The tabloid agency is seeking over $7.5 million dollars in damages from Perez for what they say is a loss of profits and injury to their reputation. The photo agency believes their pics have played a large part in the success and profitability of perezhilton.com, which reportedly charges between $9,000 and $16,000 a week for ad space. It costs plenty to appear next to Britney's crotch!

Perez tells TMZ, "I have yet to be personally served with this lawsuit. My lawyers and I will address the situation when we have the opportunity to review the materials."

Perez Hilton is to be hit by a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit from the top seven paparazzi agencies in the US.

Splash News, INF, Ramey, Bauer Griffin, WENN, Most Wanted and Flynet have joined forces to stop Perezhilton.com from using copyrighted images.

"Perez claims he is making a fortune off exploiting pictures taken by photographers. He blatantly violates copyright and makes advertising revenue off other people's works," said Gary Morgan of Splash News.

"It is time he is held accountable for his actions. We have amassed a ton of evidence from all of these agencies detailing his infringements. We have filed a letter to him giving him the chance to either pay up for all of his copyright violations or face the music. He only has a few days to decide."

The site already offers a mix of opinion and breaking news from wire services and other sources, but Ms. Huffington said she wanted to produce reported pieces that were expressed with individual voices.

"That's the combination you need online," she said, adding that unlike bloggers, who generally file when they want to, her reporters will have deadlines and regular schedules and will travel for their articles. Also unlike bloggers, Ms. Huffington said, they will be paid.

Ms. Henneberger, 48, who lives in Washington and had been a reporter for The New York Times as well as Newsweek, where she is a contributing editor, has been writing a book for the last two years about women voters.

She said she was joining The Huffington Post not because of frustration with print media but because "it's such a great opportunity to build my own team."

In a recent post on TechCrunch, for instance, founder and blogger-in-chief Michael Arrington posted a summary of recent shake-ups at file-sharing site BitTorrent. The only problem is, the spelling of the site's name fluctuated between "BitTorrent" and "BitTorent" throughout the post--with the misspelling in the headline, even. (If it's been corrected by now, check the comments for evidence of the mishap.)

We'll forgive Mr. Arrington for this one and spare him any jabs that involve removing one of the r's from his own name. After all, it's morning, and when I don't have enough coffee in the morning I do dumb things like confuse TypePad with MovableType. And yes, typos do get through even at professional news sites with lots of writers and editors.

That's ok, I can take a jab from them. While CNET writers were all cozy in bed last night, Om and I were competing to break the Bittorent story. That's why blogs will win, and CNET will lose.

Why the name MetaMedia? The "meta" is meant to reflect media that are changing, folding in on themselves and self-reflective — after all, we are media commenting on media. "Meta" echoes the convergence of media and technology, constantly evolving and continually engaging. If you look on Dictionary.com, you will find many different - if not contradictory! - definitions: change, transformation, beyond, transcending, more comprehensive, at a higher state of development, self-referential… (See more from the IHT on the tech/media convergence here, under In-Depth Coverage.) And heck, we just thought it sounded cool.

The purpose of the new category is to encourage and honor exemplary local journalism, marked by strong reporting across a spectrum of potential subjects. "The Pulitzer Prizes have long valued such reporting," Gissler said, "but this makes our interest much more explicit."

While the local category replaces the Beat Reporting category that was created in 1991, the work of beat reporters remains eligible for entry in a wide range of categories that include-depending on the specialty involved-national, investigative, and explanatory reporting, as well as the new local category.

With its new rules for online submissions, the Pulitzer Board will require each online element to be a single, discretely designated presentation, such as a database, blog, interactive graphic, slide show, or video presentation. Each designated element will count as one item in the total number of items, print or online, that are permitted in an entry.

Q. What is an online element?
A. It is a single, unified, discretely designated presentation. For example, it can be an online story, database, blog, interactive graphic, slide show or video presentation. Each designated element will count as one item in the total number permitted in an entry.

Q. How much online content can a single element contain?
A. There is no absolute limit. However, the burden on a jury should be kept in mind. An online element with multiple parts, such as a blog with manifold postings, should be a cohesive presentation. The conceptual logic tying the parts together should be clear.

The single most helpful tool for me in my efforts to blog about news events first has been an RSS to IM/SMS notification tool. I use Zaptxt to subscribe to very high priority feeds. It sends me an IM and SMS whenever a high-profile company blog is updated and in a number of other circomstances. There are quite a few services that offer this functionality now and it's invaluable. A big part of taking a prominent position in the blogosphere is writing first on a topic. That's a large part of what got me the job at TechCrunch and it's something that an increasing number of people are clearly trying to do.

In sectors where people are already using tools like the above, I expect further developments to emerge that differentiate writers' handling of the huge amount of information available. New tools and new practices. It's a very exciting time to be someone who works with information.

But what about shared dislikes? Can a community form around that? What is the opposite of a fan club? The answer is the Rachael Ray Sucks Community.

Gathering by way of the blogging and social-networking site LiveJournal, this group has more than 1,000 members, who are quite active in posting their latest thoughts and observations about the various shortcomings, flaws, and disagreeable traits of Rachael Ray, the television food personality.

"This community," the official explanation reads, "was created for people that hate the untalented twit known as Rachael Ray." The most important rule for those who wish to join: "You must be anti-Rachael!"

As with any community, the key to attracting members is not just a clear core idea but one that can be fulfilled in a variety of ways. Members of the Rachael Ray Sucks Community certainly do this, criticizing her cooking skills, her over-reliance on chicken stock, her kitchen hygiene, her smile, her voice, her physical mannerisms, her clothes, her penchant for saying "Yum-o," and so on.

Some 43% of Britons who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal TV as a result.

And online and mobile viewing is rising - three quarters of users said they now watched more than they did a year ago.

But online video viewers are still in the minority, with just 9% of the population saying they do it regularly.

Another 13% said they watched occasionally, while a further 10% said they expected to start in the coming year.

In the survey, one in five people who watched online or mobile video at least once a week said they watched a lot less TV as a result. Another 23% said they watched a bit less, while just over half said their TV viewing was unchanged. Some 3% said online video inspired them to watch more TV.

"Our relaunch as LX.TV Lifestyle Television reflects LX Network's ability to reach affluent Americans with quality programming fitting their lifestyles," said LX.TV CEO Joseph Varet.

Pak comes to LX.TV from MTV News, where she has been since 2001 and remains a correspondent. Over the years, she has interviewed everyone from Mariah Carey and P. Diddy to Mary J. Blige and Fred Durst. "Drinks With" will kick off with interviews with satirist Mo Rocca, Star Magazine editor-in-chief Bonnie Fuller and "Project Runway" personality Tim Gunn. The network will continue to evolve its programming looking to develop additional talk and reality-based segments.

"Since our launch four months ago, we've been innovators in broadband television. Over 100,000 visitors have come to the site to watch their daily dish of stylish, hip coverage of what is new and exciting," added LX.TV chief creative officer/executive producer Morgan Hertzan. "We pride ourselves in being one-of-a-kind and are at the forefront of broadband programming," Hertzan said. "I can't think of anyone better to host the first broadband talk show then SuChin Pak. Millions of television viewers see her every day, and we are excited to be producing this internet talk show with her."

As many of you have noted over the past few weeks, we've slowly been divesting ourselves of much of our blog network. This is part of a deliberate strategy to move beyond the "wide & deep" network strategy that we have employed in the past in order to refocus our efforts on our consulting business and expand more into services for professional bloggers, including directly consulting in that arena.

Thus, it only makes sense for us to rebrand ourselves as Problogging, Inc.

Our focus will be on serving the needs of the Professional Blogging community and those who wish to enter that arena.

People pay attention to graphics. They respond to graphics. They learn from graphics. If you want your readers/learners/audience to "get" something as quickly and clearly as possible, use visuals. And you don't have to be a graphic artist, designer, or information architect to put pictures in your presentation, post, or book. This post is my first attempt to categorize the kinds of graphics I do here, and offer tips for creating visuals that tell the story better and faster than words.

So who had done this? The junk filter had recorded their IP (internet) address. It resolved to somewhere in India. Which rang a bell: earlier this year, I spoke with someone who does blog spamming for a living - a very comfortable living, he claimed. But he said that the one thing that did give him pause was the possibility that rival blog spammers might start paying people in developing countries to fill in captchas: they could always use a bit of western cash, would have the spare time and, increasingly, cheap internet connections to be able to do such tedious (but paid) work.

A few days later I read a stunning report by George Packer in the New Yorker magazine - regrettably, it's not online - about the sprawling mega- city of Lagos in Nigeria. It's the world's sixth largest city, and growing fast; the concept of urban planning has collapsed and life is eked out from the margins of existence. Corruption isn't an occasional hazard; it underpins a near-feudal society. While there, Packer was approached by one of his guides, who offered him the promise of riches looted from a despot; the classic Nigerian scam.

Packer declined politely, attaching no blame to his would-be scammer: "He would have been regarded locally as a fool if he hadn't tried to exploit [me]," he noted without rancour. Elsewhere this week, deliveries began of the hand-powered laptop, Nicholas Negroponte's computing gift to the developing world.

I've no doubt it will radically alter the life of many in the developing world for the better. I also expect that once a few have got into the hands of people aching to make a dollar, with time on their hands and an internet connection provided one way or another, we'll see a significant rise in captcha-solved spam. But, as my spammer contact pointed out, it's nothing personal. You have to understand: it's just business.

Still, only three percent of Europe's estimated 130 million Internet users create blogs, it said, adding that most of the bloggers were in France, Italy and Spain.

"France today is still the country that blogs the most, with nearly one million active bloggers," the study said.

The report was based on a survey of 7,377 online consumers in seven countries -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.

It found that, unsurprisingly, bloggers tended to be young and first-adopters of new technology -- those for whom any IT innovation is a must-have.

After attracting 11.1 million unique visitors each month to the station's online social network, Skyblog.com, Mr. Bellanger is planning to reach for the skies in January. That is when he intends to spin off new blogs in German, Spanish and English to offer the same rich, raucous mix of the inner thoughts and videos of thousands of young bloggers.

If you have a holiday travel horror story, this is the place to discuss it. Every year during the holiday season, travelers gear up to enjoy some of the worst experiences the airlines have to offer. Yet year after year, nothing ever seems to change. Perhaps it's because they aren't held accountable, or because airline travel is a necessity. But perhaps it's because they just never hear about it! After all, who wants to spend 4 hours on the phone complaining to an airline voice-mail after you just spent 4 hours waiting for your bags?! What a headache. Skip that mess, and instead kick back with a nice glass of eggnog and let the whole wide web community share your pain.

Well, the eye of the travel hurricane is above most of us. We at Aircomplane.com hope you are all safely where you're supposed to be. The storm returns to shore Sunday when we all begin to return, and we look forward to hearing from you (and helping when we can), then.

A growing number of Americans are listening to podcasts, but very few do so every day.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project said Wednesday that 12 percent of Internet users have downloaded a podcast, an increase from 7 percent earlier in the year.

However, only about 1 percent said they download a podcast on a typical day -- unchanged from the survey earlier this year. The rest do so less frequently, perhaps only once.

***

While podcast downloading is still an emerging activity primarily enjoyed by early adopters, the range of content now available speaks to both mainstream and niche audiences," said Mary Madden, senior research specialist at Pew. "We are at a crossroads of a major transition in the way media content is delivered and consumed."

The array of individuals and mainstream media institutions that now provide podcasts has also expanded dramatically. For example, in November of 2004, Podcast Alley, a podcast directory website, listed fewer than 1,000 podcasts for download. Today Podcast Alley catalogs more than 26,000 different podcasts, totaling more than 1 million episodes. In addition to homegrown podcasts that cover topics ranging from music and fashion to religion and politics, mainstream media institutions such as NPR, the BBC and Comedy Central now regularly provide podcasted material as an alternative way to distribute their content.

Analysts have long been saying that YouTube is a gift for the TV networks: now we have the stats to prove it. CBS announced today that viewers are flocking to their TV shows after seeing the clips on YouTube. "Letterman" has gained 5 percent (or 200,000 new viewers), while "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" is up 7 percent (or 100,000 viewers) since the CBS YouTube channel debuted a month ago. They've uploaded 300 clips so far, which have averaged 857,000 views per day in total - that's 29.2 million views on YouTube this month. It's also worth noting that YouTube takes that content to millions of viewers outside of the US who can't access CBS normally - if we could measure the channel's global influence and recognition, I'm sure that will have increased dramatically. CBS has three of the top 25 Most Viewed videos this month, and they have 9 of the Most Viewed videos today (let’s hope they’re not gaming YouTube!). What's more, they've got nearly 22,000 subscribers.

The court, in a unanimous decision overturning a San Francisco appeals court ruling, said that those claiming defamation could sue only the original source of the disputed comments, not publishers or distributors, even if the distributor was an individual.

Internet users are protected by the same 1996 Communications Decency Act that grants immunity against defamation claims to publishers in most cases, the court said.

In today's ruling, the California Supreme court said that granting such broad immunity for posting defamatory statements "has some troubling consequences."

Nevertheless, the court said, "Until Congress chooses to revise the settled law in this area" people who contend they were defamed on the Internet can seek recovery only from the original source of the statement, not from those who re-post it."

I find with these that whenever I open Bloglines, there are a couple dozen posts. I don't have the time or inclination to read them all right then, so I leave them. Then, next time, there are more. Eventually Bloglines tops out at 200 unread posts, and I click on the blog title just to get rid of the unread and start over.

It's a little heart-breaking, because all of them have such great content. But that's something to consider when you're running a blog. The automatic train of thought is, "I'll just throw everything out there and people will read what they want." Not true - too many posts can overwhelm people, and they consequently won't read any. The volume of your content can render the quality of your content moot.

The following story made it to the front-page of Digg.com within 2 and a half hours of being submitted, and as I am writing this piece (3 and a half hours after being on the front-page), the story is still on the front-page of Digg:

"We just can't compete with The XBOX, it's cheaper and techologically more advanced than the Playstation, I think this might be the Playstations final year."

That should be more than enough to tip people off that this is a fake. What is problematic is that people continue to Digg the article even after Diggers pointed out more problems in the article

This isn't the first time this has happened and it's not limited to socially driven news sites like digg. The blogosphere widely reported last week that Yahoo had acquired mybloglog after Techcrunch broke the story. An formal announcement has yet to be made.

All of this points to a real problem in the social media world. The only yardsticks we use to measure the trustworthiness of a source are purely based on popularity - e.g. in-bound links, votes, etc. Now often popularity and quality are closely aligned. However, both of these incidents demonstrate that the current system isn't working. We need more.

While we're open to any type of content-such as silly pet tricks or an awesome sports moment-please limit your videos to five minutes or less for free members and 10 minutes or less for premium members, and follow our guidelines.

Our editors will be searching the site for the best videos to feature on the homepage, and yours could be one of them! Get your friends and family together and starting filming-you can even create your own show. Who knows, you could be a star in the making...

And don't forget that you can in-line videos on your blog or other website, just like photos! Check it out!

Despite buzz to the contrary, MyBlogLog.com is not yet the property of serial acquirer Yahoo Inc. This comes straight from Scott Rafer, the former CEO of search engine Feedster and now CEO of the popular blog community tracker.

"We've got a lot of balls in the air at the moment," Rafer said. Rumors that Yahoo was buying MyBlogLog for $10 million have been floating around the blogosphere since the Web 2.0 "summit" earlier this month. MyBlogLog encourages people to build connections and communities around their favorite blogs.

One of Yahoo's PR firms, OutkastPR, emailed us to say that this story is innacurate, and that Yahoo has not acquired MyBlogLog. We dug a little deeper with some insiders and it appears that Yahoo and MyBlogLog are in very early acquisistion discussions, and nothing more. Founder Scott Rafer was completely silent when asked about the rumors today - suggesting he didn’t mind getting all the press attention.

On Tuesday, a lawyer for the Universal Music Publishing Group, a catalog owner and administrator, posted the text of a cease-and-desist letter in the comments section of Stereogum.com, a Web site carrying the video. It contended that Bank of America had violated Universal's copyright of the U2 song.

The two employees featured in the video were the guitarist, Jim Debois, a consumer market executive for Manhattan, and the singer, Ethan Chandler, a Manhattan banking center manager, who provoked much of the ridicule with his earnest interpretation and also for straying a bit far from U2's lyrics with lines like "Integration has never had us feeling so good/and we'll make lots of money."

Mr. Chandler, who has independently released an album and is working on another, said he was asked to write and perform the song for an August meeting of credit card division executives at MBNA headquarters in Wilmington, Del.

He said he was surprised to learn about the cease-and-desist letter, stressing that his performance was meant for an internal audience. "There was an approved list of songs to use," he said, "and as far I knew, that was an approved song."

Anyone over 90 who says they never give their age a thought is not being truthful. Every day I wake, I give thanks and check my pulse. Then I go to the front door and get the papers, and get six dollars in coins to put away never to be spent (I will get back to that another time). Then I attend to the first pills of the day before I eat and listen to the morning news on TV, which is always bad these days, with various religious persuasions infiltrating and killing each other in and around the Holy Land. I want to keep up, even though I am old and do not have to do anything about it all.

New guidelines tell BBC staff they can make payments to members of the public who send in footage from mobile phones or cameras, but "audiences should not be encouraged to think that payment is the norm," which will definitely put more pressure on the editors in judging whether to pay or not. The new editorial policy guidelines state: "In return for payment we may negotiate an assignment of copyright or exclusive rights - but bear in mind that material other than photographs may be copied and used by other news organizations under 'fair dealing'." Vicky Taylor, the BBC's head of interactivity, said that "We do not want to give people the impression that we will pay for hundreds of pieces of user-generated content," said Ms Taylor.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, is seen as part of a strategy by Universal to test provisions of a federal law that provides a "safe harbor" to Internet companies that follow certain procedures to filter out copyrighted works. The law requires sites to remove such content after being notified by the copyright holder.

If Universal can win in court, it is likely to gain leverage in negotiating licensing terms with user-driven services - just at the moment that those services are attracting deep-pocketed partners.

Earlier this year, Universal's chief executive, Doug Morris, publicly identified the YouTube video-sharing site and MySpace as copyright infringers. Universal successfully negotiated to take a stake in YouTube shortly before it was sold to Google for $1.65 billion, according to executives briefed on the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity. But licensing talks with MySpace recently reached an impasse.

MySpace said in a statement yesterday that it complied with the requirements of federal law. The company said it had kept Universal, a unit of Vivendi, "closely apprised of our industry-leading efforts to protect creators’ rights, and it's unfortunate they decided to file this unnecessary and meritless litigation."

In a letter drafted by L.A. law firm Makarem & Associates, Hilton was ordered to remove exclusive photos of Britney Spears holding her baby Jayden James, taken in Louisiana by Splash snappers Aaron St-Clair and Steve Dennett.

The legal move by Splash, one of the biggest paparazzi agencies in the world, comes just weeks after a photographer from FilmMagic confronted Hilton at a Hollywood event about pilfering his photos.

A defensive Hilton snapped at the photographer: “Nobody contacted me to take it down, so shut the f**k up!"

FilmMagic and sister agency WireImage are owned by MediaVast Inc.

Original content covering developments in the search space.

Daily blog posts covering search news from across the web.

SearchCap: A daily email newsletter recapping search news from Search Engine Land and across the web. Also available by feed.

SearchCap Monthly: A monthly email newsletter recapping search news over the past month. Also available by feed.

Susi Weaser's big break came after 'Something for the Weekend' makers, Princess Productions, spotted her potential through a series of short video blogs or vlogs she presented on the blog Shiny Shiny, a girl's guide to gadgets on the Shiny Media network, and TechDigest.tv.

Mike Worsley, of Princess Productions, said: "We screentested her after coming across the YouTube clips. She's a natural, which comes from her background working in social media and being very interactive with an audience."

YouTube, a service for users to upload, view and share videoclips, has been responsible for the rapid success of bands such as OK Go.

Weaser added: "I never imagined just doing online videos would lead to an actual TV presenter's job. But fans needn't worry because I'll still be doing my regular 'vlogs' for TechDigest.tv and ShinyShiny.tv as well."

So, what next? My guess: a rapid re-entry, with a well-funded venture in internet media, probably podcasting or wiki directories, judging by the topics Calacanis covers in his personal writing. He'll be loud, infuriating -- and probably, irritatingly, successful.

In recent months, Mr. Calacanis said he was considering leaving AOL to start a new company. His decision to resign was hastened by the news that Time Warner, AOL's parent, had replaced Mr. Miller with Randy Falco, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group.

"I'm not inclined to start over with a new guy," Mr. Calacanis said in an interview on Thursday. As for what to make of the treatment of Mr. Miller, who discovered he was being replaced after a reporter called AOL asking about Mr. Falco's appointment, Mr. Calacanis said only: "I'm perplexed. Why now?"

But despite the fact that teens and college students account for a big chunk of the online video audience, BIGresearch estimated last month that the average age of U.S. viewers is an ancient 39. And according to data compiled by Nielsen/NetRatings, comScore and Quantcast, Web surfers ages 35 to 64 make up anywhere from 48% to 65% of YouTube's audience.

Despite the seeming omnipresence of online video, viewing those clips still isn't among the top three most common online activities, which Forrester Research found in April to be e-mail (96%), instant messaging (37%) and playing games (36%). Watching online video ranked fourth at 25%, outpacing downloading music (12%) and downloading movies (3%).

Among heavy Internet users studied by Universal McCann and InsightExpress, 54% watched online video or streamed live music. But that still lagged far behind shopping (84%), entering contests (80%), playing games (73%), listening to Internet radio (71%), reviewing a product (68%) and sharing photos (67%).

And here are some numbers for advertisers to mull over: When asked by the Online Publishers Association in March how they respond to online video ads, an impressive 31% said they checked out the company's Web site, while 14% went to a store to check out the product and another 14% requested more information.

In an online chat with the San Francisco Chronicle's Al Saracevic, Mr. Denton wrote that while he thinks it is appropriate for Valleywag to take on big players in the technology and venture-capital businesses - even when it comes to salacious rumors of sexual affairs - the plan now is to "pick less on civilians" and cover the business of the Valley a bit more seriously. (Apparently moving forward with this plan, Valleywag ran an extremely gossipy and speculative item on Tuesday that suggested, among other things, that Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp is interested in buying the Web site Facebook.)

"It would have been nice to get the Google-YouTube deal," Mr. Denton told MarketWatch's Bambi Francisco, as he explained the site’s new direction.

In an e-mail to Gawker Media staff obtained by DealBook, Mr. Steele cited Mr. Douglas's "repeated misunderstanding of the purpose of our sites." Mr. Denton, who had taken over as interim editor of the site, wants "to bring in someone as fearless as Nick Douglas, but with more authority," he wrote.

We haven't gotten a serious legal threat so far. Well, a couple of minor ones, but we're still waiting for a good solid cease-and-desist and a good lawsuit. We're really trying to get News Corp. to sue us. They tried to stop the publication of some article [ed: originally intended for publication by someone else] calling MySpace a spam factory. And the author was revealing some of the background behind the company - that it wasn't really started by these two guys in their basement. And, since News Corp went to such lengths to stop the original publisher from publishing the article, we were hoping that if I actually published it on Valleywag, we could finally get sued. (Sighs) It didn't happen yet. I'm really disappointed about that.

It's all a little confusing because, in his audio interview with RU Sirius, Destiny and myself, Mr. Douglas indicated that he was working on new projects, though he declined to say what they were. But since the announcement of his departure from Valleywag, we didn't really believe the speculations that he'd been fired. And never in a million years would we have thought he was, at least in part, fired because of what he said to us.

For what it's worth, consider this a public apology to Nick Douglas. But, maybe it's not something Nick regrets.

Based on the content of the above email, I'd say Gawker made a mistake. A big mistake.

GRETA: Why do you think it's gotten so adversarial? Tonight is literacy. Everybody comes in from all different sides and wants to help. It seems like oftentimes in Washington, you know, on something we all want to work towards it's not necessarily so civilized. It's not so pleasant.

H.W. BUSH: It's true but that's not new really. I mean, you go back in history and you'll find that there was always adversarial politics. There was always gut fighting. And it's probably a little worse now given the electronic media and the bloggers and all these kinds of things. But I don't despair about it. I think things - there is a pendulum at work at times so you swing away from the incivility back to more normal climate.

As a provider of syndicated text, pictures and video news, Reuters plans to offer Pluck's BlogBurst blog syndication service to thousands of its media customers worldwide, the London-based company said.

BlogBurst counts U.S. news outlets such as The Washington Post, the Gannett newspaper chain, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Austin American-Statesman as its customers. In Britain, it also links bloggers to the Guardian newspaper site and Reuters sites.

Blog categories covered include news, politics, sports, health, fitness, technology, travel, food and entertainment.

Pluck plans to take advantage of Reuters' investment to expand its services worldwide, starting in Europe and later in Asia, executives of both companies said.

About 5 months ago I was blogging away and something struck me "there is no tradeshow for blogging!" At least not a tradeshow for all bloggers that I could find. (I produce very big tradeshows for a living). Sure there were lots of great events but they each addressed a particular niche BlogHer, the Blog Business Summit (a very cool event btw), or Yearly Kos for example. I wanted to go to something that had everything any blogger could ever want. From publishing platforms, to broad band providers, to lap tops to badges, widgets and plug ins, to a dozen other things I could think of off the top of my head. It seems everyday I across some new product or service that Bloggers use /want/need.

Of course I would also want all of my blogging questions answered like how do I get a certain plug in to work right, How do I work this newsreader thingy?, What exactly is RSS and why does everybody tell me I need it? How do I get more people to read my blog? And thats just the basic stuff. Analytics, Search Engine Optimization, Affiliate Programs, Ad networks, it goes on and on.

I think you see where this is going. I told a very good friend, former boss and one of the best tradeshow people I know about my idea and her response was "I want in and we have to launch this show right now!"

Microsoft Corp. plans to add a video-sharing feature to its Zune player and will eventually sell a model that combines the device with a phone, Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said.

The video function would probably be used to transfer content created by Zune customers, Ballmer said in an interview today from Redmond, Washington. He declined to comment on when Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, would add video sharing or announce a phone model.

Zune goes on sale tomorrow for $249.99 as Microsoft tries to break into the $4 billion U.S. market for portable music devices. Ballmer pointed to Zune's wireless connection, currently used for music sharing, as an advantage over Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod, which has 75 percent of U.S. sales. New features will help Microsoft keep pace with Apple, he said.

``The race is on,'' he said. ``I'm confident we can keep up. They have brand and image going for them, and we have some innovative ideas.''

They're prison inmates and many, including those on Texas' death row, have moved their cell-based ponderings from isolated anti-death penalty Internet pages to the popular social networking Web site favored by the younger set: MySpace.

At least 30 Texas death row inmates have MySpace pages created for them. On these personal pages they detail their likes and dislikes, just like anyone else.

"I think I'm a pretty funny guy. I have a wacked sense of humor," writes Randy Halprin, who was convicted in the 2000 shooting death of an Irving police officer. "I can be a big kid at heart. I'm a hopeless (and I mean HOPELESS) romatic (sic)."

To be clear, no Texas inmate has Internet access. Instead, inmates send letters, journal entries or blog postings to friends and families who create the pages for them and post their writings for them.

"This is not new," explained Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. "The reality is that for many years death row inmates have had family and friends on their case, on the Internet, oftentimes to get pen pals and in some cases raise money for the defense."

Having missed much of the explosive growth of its rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., Lycos, now part of the second largest Korean Internet portal Daum Communications Corp. will launch a high-speed Internet video channel this week and let viewers watch movies simultaneously across the Internet and discuss them.

The service, called Lycos Cinema (http://cinema.lycos.com/) aims to combine two tenets of new Internet businesses -- online video and social networking, embodied by popular sites YouTube Inc. and News Corp.'s MySpace social network.

The ability to upload your own videos will come as early as December or early next year, Lycos Chief Operating Officer Brian Kalinowski told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

"The technology we've created allows for the virtual living room," Kalinowski said.

Then AOL launched two music blogs in Blogsmith: AOL Music News Blog -- which is better than you'd expect from the name -- and Spinner.com, an older domain reborn as a great indie music news blog. Following that they launched The Fanhouse covering NCAA football and the NFL and an elections blog which features Sam Donaldson's Ask Sam column.

That brings us to November and Blogsmith -- like Weblogs a year before it -- is now owned by AOL.

Obviously AOL likes our enterprise blogging platform, but I think the quality of Blogsmith's versatile team factored into AOL's decision -- maybe even in equal parts. I reclaimed the team members who had been on a "Netscape detour" and we've kicked off some major upgrades. We moved to a multi-city version of the platform. That was both the largest and smoothest server move I've ever been a part of. Right now my team is in Florida without me working on an overhaul of the publishing tools.

Is AOL going to release Blogsmith to the public as a Typepad/WordPress/YouTube/Wal-Mart/Starbucks-killer or not? Yes.

Though only about 10 percent of people in the Arab world have Internet access, the rate continues to rise dramatically, having multiplied fivefold since 2000, according to Internet World Stats, a Web site that tracks Internet usage and related information.

The number of bloggers in Saudi Arabia has tripled since the beginning of the year, reaching an estimated 2,000.

Young women make up half the bloggers in the kingdom, one of the most traditional countries in the world, where women are forced to dress modestly and are not allowed to drive cars or travel without permission from a male guardian. Lured by the possible anonymity of the medium, Saudi women have produced a string of blogs filled with feminist poetry, steamy romantic episodes and rants against their restricted lives and patriarchal society.

About a third of those Europeans questioned said they had been put off making a purchase after reading negative comments on the Internet from customers or other web-users, while 52 percent said they had been persuaded to buy after a positive review on a blog.

Get it right, and blogs could be a boost to companies and even save on their advertising and marketing budgets.

Blogs, or weblogs, are a more trusted source of information (24 percent) than television advertising (17 percent) and email marketing (14 percent), the survey commissioned by Hotwire, a technology public relations consultancy, said.

But they still lag behind newspapers (30 percent).

I stopped in at Wal-Mart today after I got off work. I had to pick up a few things. As I was walking past the men's clothing area, something caught my eye. I noticed something weird over at a wall of t-shirts. One of the t-shirts had a design on it that looked remarkably like something related to Nazis. Specifically, the Totenkopf or "Death's Head".

I took a picture of it with my camera phone.

The Death's Head symbol was worn by the members of the German Nazi SS. The Totenkopf on the Wal-Mart t-shirt looks very similar to the divisional insignia of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf. As you can see, It's almost an exact copy.

This Saturday, November 11th, our engineers will be performing routine system maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. Although you won't be able to access your account during this time, ads will still be served to your pages and we'll continue to track your earnings as normal.

While we know it will be hard to drag yourself away from your account for 4 hours, maybe this will give you a chance to clear away those cobwebs you told friends were "Halloween decorations." Take your pal Jack O. Lantern for a visit to that new neighborhood hot spot, the compost heap. When you've eradicated all the ghouls and goblins from your home, gear up for the next celebration by doing a quick search for turkey recipes (or Tofurky recipes, if you prefer).

Dave McClure, from the audience, asked why Yahoo hasn't acquired Six Apart's blogging tools or Facebook to gain some faster traction in blogging and social networking. Horowitz responded, "We put Yahoo 360 out there and learned a lot from it. 360 may be doing a 180, and change and adapt to address the opportunities." He didn't offer any specifics as to what the 180 degree turn looks like.

Filo added, "We are absolutely interested in blogging, and we hope five years from now to be a major player in that space. We will look at acquisitions."

More professional bloggers are looking at monetizing their blogs via information products according to a recent survey.

According to the survey, 42% of those surveyed plan to monetize their blogs by creating and marketing their own information products - a big jump from the 29% at the start of the year.

The survey, conducted by ePublishingDaily (this blog) and completed once in January 2006 and again in October 2006 showed a marked increase in bloggers taking a serious look at information product publishing as a viable means of monetizing their blogging efforts.

In stark contrast with these results, reliance on AdSense (and other contextual advertising programs) has fallen from 63% to 45% during the same period.

ReviewMe has a somewhat different model that PayPerPost. Where advertisers on PayPerPost set a single fee that is paid to all bloggers regardless of their size, ReviewMe uses an algorithm based on Alexa, Technorati and other statistics to determine the importance of a blog and charges a different fee for each blog based on the calculation. Blogger payments range from $30 - $1,000 per post.

Also, Bloggers must disclose that the review is a paid advertisement. They can do this in anyway they choose, ie "The following is a paid review:" "Paid Advertisement:" etc. This is another improvement over PayPerPost, which is heavily criticized because it does not require disclosure.

Finally, advertisers can purchase posts, but they cannot require that a post is positive. The blogger can choose to write their honest opinion without fear of not being paid. The only requirement is that the review must be a minimum of 200 words.

Here's how: every new blogger accepted into the ReviewMe network will immediately have the opportunity to earn cash by reviewing ReviewMe itself. This gives new reviewers a chance to see exactly how our system works, and helps spread the word about ReviewMe, too :-) (good or bad). This offer will be in effect until we have paid out $25,000 total for reviews.

Anyone can sign up for an account on ReviewMe. I just did, and completed the registration process with ease. Once you are finished with the sign in process you are offered the opportunity to add up to 6 blogs. Each blog is given a ranking based on an algorithm that takes in to account the sites Alexa and Technorati ranking as well as the number of subscribers to its RSS feed. The ranking then ultimately determines the price that advertisers will pay in order to have reviews placed on your site.

You, the blogger, will ultimately see 50% of the price that an advertiser pays in order to have you review their product. In my case, a review on jarkolicious will cost an advertiser $100, allowing me to pocket $50 for a few six-packs of beer, some pizza with a little pocket-change left to spare.

Grouper.com, acquired last August by Sony Pictures Entertainment, is offering snippets from 100 Sony films and TV shows for users to integrate into blogs and on social networking sites such as MySpace, the company said Thursday.

***

This is the latest attempt to solve the copyright issue plaguing the video-sharing sector. Hollywood studios and other media companies are cracking down on sites that allow users to upload their copyright material without compensating them.

Universal Music Group filed suit against Grouper and Bolt.com for allowing users to post UMG's copyright material on those sites. Video sharing's largest player, YouTube, was sued last summer by a Los Angeles journalist after he saw several postings on the site of a video he shot of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

The only problem we forsee with Star's desire for blogmash is statements like the one above, in which Fuller said Star wouldn't "out" a celebrity unless "they chose to go public or chose to be very public about what they were doing." That's no good — blogs don't have morals. In fact, some of them are just horrific.

"Okay, I usually keep quiet on topics like this but I feel I need to stand up for my friend, Faith. She was just being honest and emotional like every other person sitting at home with an opinion. These awards shows are SO political and we all get fed up with them. We all work very hard and have for many years so to see someone come in and win Female Vocalist that has been here for a VERY short time, is a little disheartening."

Topix, founded in 2002, aggregates news and categorizes it into topics. Earlier this year, the company added the ability for readers to comment on articles. Topix provides automated related links on some of the Web sites of newspapers owned by the investors and is adding reader comment capabilities to their sites as well. Chris Tolles, vice president of sales and marketing at Topix, said the company would spend the funding on hiring and marketing. Company executives want to double the 25-person staff over the next year, he said. "For us to grow, we needed the money."

IPNetworked is a blog that will exclusively track the telecom carriers, cable companies, Internet service providers, Web hosting services, and the data centers. Speed changes, legislative matters, price cuts, and IPTV – it will cover a wide gamut of topics.

Why now? And how is it different? With the carriers and ISPs coming out of a deep sleep following the bust, it is a good time to start this blog. Carriers – whether telecom operators or cable companies or new fangled fiber only service providers are in middle of a massive change. The data center business is also seeing a revival. This means increased news flow. It is hard to cover it all on one blog; and that is precisely why we are starting this new blog.

Washington-Younger voters turned out in higher numbers in Tuesday's US congressional elections, giving a lift to Democratic candidates in a contest that gave the party control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years. "This is a new generation," Hans Riemer, political director of Rock the Vote, an organization that seeks to mobilize young voters, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "They're more involved, more engaged, and less cynical."

Exit polls showed that voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast 13 per cent of all votes, up from 11 per cent in the 2002 elections, the last non-presidential national election. Voter turnout is typically higher in presidential elections.

That increase is important because the proportion of young voters has become smaller in the same time period, causing the increase to outpace the growth in turnout among all voters, Rock the Vote said.

Young voters traditionally favour Democratic candidates and did so by a 22 point margin on Tuesday, the organization said, citing exit polls.

Two-by-two, polling specialists from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and the Associated Press will go into rooms in New York and Washington shortly before noon Tuesday. Their cellphones and BlackBerrys will be confiscated; proctors will monitor the doors; and for the next five hours, these experts will pore over exit-poll data from across the country.

If all goes well, only when they emerge from their cloisters will the legions of ravenous political bloggers have any chance of getting their hands on the earliest indication of which party will end up controlling Congress.

"The demand for info is intense, and if the safeguards aren't steel doors bolting people inside a room, it will get out," says Marc Ambinder, associate editor of National Journal's Hotline OnCall. "The insatiable appetite for this info will overwhelm the ability to keep it secret."

Perhaps the best thing to do is publish exit polls continuously through the day. Only then will the public see that they're inaccurate and near meaningless, especially early in the day. If reporters are locked up without their cell phones and Blackberries, interest in the exit polls is sure to rise. Why? People naturally suspect that secrets are worth knowing.

Share information with online friends and guild members.

Find people to play with on your server

Connect on a more personal level by viewing photos of other warcraft players

Look up the jerk who just ganked you.

The bigger question, of course, is whether virtual worlds need social networks - aren't they social enough already? It's tempting to say that Warcraft users might not be crazy about MySpace-style sites, but that doesn’t appear to be the case: WoW's MySpace page has over 100,000 friends and some excellent tools to customize your profile. There are also plenty of popular forums related to MMOGs, so there’s an outside chance a social network could work.

Welcome to Video the Vote. Our goal is to protect the vote by being the eyes and ears where ballots are cast and counted on Election Day. We will document and report any irregularities that occur at polling places and boards of elections while they are happening, enabling the media and public to watch-dog the electoral process across our country.

Video the Vote was created by Ian Inaba of the Guerrilla News Network, John Ennis of Shoot First, and James Rucker of ColorOfChange.org. The three originally sought to provide a platform to help independent filmmakers coordinate their efforts on election day—documenting election problems and pushing those stories into the mainstream media. The idea morphed into a populist program where ordinary people could participate. They'd simply agree to be on-call to document any Election Day problems that arise in their area; the only requirements being having a digital video recorder, a cell phone, and broadband Internet access, and agreeing to respect governing election law.

Since starting, several organizations have partnered with us to make Video the Vote a success, namely Common Cause, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, The League of Young Voters Education Fund, People for the American Way Foundation, and Rock the Vote.

The Low Authority Group (3-9 blogs linking in the last 6 months)

The average blog age (the number of days that the blog has been in existence) is about 228 days, which shows a real commitment to blogging. However, bloggers of this type average only 12 posts per month, meaning that their posting habits are generally dedicated but infrequent.

The Middle Authority Group (10-99 blogs linking in the last 6 months)

This contrasts somewhat with the second group, which enjoys an average age not much older than the first at 260 days and which posts 50% more frequently than the first. There is a clear correlation between posting volume and Technorati authority ranking.

The High Authority Group (100-499 blogs linking in the last 6 months)

The third group represents a decided shift in blog age while not blogging much more frequently than the last. In keeping with the theme of the maturation of the blogosphere, it seems evident that many of these bloggers were previously in category two and have grown in authority organically over time. In other words, sheer dedication pays off over time.

The Very High Authority Group (500 or more blogs linking in the last 6 months)

In the final group we see what might be considered the blogging elite. This group, which represents more than 4,000 blogs, exhibits a radical shift in post frequency as well as blog age. Bloggers of this type have been at it longer - a year and a half on average - and post nearly twice a day, an increase in posting volume of over 100% from the previous group. Many of the blogs in this category, in fact, are about as old as Technorati and we've grown up together. Some of these are full-fledge professional enterprises that post many, many times per day and behave increasingly like our friends in the mainstream media. As has been widely reported, the impact of these bloggers on our cultures and democracies is increasingly dramatic.

Biziki is an existing blog that launched in February 2006. The site currently has one lead blogger. His contract is not transferable but he would likely stay on for a similar arrangement.

The blog is focused on business and related leadership, management, and financial topics.

The blog is profitable - earning an average of $260 (USD) monthly.

The design is included - it's a Chris Pearson designed site. Chris is one of the leading designers for Wordpress.

The current blogger earns 100% of the first $150 and 50% of any remaining income. If you're blogging on your own, you obviously don't need him. That's up to the buyer.

Welcome fans and filmmakers to Ziddio - a new online and ON DEMAND channel from Comcast featuring user-generated content. Ziddio.com is a place where you can create, watch and share videos with a few key differences we know you'll like.

The content you'll find on Ziddio is mostly created through a variety of contests. Our contests aren't random: we partner with great brands that are recognized and loved around the world. So in one contest, you might be asked to create an application to the Jedi Council from HBO and in the next, you might be showing off your messy home to the Clean House crew from the Style Network.

All videos are rated by Ziddio users. By rating, sending the video to a friend or simply posting a comment, you are giving the best videos the recognition they deserve. Your participation also serves another purpose. Videos with a high rating can win prizes. Depending on the contest you might win a zero gravity flight or a home makeover. Not too shabby, huh?

In a recent interview with the Guardian, alas, my attempt to explain this was turned upside down into a "blogging is one of the biggest perils" message. Sigh. I think they took their lead from an unfortunate BBC article, which for some reason stressed concerns about the web rather than excitement, failure modes rather than opportunities. (This happens, because when you launch a Web Science Research Initiative, people ask what the opportunities are and what the dangers are for the future. And some editors are tempted to just edit out the opportunities and headline the fears to get the eyeballs, which is old and boring newspaper practice. We expect better from the Guardian and BBC, generally very reputable sources)

In fact, it is a really positive time for the web. Startups are launching, and being sold [Disclaimer: people I know] again, academics are excited about new systems and ideas, conferences and camps and wikis and chat channels and are hopping with energy, and every morning demands an excruciating choice of which exciting link to follow first.

And, fortunately, we have blogs. We can publish what we actually think, even when misreported.

The answer would come from a range of data, for instance video recordings or databanks which store readings from electronic chips. Such chips embedded in people's clothes could track their movements. He told a privacy conference the internet would be capable of holding huge amounts of data very cheaply and patterns of information could be extracted very quickly. "Everything can be recorded for ever," he said.

He was speaking at a conference at which a report commissioned by Richard Thomas, the privacy watchdog, was launched. Mr Thomas has said Britain is "waking up to a surveillance society that is all around us" and that such "pervasive" surveillance is likely to spread.

The cable news network plans to host more than two dozen bloggers from across the political spectrum - including sites like RedState and Daily Kos - at a Washington Internet lounge where they can monitor the election returns on a slew of flat-screen televisions. (Each blogger will get his or her own monitor, which can be tuned to any channel.) There will be free wireless access — and plenty of food and beverages, natch.

CNN Internet reporters Jacki Schechner and Abbi Tatton have been assigned to cover the gathering and provide regular updates on the air about the topics that are generating the most chatter.

"Bloggers are leading the conversation," said David Bohrman, CNN's Washington bureau chief. "You could argue that most of the political dialogue in this country is happening online, so if you don't incorporate that into your coverage, you're missing a major element."

Subscribers to CNN Pipeline, the network's broadband service, will be able to monitor the happenings at the blog party through one of the online channels, which will be dedicated exclusively to footage from the event.

Seriously, you don't ask newspaper columnists to sit in front of a laptop and write their columns on air, and we're way past the point that bloggers should have to humiliate themselves like that in order to get a few seconds of airtime. This isn't 2002, we all know what blogs are. If bloggers have something to contribute to the conversation, let them sit at a roundtable on election eve and contribute their thoughts like any other opinion writer, without treating them like teenagers at a TV dance party circa 1962 who need to be lured into the studio with "plenty of food and beverages, natch."

"We are trying to create the best experience for the users and putting the content into their hands," said Michele Ganeless, executive vp and general manager at Comedy Central, attributing the site's changes to feedback from users and results of usability studies done by the network.

While content grabbed by users for their own use will still include attached advertising, Ganeless said the network is still working out the details when it comes to handling advertising revenue.

"We are working out a model to incorporate users into the process and finding the best way possible to get our content where they want it," she said.

Beth Lewand, vp digital media programming and production at Comedy Central, said that while the network has been tweaking and modifying MotherLoad throughout the past year with design and functionality changes, the biggest impact will come from the syndication aspect.

"It's a way of giving our audience more control over how they use our content and video," Lewand said. "It gives users the opportunity to play with our content -- to use it on their home pages and to bring it further out into the world."

Phil loves blogging. If only he had more time. And we are not talking euphemism here, people, blogging is a serious pursuit. It is shaping everything from little licorice candies to fertile American minds to kid-crazy surfboard design to scrappy nascent video content providers. As you will see, you should be blogging too. It is awesome.

Google is engaged in a frantic round of negotiations aimed at persuading traditional media companies to supply their content to YouTube, the video website it bought last month for $1.65bn, and ward off a potentially crippling round of lawsuits.

Chief executive Eric Schmidt and other managers have met CBS, Viacom, Time Warner, NBC Universal, News Corp and others, say people familiar with the talks, offering tens of millions of dollars in upfront payments for the right to broadcast their video content legally on YouTube.

For Google the talks could determine whether its investment in YouTube gives it a leading position in the fast-growing online video market or results in a wave of lawsuits for copyright infringement.

Spin Thicket, as should be apparent, is patterned after one of my favorite Web sites, Fark.com, along with similar sites like Fazed.net and others. The difference is that it's specifically geared to people with an interest in the image-making professions -- advertising, PR, marketing, journalism, and politics.

Spin Thicket has no agenda. It's as much for people who read PR Watch as PR Week. It's as much for fans (or haters) of Michelle Malkin as Kos. It's as much for people who see bias in the NY Times as Fox News. Throw it all in the wash and turn on the spin cycle; that's the idea behind Spin Thicket.

I have heard that blogging about babies is a popular pastime now, and I can see the positive benefits that might come from keeping a record of the baby's growth and development. We used to have scrapbooks for such things, but now the Internet serves as a repository for these records, along with all sorts of thoughts and debates that motherhood brings. For moms, it can be a respite from the isolation some suffer after leaving the workplace. Replies to their blogs can help them feel that they are sharing the "new mom" experience, or quell their worries that their child is the only one with a behavior problem or developmental delay. Blogging while the baby sleeps seems OK.

On the other hand, blogging has a potential for abuse, especially if it becomes a substitute for interacting with the child, or a place to lodge daily complaints against the father, or serves mainly to satisfy exhibitionistic urges. I can't judge your brother's specific case, but in general, diaries and journals have been replaced by the Internet, and your sister-in-law has jumped on the bandwagon, hopefully with taste and moderation.

We are launching with 16 blogs (see below for the full list). Each one ties into business in some way, as well as reflects each individual blogger's interests and obsessions. (The B2 bloggers will cover topics ranging from venture capital, the media industry, and real estate to green startups and design—but also touch upon subjects such as surfing, sailing, and extreme gadgetry). If you want to get a sense of what our mini-network is blogging about, just go to B2 Beta. There, we will feature the best posts as our editors' picks, and we will also republish every single post from across the network in what we call the Spew. You can subscribe to B2 Beta (both the editor's picks and the Spew) via an RSS feed or e-mail. Or, if you prefer, you can get just the the unfiltered Spew. All the ads will be served by CNNMoney.com (where our official Website is also located), and our blogger journalists will get a modest bonus tied to the popularity of each of their blogs. (Yes, we believe blogging is hard work and that bloggers should get paid for that work). Please check out B2 Beta and tell us what you think.

The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that seeks to empower citizens to capture, post and share photographs of democracy in action. By documenting their local voting experience on November 7, voters can contribute to an archive of photographs that captures the richness and complexity of voting in America.

With citizen's images and the information that accompanies them, the Project becomes a research tool on how voting happens in America and how it can be designed to be easier, less confusing and more enjoyable. The project intends to collect photographs of every polling place in America, so you are encouraged to participate no matter where you vote, how large or small your polling place is, what kind of ballot you use, or what your party affiliation.

The problem is with the two company's web sites. YouTube, Inc, runs the wildly popular video site called www.youtube.com. Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment Corp. has the web site www.utube.com to sell tube, pipe, and rollforming machinery. Internet users have been mixing up the two sites, so traffic on Universal Tube's web site went from 1,500 unique users per month to more than 2,000,000.

According to a news release from Universal Tube, the domain name utube.com was registered in 1996. The company also says utube has been used in advertising, trade show booths, and corporate identity. "The Utube trademark has been an integral part of the company's identity for more than a decade," said company attorney Tony DeGidio.

This increased traffic paralyzed Universal Tube's website until the firm increased bandwidth to accommodate the unwanted nuisance traffic. The company says its cost for hosting its website has increased by a factor of 100, or more. "We've had to move our site 5 times in an effort to stay ahead of the youtube.com visitors," said Ralph Girkins, owner of Universal Tube, in a prepared statement.

A wiki is a website designed for collaboration. In a wiki everyone can edit, update and append pages with new information, all without knowing HTML. Wikis can be either publicly accessible or privately secure.

JotSpot Chief Executive Joe Kraus said JotSpot would be able to tap into the Internet search leader's large user base and robust data centers capable of handling any growth.

"Our vision has always been to take wikis out of the land of the nerds and bring it to the largest possible audience," Kraus said in an interview. "There's no larger audience that you can reach than one you can reach through Google."

Wiki tools, popularized by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, let users to create, modify and even delete information on what others in a group have worked.

In July, JotSpot released a new version that aims to make shared pages similar to spreadsheets, photo albums and other software people already use. In the past, Wiki tools have generally mimicked basic Web pages or word-processing documents -- photographs, for instance, might appear as a list of attachments, with no thumbnails previewing the image before downloading.

Wilshire & Washington highlights the enduring relationship between entertainment and politics. More than a mere curiosity, the intersection of these worlds play out daily in fund raising, celebrity causes, show business lobbying and creative expression. Variety editor-at-large Ted Johnson provides the daily dose with contributions from reporters in L.A. and D.C.