The man behind SpreadFirefox.com told WebProNews the story of the Firefox Crop Circle, and how a bunch of students pulled off a memorable feat through hard work, persistence, and a nudge from Lady Luck.

Britney Spears’ forgot-to-do-my-laundry debacle (you know what I mean, don’t make me say it) couldn’t have been better for her career (and the multitudes of semi-pedophilic or naturally curious masses for that matter) if it had been contrived by her own publicist. Spears is not just at the top of the celebrity search charts, she’s more popular than Yahoo.

MySpace is trying to make users experience more secure. They have announced plans to partner with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp, an online identity and background verification company. They are jointly working on Sentinel Safe, software that will block the access of convicted sex offenders to MySpace.

In a tragic turn of events putting the two week long man hunt to an end, the body of CNET editor James Kim has been located.

This ClickZ track session on advertising with social media was moderated by Rebecca Lieb and included Gary Price, Henry Copeland, Bill Flitter and Marc Schiller.

Fusion Authority has published an interesting editorial by Hal Helms, scheduled for inclusion in FAQU 3.

Based on the number of hits this blog is getting with the search term “Geronimo vs. WAS CE”, it appears that there is some confusion about the similarities and differences between Apache Geronimo and IBM WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE).

At SES Chicago, Danny Sullivan had a pleasant surprise for the audience.

MSN has ramped up its online ad activity for Windows Live Messenger, ahead of Live.com’s launch in the New Year, with a Christmas campaign site that’s aimed at promoting its video-call service.

The idea that your site has to be static, or look static, to do well in search engines is getting to be a thing of the past.

Robert Scoble and I spent an hour talking wikis and other stuff. The result is this video.

Affiliates with online marketplace eBay feed the site visitors, and the people they pass along who register and buy on eBay add up to profits for the website and for the affiliates too.

Budgets for online advertising get a major lift in 2006.

Dear Kalena…

Today marks the launch of MSN’s Live Book Search, a beta offering aimed at giving users an initial taste of what Live Search has to offer in the realm of literary works. The service will perform keyword searches for books that have thus far been scanned in by Microsoft as part of the project.

After Conan O’Brian adlibbed a fictional website just to make a joke, the late night talk show host reported back the next night that NBC’s legal department contacted him saying the network was required to own it.

Gareth Davies at GSINC Ltd has put together a good series of SEO Basics videos.

Link bait and viral marketing took the stage once again at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, presented by veterans of a new frontier. Their presentation reiterated a theme of first creating for the audience, holding on for the ride, and making the most of what comes next.

Of late, there’s no questioning the ubiquity of flash video on the web: Google, Yahoo, YouTube, etc..

John Battelle has on his blog a post where Ask CEO answers his questions about AskCity.

GigaOmniMedia Inc. has launched a new website called NewTeeVee.com that is designed to cover the massive growth of the online video industry.

Danny Sullivan’s timing for announcing his new conference SMX during the Search Engine Strategies conference here in Chicago is as ballsy as it gets.

The Peppercom and Bulldog Reporter Business Blogging Survey conducted on 1,200 marketing industry executives from the United States and United Kingdom, revealed some startling disconnects in corporate communication policy on both sides of the pond…

Not sure if this is something new or not, but I just saw a CNN Money article which linked at a Wikipedia article about Joe Kraus as background on him.