Blog moguls lock horns

It was Denton vs. Calacanis last night in New York, in a panel on blog publishing at the city's Apple Store. EverythingNY.com blogged the event.

James Gosling blogs about making Java open source

"There's been a lot of churn lately over open letters from IBM and others calling for Sun to open source Java. Rather than try to respond to everyone individually, I'll try to respond to a pile of questions here," writes Gosling.

Weblogs gaining maturity, becoming more useful

Dan Gillmor, Mercury News Technology Columnist, went to the Harvard Law School for Dave Winer's one-day conference, BloggerCon (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/bloggerCon/). "I was glad to see a trend: The gee-whiz stuff of the past is giving way to realistic questions of where the medium is going." he reports here.

How to write a blog-buster

Controversial call-girl diarist Belle de Jour might well be the most notorious example of a new literary trend: fiction written in blog form. Jim McClellan meets the online authors.

New kids on the blog

Belle de Jour, whose online diary of life as a call girl hit the headlines recently, isn't alone - thousands have found a voice on the net. From the mundane to the thrilling, the blogging phenomenon has produced some of today's most innovative and engaging writing. So how did we discover our inner Samuel Pepys? By Simon Garfield

The blog of blogs

I know I'm being mean below, but T&Cs aside Kinja is a very interesting service. The concept of a blog aggregator is nothing new - there are lots of desktop applications and websites that do this already. I can't say I was enthralled when I heard about the concept, pretty much because I couldn't see what value it would add - after all, until now the Gawker stable has dealt - very successfully - in original content.

Perils of search and replace

Maybe I have far too much time on my hands. But when signing up for Kinja, Nick Denton's newly-launched weblog aggregator (see New York Times piece here), I decided to take a look through the terms and conditions before clicking on submit. Leafing through the legalese on the importance of respecting copyright and intellectual property, the rules on resale of the service and so on, I was surprised to see Yahoo!'s name crop up in two places:
"17. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT: YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. YAHOO EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND,"
and...
"YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT KINJA SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF YAHOO HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES)"
(my bold emphasis) Indeed, if you pop over to Yahoo!'s terms and conditions page, it seems long passages of the two documents appear to be quite similar. One or two bits are missing completely from the Kinja terms, mind you - like the line, under point 24 of Yahoo!'s agreement, that begins: "Yahoo! respects the intellectual property of others".

Microsoft to offer blog searches

According to the IDG News Service: "MSN Blogbot will aggregate content from hundreds of thousands of Web logs and index that content based on which Web logs are most popular and credible, [Karen Redetzki, a product manager for MSN at Microsoft] said. The service should go into beta soon, and Microsoft plans to introduce MSN Blogbot worldwide, she said."

Dear Diary…

Nokia is getting into the blogging business, reports Neil McIntosh.

London bloggers tube map

Or to be more accurate, it's a map of the London Underground, rail network and the Docklands Light Railway. (Not all lines are "tube" lines, and some of the Underground is overground.) Click on a station for Weblogs At This Station. Weblogs Within 10 Minutes Of This Station, and Weblogs Within 20 Minutes Of This Station, eg Elephant & Castle.

Blair may blog the next election

The Labour party is considering giving Tony Blair a weblog as part of its attempt to make its general election campaign an 'engaging dialogue with the British people'.

Talk time: Jeremy Botter

Jeremy Botter is a serving member of the US army, based in Tikrit, Iraq. He writes Letters from Iraq, a daily blog from the frontline