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Fake Steve Jobs Blog May Get Second Life on Newsweek.

by Peter Mychalcewycz, posted Sep 4th 2008 at 10:48AM



We know you miss it. We do too.

We are, of course, talking about Dan Lyons' satirical blog that hilariously attempted to channel Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The fake blog by the real Dan Lyons was terminated by Lyons himself after seeing a frail and sickly Jobs at Apple's developer conference in June. It seems even a satirist has emotional boundaries. Pooooop.

Fret not, though -- a combination of factors may bring the deceased blog back to life. Lyons has recently begun working for Newsweek, and it seems that part of the agreement was for him to resurrect the fake Jobs' blog.

Sweet. That's all we have to say. [From: ValleyWag]

Kanye West Uses Blog to Strike Back

by Christine Whitney, posted Jun 28th 2008 at 10:28AM

Kanye, Kanye, Kanye. He has a blog, and he uses it to talk back. First there was the EW thing, and now this: a proclamation by the Daft Punk coverer in response to a recent debacle at the jam-bandy Bonnaroo Festival.

Said incident occurred during the annual nouveau-hippie drug orgy music mega-fest in Tennessee, where Kanye's performance began two hours late. Apparently the delay in his show was due to technical difficulties, and was NOT KW's fault, but the magic mushrooms were wearing off and the trust fund hippies didn't care. Someone had to pay! So they took their hempen vengeance out on Kanye, pelting the stage with beer cans and other grimy wares and chanting such mantras as "Kanye Sucks!"

In a Tuesday post, Kanye expressed his rage: "This Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I've ever had in my life...this is the maddest I ever will be." He also apologized for not being able to "2 give the performance I wanted to," and assured fans that HE CARES about them.

Don't take it personal Kanye...Everyone knows those Bonnaroo kids have ingrown beards that poke back into their brains and cloud their judgment. We still like you. [Source: AP]

Record High Blogger Arrests in 2007

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 2:10PM


As blogs have become more powerful and prominent as sources of political information and dissent, governments have increased their crackdown on the online outlets of opinion and news. According to the World Information Access (WIA) report, 64 bloggers have been arrested since 2003, but 2007 saw the number of bloggers arrested triple from the previous year. Most of the bloggers arrested have been in China, Iran, and Egypt. The arrests usually lead to jail time, with the average sentence handed down for blogging being 15 months.

The number of bloggers arrested is hard to measure due to the difficulty in confirming identities and that arrests even took place at all in these highly secretive nations. WIA expects the number of arrests of bloggers to continue to increase in 2008 as political uncertainty looms in China and Pakistan and as blogs become even more ubiquitous. [Source: BBC]

U.S. Air Force Blocks Access to Blogs

by Will Safer, posted Feb 28th 2008 at 11:17AM




Chances are, if you're in the U.S. Air Force, you're not going to be reading this today. That's because Switched is a blog (short for Web log) and the Air Force has decided that most blogs are bad -- or at least not legitimate sources of news.

Air Force logoYou may think that's an oversimplification of the matter, but tell that to the Air Force, which, according to Wired, has just started automatically blocking access to almost all sites with the word blog in the Web address or on the Web site itself. Access is blocked for all active personnel who get online at work or on duty.

The new rule does allow for access to "an established, reputable media outlet," like the New York Times, and, presumably, even the blogs on the New York Times site.

The Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," typically will block all sites first, and then review which ones should be permitted to make their way through to Air Force personnel.

The concern is that leaked information will wend its way through blogs and into the wrong hands (although major news outlets are cited as being the primary source of sensitive information being leaked). YouTube and MySpace are banned because -- according to the Air Force -- they take up too much bandwidth.

As for the harm a blog can actually cause, one retired Air Force officer remarks that it's not necessarily what the blog itself may state but instead it's the good intentions of an airman who posts a comment or correction. In doing so, he or she may reveal more than intended -- and put good information into the hands of bad people.

Oddly enough, some Web sites that are considered recommended reading for airmen by the Air Force itself have been blocked because they are characterized as blogs.

But perhaps the Air Force only has itself to blame for blogs. After all, didn't the military invent the Internet?

From Wired.


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Top 11 Celebrity Blogs

by Alon Avdi, posted Jan 18th 2008 at 5:14PMFeatured Story

It seems that a boatload of celebrities, whether yesterday's star or today's heartthrob, have embraced the leanings of twenty-first century pop culture and started a blog. What's exceptional about these online writings by the famous is that they, like all good blogs, run the gamut of subject matter. Some are diaries or journals, others support a cause, while still others offer up a new mode of artistic expression or a way to reach out to fans. We've carefully mined the trove of celebrity blogs on the Web to bring you the most popular, the most profound, the most inspiring, or simply the most bizarre. In other words, here are the best celebrity blogs you'll find today.



Rosie O'Donnell
English majors and Walt Whitman die-hards might experience a migraine when choking through O'Donnell's attempts at poetic profundity, but this actress and comedian wins big points for her innovative and interactive blog, a forum she updates virtually daily and sincerely. Webcam responses to fan e-mails are the norm, in addition to a good dose of zesty humor in almost every post. She does write, too, even if some of it is painful. Whatever you do, just don't expect her not to diss 'The View' every now and again.

The 'Blog' Turns 10

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Dec 19th 2007 at 4:27PM

The Revolutionary Blog Turns 10
Happy belated birthday, blogosphere! In case you didn't know, December 17 was the 10th anniversary of the term 'Weblog,' which was shortened to 'blog' at some point. The term started with a man, Jorn Barger, who used the phrase to describe his Web page where he posted links of interesting things he found around the Internet.

Back in 1997, blogging was hardly the phenomenon it is today. Some of the most conservative estimates put the number of true 'weblogs' at that time in the lower double digits. These days no one can really say how many blogs are out there. Technorati, a blog tracking service, estimates that 120,000 new blogs pop up every day. In April the site was tracking just over 72 million blogs.

The blog has morphed from its early days as a way of sharing cool finds (like Digg minus the voting), to the primary form of information dispersal on the Web. Blogging has become the format of choice in the fast-paced world of tech (like Switched.com) and politics, and has empowered a generation of new journalists. Now the New York Times has blogs, the Daily Kos is one of the most important forces in the Democratic party, and even CNN has the YouTube-esque iReport citizen journalism program. Like it or not, in less than 10 years time, blogs have completely altered the face of media.

From the BBC

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Best Blogs on the Web

by Tom Conlon, posted Jun 29th 2007 at 10:53AM

The Web's Best Blogs

Believe it or not, there are an estimated 70 million blogs out there, with 120,000 new ones being born every day. To help you better separate the quality from the crap (oh...and there's a king's helping of the latter), PC World recently put together its list of the magazine's 100 favorite blogs. The picks cut across such categories as tech, politics, celebrity and media. They include some of our favorites, including Engadget, GeekSugar and Slashdot (tech), Gawker and Defamer (celebrity) and Boing Boing and Mental_Floss (general interest/random knowledge). But we couldn't help but find the list a tad lacking, especially given the total omission of categories for humor and music. So, without further ado, here are Switched's unsolicited additions to the PC World list of favorite blogs:


Read PC World's full list.

MySpace to Hold Presidential Primaries

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Apr 3rd 2007 at 12:06PM

MySpace's new Impact ChannelSocial networking site MySpace announced that it will hold Presidential primaries in January 2008. While this may not sound like a big deal at first, when one considers that MySpace's membership numbers could make it the 11th-largest country in the world, it's quite possible that these primaries will be as or more important than MTV's role in the 1996 election.

The virtual primaries will be a major feature of MySpace's new Impact channel, self-dubbed as "a place to make a difference." The channel already offers a profile of each candidate, including their respective takes on issues and with ways for supporters to get involved politically.

Critics are skeptical of the online primaries, citing MySpace's lax account rules and identity checks (they don't check at all). There is concern that an ambitious campaign could simply create thousands of accounts to affect the primary's outcome. Meanwhile, supporters say that because of the huge number of MySpace users, even a few thousand rogue accounts from crafty campaigners wouldn't be statistically relevant among the millions of real accounts. They also believe that the online community will play a large role in the upcoming election, and MySpace is perhaps the best candidate for that given its popularity.

From TechCrunch


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