46 journalists and assistants have been killed in Iraq since the war begin, according to Reporters without Borders. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive of CNN, said that some journalists had been not only killed but targeted by U.S. troops. Rebecca MacKinnon says that "The official WEF summary does not mention Eason's remarks, and there is no transcript or webcast. But I was in the room and Rony's account is consistent with what I heard," and says she would like to hear from other CNN reporters in Iraq. Abovitz has a good follow-up post elucidating the issues...

What is the responsibility of those in major leadership positions when confronted with such issues? In the room with us were powerful men and women, including high ranking politicians, who could follow up in a serious and meaningful way. Where are those voices and where is the followup? This topic should not be buried away in the closet. Is what Eason said the problem, or should we be more frightened at the prospect of journalists being targeted and killed by U.S. soldiers. "I see no problem if the US snipers take them out" was a comment from one reader, as well as "If they chose to take the part of the Baathists and Al kayda (sic), and say, 'embed' themselves among them, they will be killed." At a minimum the data and confusion calls for at least someone of the stature of a U.S. Senator or Congressman to step in now and lead a robust investigation.

Janet Johnson posted an interview with Steve Widen of E-Cubed Media Synthesis, a company that partners with Weblogsky sponsor Marqui. Widen is clearly happy with the relationship:

from a developer's standpoint it's so much easier to work with Marqui. The implementation process is very smooth compared with more traditional content management solutions and the back-end is much more intuitive. For example, we’ve implemented ASP model content management systems and comparatively, Marqui can reduce our development times by up to 20%. In addition, the fact that Marqui can publish to any platform increases our flexibility.

More about Marqui: Robin Good audioblogged an interview with Marqui system engineer Patrick Jones.

The collaborative writing project WikiNews invites bloggers to an open IRC chat on how Wikinews can interact with weblogs. The chat's at 4pm Central Time Saturday, February 5. [Link]

Podcasting kicks in: there's over 800 regular podcasts, and counting. ABC News has an overview (aka mainstreaming) here. Thinking about potential applications: Stephen Dulaney and I talked about the role of podcasting in open government earlier this week, and I've thought about adding podcasts to some of the blogs I host, if I can make myself take the time to do the work (probably unlikely in my current maxed-out state). I expect Polycot to have clients that want podcasting any day now.

We issued a press release today about the Activist Technology panels at SXSW Interactive. Nancy White posted the release here.

The ability to meet more and more people online and manage those relationships is a great and seductive thing, but there's a downside for social connectors who want to meet, well, everybody. Sooner or later you have a couple of databases that are difficult to manage - the one that lives in various corners of your virtual environment, and the one that lives in wetware, in brain cells that can grow only so far before your head explodes. Adina Levin writes a consideration of this problem...

Tools will surely be helpful. Databases have long helped salespeople remember the names of the children and pets of their customers. Tools can surely be improved. The Linked In form for passing on a reference request is a social horror -- it turns the pleasant, virtuous, social capital-building experience of recommending a friend into a guilt-inducing, bureacratic obligation.

Chris Allen also rightly points out that the problem isn't just in the interfaces, it's in the social situation created by online network exposure to hundreds of acquaintances; far more than the human capacity for close connection.

We'll also need novels, advice columns, tutorials -- as much or more than tool features -- to handle the social and ethical dilemmas of life in the virtual city.

I'll be leading a couple of discussions in the political track of OSN 2005. The conference, which starts tomorrow, is 100% online; registration is $35 through today. Here's a press release with more info:

Group Jazz and Rheingold Associates announce Online Social Networks 2005, a two-week online conference featuring an all-star line up including Howard Rheingold, Lisa Kimball, Joi Ito, and, Brian Reich, along with other trendsetters who are using interactive social applications to support projects, issues, causes, teams and communities across the globe.

Join OSN participants to explore how virtual social networks impact the way we collect, share, and interact with information. Discover how early adopters are using interactive applications to facilitate social change. The conference serves as a follow-up to the inaugural OSN 2001 event, which focused on online social networks as emerging technology. Four years later, OSN 2005 examines how online social networks are altering our information resources, modifying the way we learn and changing our approaches to civil engagement and public discourse.

The conference is scheduled to start February 9, 2005 and continue for two weeks, concluding on February 23rd. Content for the virtual event is organized into three areas:

1. Online Social Networks in organizations What organizations are using Online Social Networks, and why? What challenges and opportunities do they present? What are the practical applications of OSNs?
2. Online Social Networks for social and business use
   How are OSN's being used in the workplace and by individuals?
   
3. Online Social Networks in the political arena
   How have political parties and politicians used OSNs to raise money, explore issues, and mobilize at the grassroots level?

If you are interested in the topics above, participate in OSN 2005 and learn more about…

• Effective strategies for creating & sustaining on-line communities;


• Methods for getting people to your event, party or conference


• Adding value to earn trust and sustain participation;


• Using effective design, style and form;


• Impact and potential of OSNs in different sectors; and


• Trends in the OSN arena.

Featured guests include:

• Howard Rheingold


• Lisa Kimball


• Joi Ito


• Brian Reich

In addition, OSN 2005 will be featuring companies, organizations, associations, and individuals in an online Exhibit Hall where participants browse virtual booths with exciting new products and services related to online social networks.

The online "Meet and Greet " sessions feature exhibitors available to answer questions and share their experience with participants. Sessions are scheduled throughout the event and include product demonstrations and "trial" products during OSN2005.

In Pennsylvania "Dutch country," they're teaching "intelligent design" as an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution. [Link]

Carol Brown and her husband Jeff both resigned from the School Board in protest.

They are both Christians but also believe in the theory of evolution. They also fear that the introduction of Intelligent Design is part of a broader attempt to push creationism in schools.

Carol admits that there are gaps in Darwin's theory, but she says: "The theories that we teach the students have at least some physical evidence. Intelligent Design has no physical basis. It is a matter of faith."

Weblogsky.com sponsor Marqui is the content management system for the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission's web site. According to Janet Johnson of Marqui,

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission members were appointed by the President, the Senate and the House of Representatives following the passage of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission Act in 2000 (Public Law No: 106-173). The Commissioners are focused on informing the public about the impact Abraham Lincoln had on the development of the United States, and finding the best possible ways to honor his accomplishments. Marqui's Communications Management Suite will help facilitate this by enabling the Commission to more easily coordinate online activities, including e-mail promotions, newsletters and more.

Bloggers may be jeopardizing their employment, especially if they blog about work, according to CNN/Money. [Link]

Cliff Palefsky, a San Francisco employment lawyer, says there's a false sense that employers can't punish their workers for voicing personal opinions -- on their blogs or anywhere else. "People mistakenly believe that the First Amendment protects them in the workplace, which is generally not the case," he said.

There are a handful of exceptions. Several states, including California, specifically protect workers from retaliation for their political views. Other states have broader protections covering "off-the-job" activities, said Palefsky.

Even those safety nets have limits when it comes to bad-mouthing the boss. "If you're going to be talking about your employer, it's hard to call that 'off-the-job' conduct," said Palefsky.

Samantha Smoot, former Executive Director of Texas Freedom Network now working on a project in Lebanon, sent this email yesterday – reprinted with permission. Sam didn't see, but felt, the Beirut explosion that killed Prime Minister Hariri.

First, I'm okay. The NDI office is tucked away in apartment building in a central but obscure neighborhood, far from anything that would ever look like a target. (And unmarked, to boot.) We're at least a couple of miles from the Phoenicia Hotel where the bomb went off.

But close enough to feel the bomb as much as hear it. Firecrackers go off here all the time, and it's not uncommon to hear gunshots, because everybody still has a gun from the war and people like to shoot them. So today, one of my coworkers thought there must be a nearby demolition site imploding a building, and another speculated that this was an Israeli plane breaking the sound barrier. Then we started getting calls.

It took a while to realize the magnitude of what has happened—the size of the bomb and the fact that it had hit its intended target. The political implications are still rolling in like waves.

Amidst rumors of looting and street closures, we shut the office early. My coworker Lila and I walked home together because we had heard that our neighborhood was closed off. (Mr. Hariri's home and office are nearby, and his body is at a hospital a block from my house.)

The city's shopkeepers closed up in the early afternoon. I realized on the walk home just how many shops have metal doors that slide over their storefront. The others have metal grill work that covers their windows. Everything looked looter-proof to me. Later, I realized I was missing the point.

Lila and I stopped at a fruit stand and saw our first pictures of what was happening. Our office has no television. Hell may be one crisis after another with no television to watch them on. These pictures were shocking. So much of Beirut is pitted from sniper fire that this gaping hole in the ground looks like it will swallow the city. The other violence seems to have been more human in scale.

A couple of blocks before home, Lila and I crossed Hamra Street barely a block before a protest of angry, grieving men made its way past us, then retraced our route backwards. Hamra Street, a bustling shopping district, was dead quiet.

Of course, I couldn't stand sitting at home alone watching television (never have I wanted to understand Arabic so badly!) So I decided to walk down to the bomb site and see for myself what this was. (Sorry, Mom.)

Empty streets. Then I started noticing neat little piles of broken glass on the street. It wasn't until maybe the fourth one that I realized that Beirut was already cleaning up—and that this bomb had blown out residential windows 10 blocks away.

Closer, the glass was not yet swept into neat piles. It was everywhere. Store fronts, restaurant windows, office windows, car windows, small business, big banks—all gave in to the gust. Finally I realized why the metal coverings for the storefronts—because here, glass is going to get broken.

Lots of people at the site, very somber.

I'm attaching a couple of photographs—the St. George Hotel, old and not even open, with the beautiful pink peaks of Mt. Lebanon in the background. The Phoenicia Intercontinental Hotel, probably Beirut's finest, is a block away from the site. But every one of its windows, and those of two adjacent hotels, was blown out by the blast. I wish I could send images of the people and the disbelief and shock on their faces.

St. George

Phoenicia

I'm back home, safe and in for the night. And trying to understand what this means for this country. Rafik Hariri was the muscle and the energy and the money behind Beirut's postwar redevelopment, and thus symbolized the country's hope for peace and prosperity. He was extremely wealthy and very, very well protected. There is a sense that 'if they could get him, they can get anyone they want.' 'They' being Syria, of course.

About two weeks ago, the political rhetoric managed to surge even beyond its usual level of hyperbole and heat. A couple of government officials commented, 'they'll see what we can do' and 'we going to play tough now'. This, and I think the bomb today, are in response to the fact that Lebanon has, for the first time since its civil was, a critical mass of opposition political leaders calling for Syria's ouster. Hariri was the most important member of that group. Because of that, because of his sweeping economic presence in the city, and because of his popularity as a symbol of hope, they could not have chosen a better target if their aim was to destabilize the country.

(Note: Marqui sponsors this weblog.) Chicago radio station WVON ("Voice of the Nation") cut costs and increased traffic after building its web site with Marqui's Communications Management Suite, according to this interview posted at Marqui's site. What problems were they trying to solve by moving to a content management system? "The key factors were time and money. Each time the web agency would update content or make graphic changes we were being charged. Also, sometimes we needed to update content quickly, but found we had to wait in line for the web agency to get to our content." And why Marqui? "The main reason for choosing Marqui was the friendly service from the sales representative. He actually took the time to answer our questions," and "it was a web-based system that was easy to use." The company says it's saving around $400 a month in costs for site updates, with a 200% increase in web traffic since the Marqui system was adopted.

Notes from the Blogsophere... Doc quotes James Robertson, who says that Eason Jordan lost his job, not because of politics, but because he embarrassed CNN. Look here if you don't know what I'm talking about. // My friend and co-editor Mitch struggles with the idea of consensus, with constructive comments from Jodi Dean and Sam Rose, who haven't quite taken leave of their consensus yet. // Joi posts that a Tulsa newspaper has threatened to sue a blogger over what appears to be fair use. // Ross Mayfield differs with John Dvorak, who says that Google shouldn't host Wikimedia projects. // The Shirkmeister sent us to a terrific jwz rant... Groupware BAD, users GOOD, calendars USEFUL. "How will this software get my users laid" should be on the minds of anyone writing social software (and these days, almost all software is social software). That quote made my day... and this:

If you want to do something that's going to change the world, build software that people want to use instead of software that managers want to buy.

When words like "groupware" and "enterprise" start getting tossed around, you're doing the latter. You start adding features to satisfy line-items on some checklist that was constructed by interminable committee meetings among bureaucrats, and you're coding toward an externally-dictated product specification that maybe some company will want to buy a hundred "seats" of, but that nobody will ever love. With that kind of motivation, nobody will ever find it sexy. It won't make anyone happy.

Should bloggers take money for writing about sponsored products? JD Lasica explores the question in a very good article for the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. Lasica focuses on the controversial Marqui Payblogger program that's been sponsoring Weblogsky since December. Every week, I post something about Marqui, often based on content that Marqui provides. The twenty Marqui bloggers take diverse approaches to the agreement to post weekly, but we all disclose our relationship with Marqui. Journalists wouldn't do this because it might create the appearance, accurate or not, that there's a conflict of interest. So when bloggers do something like this, it's more fuel for the discussion of blogging vs journalism. Jay Rosen says that debate is over, but, well, it ain't over 'til it's over. However I don't think it's a debate of journalists vs. bloggers, it's a debate of bloggers who want to be thought of as journalists (and paid accordingly) vs. bloggers who the freedom to wear any or many hats.

JD summarizes the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Code, "which instructs journalists to:

• Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
  
• Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
  
• Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
  
• Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.
  
• Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money..."

However, he says, "Bloggers sometimes act as journalists, but they uniformly say they hew to different standards than professional journalists." He summarizes those standards:

• "Disclose, disclose, disclose. Transparency – of actions, motives and financial considerations – is the golden rule of the blogosphere.
  
• Follow your passions. Blog about topics you care deeply about.
  
• Be honest. Write what you believe.
  
• Trust your readers to form their own judgments and conclusions.
  
• Reputation is the principal currency of cyberspace. Maintain your independence and integrity – lost trust is difficult to regain."

The Marqui experiment has been very open on their end; they haven't told us what to do, which makes sense, given the lack of precedence or standards for this sort of thing. I figured I was like a smalltown newspaper editor who also has to be a reporter and write all the ad copy, because there's only one of me, some days even less. Others had different approaches, like Mitch, who simply thanked Marqui each week for its sponsorship.

It wasn't an ethical dilemma for me, at least at first. I do have a bit of an issue now, though. Though skeptical at first, I began to see over time that Marqui has a good system. Then Lucy Tanner of Marqui called and asked if my company, Polycot, was interested in partnering with Marqui. Polycot has its own CMS, but we use other products, too, depending on the project. We may very well go for it, which is less of a quandary since my contract as a Marqui blogger is near its end. I can simply choose not to renew.

As a journalist, would I work for a company that sponsored my blog - that I was paid to write about? Probably not. As a blogger, though, I'm less conflicted. My life as a businessman and my life as a blogger are mashed up, and the rest of my life is in there, too, and it's all a continuum for me. I'm pretty honest, and hopefully credible, and I can't really see any reason not to work with Marqui if it makes business sense.

I have written as a journalist before, I understand how it works. That wasn't exactly the kind of writing I wanted to do – a lot of the stuff I've written has been gonzo, not objective. I didn't follow the formula, but writed what I wanted to write.

Lasica speaks for me when he says

If bloggers are paid by a corporation to write about the company, they’re no longer acting as amateur journalists. Journalists cannot and do not accept payments from sources.

Bloggers, on the other hand, are free to do so, and it’s up to each reader to decide how to judge that. "If you’re a blogger or writer, OK, take the money," Rubel said. "But understand that you’ve crossed a line with some readers."

Just don’t call yourself a journalist when you’re cashing that check.

Nothing here but silence... and this:

I think sometimes I really never learned anything much since I was fifteen. I know I have but I haven't changed much. And maybe I'm either an example of integrity in a person or the dumbest person around. I haven't learned anything since I was fifteen.

"Shotgun Golf with Bill Murray" was evidently Hunter Thompson's last published column, though god knows what'll turn up in the wake of his death. I'm pissed off at myself for ignoring he recent work, and I'm a still trying to come to terms with the juxtaposition of his death and Sandra Dee's. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was instrumental in undermining my faith in journalism and pretty well trashing my writing career. If not for HST, I would have fallen from grace and become a successful journalist and author. I would have had credibility, and would have become a blogger only much later, after it was fashionable and cool. Now, that would stink. [Link]

The game consists of one golfer, one shooter and a field judge. The purpose of the game is to shoot your opponent's high-flying golf ball out of the air with a finely-tuned 12-gauge shotgun, thus preventing him (your opponent) from lofting a 9-iron approach shot onto a distant "green" and making a "hole in one." Points are scored by blasting your opponent's shiny new Titleist out of the air and causing his shot to fail miserably. That earns you two points.

David Isenberg blogs about reports of torture by U.S.-trained troops in Honduras under John Negroponte's watch. Asks David, "Can't we find somebody else to be U.S. 'security' czar?" [Link]

Dave Mandl fears that we're losing something valuable – the segue and the concept of the set of music – as we adopt the Ipod shuffle and a file-focused approach to listening. This is an interesting argument, but I tend to think podcasting will save the segue.
[Link]

... the importance of segues in music sets can't be stressed too much. In the days when I first auditioned for a radio show (and later screened other prospective DJs), audition tapes were made with most of the body of each track removed, leaving just the segues and the few seconds before and after each transition. Once it's been revealed which track the DJ has chosen to go to after the current one, the rest is more or less an anticlimax, at least when you're evaluating the person's chops. It's not just your musical vocabulary and taste that matter, but the ability to put it all together in some meaningful way. Having a listener give you three hours of valuable time to spin absolutely any music in the world for them is both a privilege and a challenge, and creating some kind of unique sound environment for them (and this applies to rock and roll just as much as more obvious genres, like ambient or soundtrack music) is about the best thing you can do in return. The idea of "psychogeography" is no less important in a set of music than in an experimental film or an actual psychogeographical drift through a physical space.

The New York Times acquired About.com. Jay Rosen explains why in a Pressthink piece that tells how the Times managed to squelch possible Googlejuice by dropping its stories into an archive you have to pay to access. This turned out to be bad strategy: the stories don't show up in Google and miss the long tail of attention that could result in many more visits and many more ad dollars. With the About.com acquisition, the Times bought expertise in search engine optimization that focuses on the best practice I know: creating content for the page that search engines will "get."

I posted at Smart Mobs about the proposed ban on muni wireless (actually on muni networks). What's frustrating is that the legislators don't seem to be listening to anyone but big telcos. The hearings go on today, though – hope for the best. [Link]

I never had a chance to meet Pam, but her husband Gareth Branwyn is a good friend and colleague from all the way back in the 'zine days, and Pam, an accomplished and versatile jazz singer, performed some vocals with one of my favorite bands, Thievery Corporation. Pam passed away Sunday. Now I can't believe I never met her or had a chance to hear her sing live. The recorded vocals I've heard are wonderful. [Link]

At Save Muni Wireless, I blogged a summary of today's continuation of the hearing for HB 789, the major Texas telecom bill under consideration, which contained a provision (Section 54.202) that would prevent municipalities from offering network services, including municipal wireless projects. I was watching (or listening to) the hearing via webcast. The Representatives on the committee were more receptive than I had expected. [Link]

Politics as "constituent relationship management" vs a politics of democratic deliberation. Ross Mayfield suggested this subject in an email to Mitch and I earlier today; I blogged about it at WorldChanging.com.

Jason Kottke's going to blog full-time – at least, he's going to give it a shot. [Link]

But Mr. Kottke said he wants kottke.org to be his life focus, though he is not sure if the dream can come true. He said he doesn’t hate advertising, but resents its intrusive nature. "There are currently two parties involved with kottke.org: me and the collective you," said Mr. Kottke. "Advertising introduces a third party."

Other prominent bloggers applauded Mr. Kottke’s step but expressed doubts about its success. "He’s taking a no-advertising approach and good for him,” said Mitch Ratcliffe, a veteran Internet personality. “I don't think it’s viable, but it is a push in the right direction."

Olia Lialina appreciates the patchwork amateur aesthetics of the early web and calls for an exploration of the cultural history of cyberspace. [Link]

In the past few years I’ve also been making work that foregrounds this disappearing aesthetic of the past. With these works I want to apologize for my arrogance in the early years and to preserve the beauty of the vernacular web by integrating them within contemporary art pieces. But this is only half of the job.

Creating collections and archives of all the midi files and animated gifs will preserve them for the future but it is no less important to ask questions. What did these visual, acoustic and navigation elements stand for? For which cultures and media did these serve as a bridge to the web? What ambitions were they serving? What problems did they solve and what problems did they create? Let me talk about the difficult destiny of some of these elements.

"Kevin B. Jones, Esq." of SMS.ac sent Joi Ito a cease-and-desist email saying "UNLESS YOU IMMEDIATELY CEASE AND DESIST YOUR ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED" but failing to say exactly what Joi's done that's "illegal." The email includes a paragraph that says "CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY PROPERTY OF SMS.ac AND MAY NOT BE COPIED, PUBLISHED, OR DISCLOSED TO OTHERS." Since Joi (being Joi) posted it on his blog, the company now wants to claim that he's infringed copyright. Joi's not the only one to get this email. Evidently the company is going after sites that question their business practices. There's an interesting conversation about sms.ac at Rip-Off Report, including posts by current and former employees of sms.ac. And there's also an interesting Infoworld article about SMS.ac CEO Michael Pousti's earlier company, CollegeClub.

In Joi's case, the supposedly "illegal" material may have been this post,:

I received an email inviting me to SMS.ac, which I would normally ignore, but it was from someone who's judgment I trust. I clicked through the signup process without finally completing it, but unwittingly gave the service access to my MSN IM information. This spammed my whole buddy list with invitations. It was unintuitive to unregister even though I hadn't completed the registration process. Also, I heard from someone that if you don't unregister, the service continues to send invites to people you add to your buddy list. Anyway, I have no idea if the service is interesting, but the the fact that you invite your whole buddylist before you actually try the service and the difficulty and deleting your account makes me skeptical about it.

Ev Williams and Noah Glass prepare a pod to be cast.

Evan Williams and others are working on Odeo, a company that "aims to enable this new distribution channel and medium by creating the best one-source solution for finding, subscribing to, and publishing audio content," according to Evan. "It's about personal media, time-shifting, and the long, long tail." Ev has, of course, created an Odeo blog, and Markoff in The NY Times rants how podcasting, with Odeo, is taking a step " toward becoming the commercial Web's next big thing." Markoff talks about various commercial podcasting products, and says that "plans to make money by selling audio content and advertising and, eventually, software for producing and editing podcasts."

This is all very cool, but you know what they say: don't look a gift economy in the mouth.