Not so very long ago adding a graph or chart to a web page or application required a fair amount of programming knowledge and was rather time consuming for even the most experienced.

Instead of waiting for a stolen Apple Powerbook to show up on eBay, a firm in Sydney, Australia chose to post it themselves and inform the world of the crime.

Thomas Hawk: “Last Night Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft’s Platforms, Products and Services Division met with a small group of bloggers and technologists here in San Francisco for dinner.

Over at MobHappy comes word of some PR professionals who tried to pull the wool over these bloggers’ eyes and now are paying dearly for it.

Richard Edelman has a really smart byline up about what he calls the Me2 Revolution.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced earlier this month the addition of Gnash, a new open source Flash movie player and Firefox plugin, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). “Open source” indicates that developers can build on top of earlier software to add features or tweak the old ones.

Peter Caputa has written a hysterical fictional conversation between a PR consultant and a prospect interested in possibly blogging.

This had to have come out of California-or Japan where all things cute and stupid sell like snow cones in Hell at high summer. First it was doggie sweaters, now it’s iPod lingerie. Yes, you just saw those two words together.

This article was written in September 2005 but was not published at the time. In light of recent events, though, we thought it especially pertinent.

During its conference call for the company’s earnings announcement, Microsoft’s chief financial officer said the time-honored practice of acquiring companies could play into the company’s online advertising strategy.

…and what does this move mean for online advertisers?

In the pre-Internet era (I know call me a mastodon), press junkets we’re huge.

Julie Alterio at The Journal News has a decent article up on the scope of blogging initiatives within Big Blue and other organizations.

Want to keep your job as head of marketing? Better dig your search marketing campaign.

Forbes magazine has long been seen as a major player in covering the world of business and finance. Their reporting is generally credible with excellent insight. Blogging as a communications tool continues to grow in the business world but for some reason, Forbes just can’t seem to get it right.

Aside from maintaining its "outperform" rating on Google, the investment firm thinks a Google Music Store is in the works; a good question for now would be "Did you get this idea from a blog too?"

Judge James Ware of the US District Court in San Jose will hear arguments on February 27th from both sides over Google’s refusal to comply with federal subpoenas from August 2005.

Attending a press conference for the Canadian Internet Project – a partner of the World Internet Project – a couple of months ago, I was struck by some of the survey data on citizen attitudes and orientations towards Internet use around the world.

Oh, the horror. Drunk from berry juice, the Davos contingent circumbs to crackberry.

Virginia Republican Tom Davis, chair of the House Government Reform Committee, called out Google for cooperating with China but not the US on its requests.

Richard Edelman’s and Paul Holmes’ discussion of the payola scandal are must reads.

I just started reading “The World is Flat” last night and was struck by this quote by David Schlesinger, who heads Reuters America:

Cyberspace has given way to a new social dynamic where people make friends from across the globe, but know little of their next-door neighbor. The abandoning of the village mentality disturbs critics, but those who’ve been won over often find an Internet relationship more satisfying. Some new research is showing also how email and the Internet supplement, rather than replace, the communication people have with others in their network.

Conservative columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin has launched an effort to collect various Photoshopped Google logos and other images that protest Google’s acceptance of government censorship in China.