• [BLOGGERS] Matt Drudge: world’s most powerful journalist

  An interesting look at the story behind the blogger, from where he started, to how the Drudge Report exploded on the scene not all that many years ago. “Pasty-faced recluse”, indeed. :)

  (tags: bloggers blogging drudgereport mattdrudge telegraph)

• [DESIGN] Blog Headers For Free Download

  About one month ago, Smashing Magazine held a contest to create a gallery of blog header graphics, for free, and with no restrictions. Here are the 100 best, available in the source image format (.ai or .psd), in full size (800×200px). Awesome.

  (tags: awesome gallery graphics free blogging headers design blog smashingmagazine)

• [SOCIAL TOOLS] StumbleUpon Alerter

  Get alerted when something you’ve “stumbled” upon gets reviewed or a thumbs up, keeping track of exactly who likes your stuff and who doesn’t (as well as keep track of what stuff you’re stumbling). This is freeware that you can download at light 2MB

  (tags: utilities stumbleupon social freeware adamantsolutions)

• [SEO NINJA] The most incredible SEO story I have ever read

  Granted, I haven’t read a lot, but read on about how one SEO expert was tasked with getting links for a porn site — and its some pretty specific fetish-type porn — and succeeded in spades, getting links back from Bayer and Wikipedia (NSFW).

  (tags: 301 awesome ninja polepositionmarketing hacks tricks seo)

• [DESIGN] IE8 Not Standards Compliant? (It is!)

  For those so technically inclined, IE8 (Internet Explorer 8) Beta 1 does pass the ACID2 test, a way of checking if a browser meets web standards, but some folks are finding it fails when they try it themselves. Answer? It must be the official ACID2 page.

  (tags: standards design acidtest2 IE8)

• [OFFTOPIC]: Oregon holds health insurance “lottery”

  There’s a huge portion of people who cannot afford or who are un-insurable. This is totally off topic for this blog, but there’s something totally and abjectly wrong about this — that the only way these folks can get insured is by winning a lottery

  (tags: oregon ap insurance health)

• Will.i.am Strikes Again For Obama
  Maximizing the viral effects of video to its fullest, here’s the next unofficial campaign music video for Barack Obama.
  (tags: barackobama will.i.am video dipdive)
• Facebook Fatigue — Sheeea, Right!
  Jeremy Liew breaks down the argument that people are tired of Facebook, arguing that early adopters might be tired, but they are far from the typical users. An argument that holds a lot of water with me, personally.
  (tags: jeremyliew lightspeedventures facebook)
• Living snowflakes: bacteria important to snow formation
  Bacteria act as a nidus for snowflake formation — the number of particulates per thousand is many orders of magnitude higher in lower altitutdes, where more organisms, like bacteria, can exist conformortably. Pseudomona-licious!
  (tags: arstechnica science cool snowflakes bacteria)
• Dow Jones editor gets ‘cold feet’ on a critique of Murdoch
  An interesting look at how extensive Rupert Murdoch’s reputation is to the editors of his publications — even down to his smallest publication — after the blanket “no interference in editorial policy” edict.
  (tags: RupertMurdoch IHT media reputation)
• Google - its own worst enemy?
  Well, it may not be, but one thing the MSM *never* addresses is how Google profits from the proliferation of splogs in its directory, which ought to be a direct violation of its own drive to keep the sanctity of search pure. Steve Hodson breaks it down!
  (tags: winextra stevehodson google do-no-evil splogs)

• [FREEBIES] Man, am I totally glad I found this resource for royalty-free free sound effects and loops for my upcoming podcast that I will never have time for. Wait — did I say that out loud?
• [SPOT ON] Defining “Web 2.0″ in just two sentences. Kind of reminds of me Digg, actually.
• [STALE] I love Richard MacManus’s Read/Write Web. But jeez, isn’t this whole conversation about Digg requiring / having / needing better editors / moderators about 8 months old?
• [OUTSOURCING] Looks like you can now outsource emailing, social media efforts on social networks and blogging. If you’re able to outsource this successfully, what does this say about your personality, I wonder?
• [SNARK] So the next time you try and get a press pass as a blogger, and someone asks wait … “Are You A Journalist?” .. you’ll know what to say. My favourite is number ten.
• ["GTD"] A new way to think about “organizing” — as a means to an end, rather than a process with no meaning.
• [MEDICINE] In Canada its certainly not uncommon for medical residents to work almost 36h in a row and endure 100h work weeks. Some perspectives what implications this has for medical errors over at the NJEM.

Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians!  I’m actually still on call, finishing a 24h shift, and only have the energy to zap out some quick links in lieu of a fuller post / rant / diatribe / observation for the day.  Cheers!

• ["CLASSY"] Well, it looks like the selling of the iPhone at AT&T is no different than a new console release.  Namely, heavyhanded bundling tactics that force you to purchase more than the phone itself.  Classy, guys. 
• [FRAUDSTERS] What do you get when you cross Enron with Internet hype?  The long, rancid, sordid tale of an Internet shyster who bilked millions out of investors.   
• [BLOGGING] How one scientist made blogging a tool that helped her further her own career transition.  Actually, a really interesting read that I may profile on the BlogHerald sometime.  Way to go, Hsien-Hsien!
• [NEW MEDIA] I finally get Valleywag: They like to say and write things that may or may not be true — and when called on it, the protest will be “its comedy!”, but when its convenient or legitimate, they’ll turn around beat their chest and say “its new media!”
• [TORONTO RULES] Some interesting theories about why Toronto pwns Facebook (there are over 600,000 registered users who hail from Toronto).  My favourite?  The hilarious claim that “Toronto is a huge university town”.  Are you kidding me?
• [CENSORSHIP] The scary thing is that I think this will work.  And then cyberbullying will go down.  And then there will be pressure by conservatives to implement the same thing in North America.
• [RECTAL PROBES] Actually, this is true.  One of the places where flatulence is heartily encouraged is in the endoscopy suite.  Mark Cuban may be many things, but he gets a pat on the back for health promotion.
• [FIND OF THE WEEK] Nice regular meaty articles.  Not getting as much pub as they could be.  Check it out if you like SEO, want to know more about SEO, or all of the above.
• [MAZEL TOV!] To David Peralty, who is about to get married, and Ed Lee, who recently got married.  Enjoy the time before you have kids, guys.  It *all* changes after that.  :)

• Wonder Why Truemors Cost So Much?
  Well a large part of that $12k was in Legal Fees — specifically $4k. Why so much? Guy Kawasaki breaks it down, and its a little more than just registering the trademark.
  (tags: expensive legal law truemors guykawasaki)
• The Case for Turning Ads Off (Its Exactly What You Think — Maybe)
  A deliciously awesome article courtesy of Fortuitous, who does some mental gymnastics to explain in a very intuitive way, why it makes sense to turn off Ads sometimes — and when to leave them on.
  (tags: google ads timing impressions marketing fortuitous adsense)
• Top 25 Most Popular Blogs — June 2007
  Put together, courtesy of eBizMBA, through some mystery combination of RSS subs, inbound links, Alexa Rank and a few other things. Did you know that Gizmodo outranks Engadget — and TechCrunch isn’t even in the top 5?
  (tags: june 2007 popular blogs ebizmba)
• Google: Resorting to Cheap Bullying Tactics?
  Did you know that Donna Bogatin has moved on from ZDnet? She’s blogging at Insider Chatter now. Anyway, some great insights into the Privacy hubaloo around Google — and it doesn’t look all that comforting.
  (tags: insiderchatter donnabogatin donoevil privacy google)

• Media / Entertainment, As A Category, Dead Last in “Trust”
  In first place? Technology. A survey done by Edelman attempted to rank levels of trust in a variety of industries. Its thought that the rise of pirated media “may” have influenced the perception of value, and hence, trust of an entire industry.
  (tags: piracy pirates trust technology edelman iht media)
• Akihabara, Eat Your Heart Out!
  I can see 98% of most geeks having some kind of epileptiform seizure if they were to go to a place like this. For the rest of you, enjoy the technological orgy that is the SEG Electronics Market in Shenzhen, China.
  (tags: awesome akihabara bunniestudios shenzhen china electronics)
• Wait — Does This Mean Leopard Will Get Delayed Even *More*?
  Not that I actually care all that much, but it seems like Apple is plowing even more resources into the iPhone. What’s that sound? It could be hardcore mac heads gnashing their teeth. ;)
  (tags: osx leopard delaying appleinsider apple iphone)
• Outsourcing Web2.0?
  It might not be, but in this article describing a new incubator, Hitforge, it sounds like the premise certainly hinges on it. “Entrepreneurs see their idea go from idea to product … largely with help of an offshore engineering team.”
  (tags: incubator entrepreneur startup vc interesting web2.0 outsourcing gigaom)

• 5 Ways RSS Improves ROI
  Nice break down in a way that you could explain to your boss (or 10 year old, for that matter). Points one and two are the same, but for its importance, its worth repeating. Courtesy of Convesation Marketing.
  (tags: conversationmarketing roi rss)
• 9rules Closing Down Submissions — For Now
  Interesting issue of scale here. Last submission round was about 1100 submissions, which required a huge number of man hours to sort through. How many will their next round accumulate? And is there a way to make sure they don’t miss any good blogs?
  (tags: scale networks blog 9rules)
• Is This Radical Transparency?
  Or a lazy appeal to the masses? I mean, come on. Deciding on whether a tech journalist gets into a tech conference based on a poll? Is that radical transparency?
  (tags: notfunny funny jeffandquist radicaltransparency wired)
• Wikipedia As Citizen Journalism
  The Virginia Tech Massacre as a case study for citizen journalism. Pretty powerful stuff, and it all makes percfect sense. After all, who is going to be faster than “bloggers” at getting information out?
  (tags: virginiatech citizenjournalism wiki nytimes wikipedia)