through the BNP article linked to above (“BNP call to ban Muslims from our skies”) … well needless to say it triggered a really interesting comments posting spree which provides some entertainment, some perspective, and a great deal of discourse, which really, is indeeed a first for Vice. Well done.
Café solo 