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Digging Fraud — Recently it was brought to our attention that several users have created accounts to mass digg and promote stories. While these accounts appear to be valid, they have in certain instances been used for automated in-order (scripted) digging.
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The Digg Backlash (or when the wisdom of crowds turns into the madness of the masses) — Update: DIGG did the right thing and turned a bunch of spammers off. The spammers are upset—total non-issue. Rock on TeamDigg... and don't let the bastards get you down!


Suspicious Digging — Have a look at this blog post, which talks about Digg potentially being misused. I posted this partly because I was unable to digg that post. If you scroll down to the list of diggers here and here, you will notice that the order of the first 16 diggers is identical and that only 2 of the 24 vary in each.

AIM — Here's where a mash-up between Web 2.0 and the MSM gets interesting, or kind of sad, depending on your perspective. In the morning, someone blogs that AOL is working on a social networking competitor to MySpace. People link to it. Others link to the links.
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Artist's family asks Google to take down Thursday's `painted' logo — After angering authors last fall with a wide-ranging book-copying project, Google may now be alienating some visual artists as well by allegedly reproducing famous works in drawings on the search giant's home page.
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A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab — Today I'll stop my 3rd person perspective. I'm going to write a little bit more about what I do to help MacBU ship great software and provide some color around what's it's like to work on Mac software at Microsoft. Often when we have press events …

Analysis: Blocking Skype Won't Be Easy — Editor's Note: The ongoing "net neutrality" debate over whether telecommunications carriers have the right to add surcharges to third-party providers of premium services brings up another issue: just how hard is it to block these applications, anyway?
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Think Skype traffic is easily detectable? No it's not, expert tester says
Discussion:
NevilleHobson.com


Google in China: The Big Disconnect — The World Wide Web, Abridged: Patrons in an internet cafe in Beijing. Chatting about sports, posting entries to blogs — fine. Visiting pro-democracy sites — no way. — For many young people in China, Kai-Fu Lee is a celebrity.

Initiative — There's no other way for me to start this other than by firing away: Last week I left my full-time job at Joyent, for the sole reason so that I can write Daring Fireball as a full-time job. — Two years ago, when I made tentative steps in this direction …
Discussion:
The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Google Announces First Quarter 2006 Results — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - April 20, 2006 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2006. — "Google had an exceptional quarter with strong growth and profitability, from both Google properties and the network …
Discussion:
InsideGoogle


State of the Computer Book Market, Part 2 — In this installment, I'll look at specific technology trends as demonstrated by book sales. First off, here's another view of our computer book treemap, this time tweaked a bit to show the hierarchical organization of the category database.


It's official: Distracted drivers are dangerous — (CNN) — A new study lends scientific credence to what many aready suspect: Drivers dabbing on makeup, chatting on cell phones or eating breakfast are three times as likely to be involved in a crash as more attentive motorists.

The boom is back — Net companies are on fire again. Here's the smart way to invest without getting burned — (FORTUNE Magazine) - Back when the Internet bubble was deflating disastrously, the fashionable view was that we'd never see its like again — and thank goodness.


The Virtues of a Second Screen — Fervent computer gamers and the detectives on "N.C.I.S." do it, but I had no plans to add a second monitor to my computer system — not until I bought an upgraded video card for my PC and noted it had output connections for two monitors.