Not more than two days ago a friend lost his 5 year young son in a pool accident.
Today, after I was at the funeral of a friend and colleague yesterday, my feed reader was full of supportive entries for Dawg and his family.

Within 2 hours after NYCWatchdog had blogged about the cruel event, a friend, Avitable, had set up a donation entry and pledges started to roll in. As I am writing this 114 bloggers have already donated in little more than 24 hours.
Technorati lists 64 links to that post. I have followed the evolution of the donation entry with interest and wondered if a personal blog could make it into the popular news section at Technorati.

64 Links would be a Top 10 ranking at this moment, but obviously TC doesn’t care about blogs, blogs written by non-paid bloggers. Bloggers who love to share their life.

Does Technorati really care about blogs or rather only about it’s own pagerank?
Where would Technorati have been today if no blogger was narcissistic enough to check his/her own link popularity?

Some folks would believe that Apple is the biggest liar that the world has seen. Sure, their products are hip and cool (not to mention outrageously expensive by some standards). But the marketing whizzes the people over at Cupertino, CA are, the general public just tends to believe that anything that comes from Apple is heaven-sent. Sometimes what they say isn’t exactly 100% true.

Case in point: the PowerPC. For many, many years, Apple has claimed the PowerPC is faster than a comparable Intel (or compatible) chip because of differences in architecture. Sure, it’s a “reduced instruction chipset” (RISC) after all, and does tasks differently than a more complex Intel chip would. But lo and behold, after hitting some speed bumps (meaning Apple couldn’t get past some speed ceilings for the PowerPC), they switch to Intel processors and declare their new computers 5 times (or more) faster than their comparable predecessors.

Another case in point: Safari. It is a known claim that Safari is the fastest browser around. Come on. What’s so fast about a browser if all your data gets shot through the pipes anyway? That means if your Internet connection is running at a snail’s pace, then you don’t get your webpages, streaming videos, or whatnot loaded up any faster.

Maybe they render the pages faster, but so what? It’s all about perception. I still go to the loo or brew some coffee when loading up big webpages anyway. And I take my sweet time.

My point is that Apple has just introduced its previously Mac-only browser to 90+% of the computing population who use Windows. A lot of people are excited. You get “Safari on Windows” posts from the A-listers, news blogs, and all that. How has the (re)launch of an old web browser ever gotten a blogging A-lister giddy like a schoolgirl (not that I find anything wrong with giddy schoolgirls)?

Maybe it’s because it’s the rise of a new platform? Come on—the browser has been the battlefield of web-based businesses for years now. But come to think of it, the iPhone is said to be running some form of Mac OS X, with Safari as its main UI.

Or is it because it’s kind of a novelty? Like how people got excited over iTunes for Windows. For the second time around, losers Windows people will get a feel of how it is to use a Mac.

I don’t think this one is worth jumping for joy about. I think we had this coming. Ever since Apple switched to Intel, all things OS X are theoretically compatible with PCs. When Apple starts selling boxed sets of OS X for PCs—now that’s something to get excited about.

Bloggers are always good for any kind of controversy. Even if the controversy needs to be twisted and serve as an attention call. For Wired this time. Once more more conventional media invite bloggers to react and have a round of linkbait.

If bloggers know how to do one thing really well, it’s fight.

It is obviously we have to react. And we won’t put up a fight, no we won’t. Because that would only be what Michael Calore is looking for.

Only thing needed to create a big controversy were some notebooks..
And who is the loser in all this? Apple of course. Blogs of well known Apple users have been mentionned several days already in the same sentence as Microsoft. No matter how much I disagree with Edelman, the business person in me must admit that the whole buzz created with only some emails and a very small amount of notebooks was an example strategy of efficient marketing. Was there an easier, and cheaper way, to remind everyone, Apple freaks inclusive, that Vista will hit the shelves in the next days?

Being blogically correct is a tricky thing. The MS Scandal is still fresh and although I respect the opinions from many A-Listers, I don’t want to condemn any blogger/community leader who decided to keep his laptop.

From the earliest days of the (public) internet its users have been trend setters. Trend setters in new technology, but also trend setters in mentality.
The internet was a place to help people. The USENet was a huge helping domain. The interenet has grown to become THE place to ask/search for advice, help in no matter what topic.
The users have made out of the internet a helping community. eBusiness only came later.

It is surprising to see how much todays blogging culture has changed the way people analyze things. Maybe I immediately have to include the mention that I am 100% pro disclosure and pro critical minds.

But sometimes people’s opinions just hit me. Hit me too hard. We judge differently. We get judged differently.
Because bloggers (try to) preach disclosure, they get judged differently. No matter if they disclose or not.
Companies get judged differently.

Lets take a look at this weeks Microsoft scandal . It has been all over the place already. A typical blogosphere scandal.

I never, even not in the most positive of my nightmares, thought I would write this one day, but there is something interesting going on at Valleywag.

At Valleywag, we’d long had an inchoate irritation with Second Life and, more specifically, with the uncritical press coverage that the virtual world enjoyed. Often, a company’s publicity can get ahead of mundane reality; it’s often more the fault of a credulous press than an over-eager PR operation. But, when a virtual land baroness in Linden Lab’s online game claimed she was now a millionaire, it was clear that Second Life was begging for a takedown.

Reading Khaled’s Best of the Net 2006 today I was surprised. A quote about 9rules struck me.

While I know it wasn’t fun for any of the 9rulers out there to see our network’s name dragged into the mud, it made for interesting reading to be included in the internet gossip pages.

Khaled, an early and long time 9rules member, expresses perfectly the difference between a professionally run network like b5media and a fun board such as 9rules.

And I thought ScrivsTyme was gossip.

@ Network Director : Can someone please get rid of the excerpt on the main page?

The Season is reaching his climax, that is when you are Christian. The world is trying to fight for political correctness and get everyone to wish Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.
Do you wish your readers Happy Holidays? Or do you also think of the readers who celebrate no religious days in these weeks? Which is blogically most correct?
Do you take the risk to be considered rude by your readers because you have NO wishes this month?

Many bloggers have celebrated the election to Person of The Year 2006, each in their own style. But does it really matter? Has the Digital Information highway really changed? Forget it!

This was nothing more than a brilliant piece of marketing by TIME Magazine. ProBlogger Darren Rowse called it linkbaiting, but there is more behind this.