Top Items:
BBC:
BMW given Google 'death penalty' — Search giant Google has "blacklisted" German car manufacturer BMW for breaching its guidelines. — Investigations by Google found that BMW's German website influenced search results to ensure top ranking when users searched for "used car".
RELATED ITEM:
Scott Karp / Publishing 2.0:
Google Orwellian — Google is powerful — and we all learned from Orwell that power corrupts. As to search, Google has near total power — will total power totally corrupt Google? — Ask BMW, whose SEO strategy violated Google's "orthodoxy," leading Google to unceremoniously excommunicate …
The Consumerist:
Did Nvidia Hire Online Actors to Promote Their Products? — About a week ago, The Consumerist stumbled upon claims made by various gaming websites (specifically, Elite Bastards and [Update: a poster on the forums at] Beyond3D) that graphics chip manufacturer Nvidia, in cooperation …
RELATED ITEMS:
Dsifry / Sifry's Alerts:
State of the Blogosphere, February 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth — It's been 4 months since last October's State of the Blogosphere report, so it's time to update the numbers! For historical perspective, you can see earlier State of the Blogosphere reports from July 2005, from March 2005, and from October 2004.
Discussion:
Anne 2.0, Things That, The Blackfriars Blog, One By One Media, The Social Software Weblog, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Alex Barnett blog, a shel of my former self, hyku | blog, Weblogs Work, Connecting the Dots, Mark Evans, ben barren, @rgumente, Somewhat Frank, The Blog Herald, Paul Mooney, Boing Boing, BlogHer [beta], Thomas Hawk's Digital …, Susan Mernit's Blog and Feld Thoughts
sonyericsson.com:
M600 slim, compact and stylish UMTS messaging phone puts secure e-mail and Internet at your fingertips — London, 6th Feb 2006 - Sony Ericsson today announces the M600 phone and messaging device. This is a fully-specified email tool and mobile phone rolled into an extremely stylish …
Joris Evers / CNET News.com:
Microsoft's security product hits home stretch — Microsoft plans to release its subscription security program before the summer and to challenge its main rivals on pricing, CNET News.com has learned. — Windows OneCare Live marks Microsoft's long-anticipated entry into the consumer antivirus market …
Robert Levine / New York Times:
Wave of Video Game Fatigue Afflicts Sales, Not Thumbs — In November, Activision released True Crime: New York City, a video game that seemed to have all the makings of a hit. It was the sequel to a well-received game, it had the violent aesthetic of the popular Grand Theft Auto series …
Glenn Fleishman / Wi-Fi Networking News:
Speakeasy Says No Deal with Fon — Speakeasy says that Fon claims a deal where none exists: I just received this missive and permission to share it from Lynn Brackpool, a spokesperson for Speakeasy Networks. Fon said in reports to some outlets yesterday that Speakeasy Networks was a partner …
Ben / Inside Firefox:
Where Did Firefox Come From? — The story of Mozilla is long and rich in detail. There are many perspectives. This is mine. — Getting Involved — I got involved with Mozilla because I loved the idea of working on something that had the potential to make an impact on millions of people.
Discussion:
AlterSlash
Peter Coffee / eWEEK.com:
'Exotic' Programming Tools Go Mainstream — The January release of Franz's Allegro Common LISP 8.0 puts developers on notice that "exotic" programming tools, long relegated to research environments, are becoming more viable options for mainstream applications.
Discussion:
Between the Lines
Steve Stroh / Broadband Wireless Internet Access:
Bush Administration Proposes Tax On License-exempt Spectrum? — From the Dewayne-Net Mailing List run by Dewayne Hendricks. — http://www.rcrnews.com/news.cms? newsId=25545 … (end RCR News excerpt) — Update 1 - This won't stand. By the time this proposal is quietly abandoned …
ChipLog:
I present to you, VMware Server 1.0 beta 1 — Wow, what a ride. We just put out this morning (or late last night, depending on time zone) beta 1 of our new VMware Server product. Now you know why I've been saying "I'm really busy, can we discuss this later?"
snyke.net:
AJAX Design Patterns — Snyke wrote this terribly early in the morning: — By now the entire World has heard about AJAX, even those who don't care about Web-Development have seen the potential of this new technology. Everybody is tired of endless introductions on how cool AJAX …
Sarah Lacy / Business Week:
Taking On the Database Giants — Can open-source upstarts compete with Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft? It's an uphill battle, but customers are starting to look at the alternatives — OPEN SOURCE'S NEW FRONTIERS>> … Rick Herman is awash in digital data.
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
Dozens of Web 2.0 companies' logos — Andre Torrez Ludwig Gatzke has collected the logos of dozens and dozens of "Web 2.0" companies and laid out them out in a grid in a gigantic image-file he's posted to Flickr. It's pretty amazing — like seeing the thousand swooshes of the companies …