Dear diary

The cameraphone is this winter's must-have gadget. Keith Stuart suggests how to get the most out of yours.

Kind of blue

Can porn really be acceptable? A new website thinks it can. Bobbie Johnson reports.

Big blogger

News from next month's World Summit on the Information Society will be available from a radical alternative to the mainstream media. By John Plunkett.

Rewarding the bloggers

Enter your site in the Guardian's competition to find the best British bloggers, urges Simon Waldman.

Why blogs could be bad for business

In today's corporate culture, where knowledge is power, the information-sharing capabilities of weblogs may not be entirely welcome, writes Neil McIntosh.

Start here

Our series on the fundamentals of home technology. This week: setting up a website

Beware the blog booster

A dose of blogging-as-a-business reality from Nick Denton. "Here's a reality check: Gawker and Gizmodo do about $2,000 in ad revenue a month... if you're a starving freelance writer-blogger, and a magazine offers real money and benefits: take the deal."

‘I became the profane pervert Arab blogger’

It began as an internet joke with a friend. But then the media - including the Guardian - picked it up, and suddenly he was the Baghdad blogger, the most famous web diarist in the world. Salam Pax describes what it was like to play cat-and-mouse with Saddam's censors.

Blog for the world’s poorest

Bloggers have been trashed lately for being too parochial and introspective. In an attempt to hitch the medium to a global cause the Guardian (in an editorial ) today is launching a political blog with one aim: the abolition of all agricultural subsidies. In less than a month the World Trade Organisation negotiations will resume in Cancun, Mexico. There is still a vast gap between the desire of developing countries for a big cut in the $300 billion a year handed out in subsidies to Western farmers and the mood of governments, heavily influenced by agricultural lobbies, to keep the status quo in one form or another. Yet the abolition of subsidies is the nearest thing to a free lunch in economics. Developing countries - with natural advantages in growing products like sugar, cotton and cereals - would be given an unprecedented boost if they didn't have to compete with heavily subsidised products dumped in their back gardens at uneconomic prices by Western (ie European and American) producers. And the West would have $300 billion (equivalent to over $200 a year for each of us) to spend on schools, hospitals or whatever. Reform won't happen by tinkering with the incredibly complex system of subsidies. There is only one answer: we must KICK ALL AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES. Join us and KICKAAS. Only the politicians stand in the way.

On the road to blog nirvana

A fantastic and functional piece of weblog software from Silicon Valley will take you as close to perfection as you can currently get, if you are like Simon Waldman.

Working up a sweat

Some companies encourage 'workblogs', but they may lead them into trouble. Ken Young reports

AOL to offer blogging

The Washington Post reports that: "AOL this month began showing demos of its tools for creating Web logs, or blogs, to veteran bloggers. AOL has dubbed its service 'AOL Journals' because its surveys showed that members found the word 'blogs' confusing, said Rick Robinson, AOL's vice president for community products."

Can Weblogs Change Politics?

As Neil mentioned last Sunday (below): BLOG RULE -- Can Weblogs Change Politics?, A VoxPolitics Seminar, is being held tomorrow (14th July) at 5:30 - 7.00pm in Committee Room 11, First Floor Committee Corridor, House of Commons. Speakers include Steven Clift, e-democracy expert, Stephen Pollard, Blogging Journalist, Pernille Rudlin, Mobile expert, Tom Watson MP, Blogging MP, and James Crabtree , Chair. You have to write to blogrule@voxpolitics.com ("we need your full name, organisations / blog, and e-mail to get you in"). Details are at Voxpolitics.