The Pennsylvania Tourism Office today announced an exclusive deal with Foursquare that will allow users to obtain the official “PA Groundhog Day 2012” badge on February 2. The badge features the likeness of Punxsutawney Phil, the world-famous co-star to Bill Murray in the 1993 classic, Groundhog Day.

“We invite Foursquare users worldwide to earn this special badge from visitPA, which has been updated for 2012,” Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary C. Alan Walker said. “This is a one-day opportunity to earn a unique virtual badge as we all learn whether we may see an early spring.”

For those who don’t know, or haven’t seen the classic Bill Murray film, Groundhog Day is celebrated every February 2 in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. According to folklore dating back to the 1800s, if Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t, there will be an early spring.

To earn the exclusive “PA Groundhog Day 2012” badge, users should follow visitPA on the Foursquare site. From there, check in to shout on February 2 to receive the badge.

“We’re thrilled that visitPA has been able to enhance the experiences of so many visitors through the use of our platform,” Eric Friedman, Director of Business Development at Foursquare said. “Pennsylvania’s continued enthusiasm and openness to new partnership opportunities and Foursquare’s ability to attract and reward people combine to make a powerful partnership.”

In 2010, Pennsylvania became the first state to partner with Foursquare by populating the network with more than 200 state attractions and creating custom badges. Since its launch, visitPA has amassed nearly 93,000 followers and more than 67,800 users have unlocked a PA badge.

"You already have zero privacy - get over it."
-- ex-Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy on the topic of how much privacy people have, circa 1999.

McNealy’s old pal Eric Schmidt, or at least his Google legal team, may have channeled the loquacious executive in responding to a lawsuit filed against the search advertising company. Google’s legal response to Aaron and Christine Boring blasted their expectation of privacy as being, well, so last century.

In Google’s opinion being able to see the front of a house from a driveway tosses away any claim at having one’s privacy violated. The Borings sued Google in April over photos a Google Street View camera car took from the street, which the Borings claim is a marked, private road.

The Smoking Gun published Google’s response to the suit. The search advertising company said "complete privacy does not exist" with regards to the photos they took and subsequently removed of the Boring’s home.

"Google has countered that the couple ‘live in a residential community in the twenty-first-century United States, where every step upon private property is not deemed by law to be an actionable trespass’," The Smoking Gun said. Part of Google’s request for dismissal contained the ‘no complete privacy’ line:

[c]omplete privacy does not exist in this world except in a desert, and anyone who is not a hermit must expect and endure the ordinary incidents of the community life of which he [or she] is a part.

We’re surprised to learn that Google considers its roving cameras an ordinary part of everyday existence. Community life springs from communities, not data-voracious corporations. While the legal argument sounds plausible, the attitude behind Google’s position steps beyond arrogant into upraised middle-finger territory.

The title struck me as funny: "Philly Fight Night: Dems Spar Over Electability." It was funny to me because my wife was surprised last night a primary debate was on a major broadcast network instead of CNN or other news channel. I responded that the Democratic race had become a kind of Wrestlemania.

I didn’t know Gibson and Stephie were going to pull Obama into a three-on-one cage match. But that’s pretty much what happened. If you were one of many who likely turned off the debate after 45 minutes of "Barack, why are you such a jerk" questions, they did actually get to some issues that mattered. Why, right there at the end, the candidates got one full minute each to address the gas crisis.

But the flag pin question is important, too, I guess, in Bizarro America where steroids become cause for Congressional investigations and former Clinton White House staffers somehow don’t have a conflict of interest while moderating a very important debate.

Anyway, I’m not the only one complaining about it. ABC News is probably wishing they never enabled viewer commentary on their site  – sometimes Web 2.0-style feedback can feel like a virtual lynching. I don’t know what the record for number of comments on an interactive site is, but this has to approach the record, at least for a broadcast network site.

Here are a few choice comments:

Trash. Plain and simple. What a waste of time. ABC owes the American people an apology. I now understand more than ever why I don’t watch ABC news.

 

How low ABC news has fallen along with the rest of American television journalism. It’s hard to believe that this was once the network of Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel, who always assumed the intelligence of their audience. What we saw last night was tabloid journalism of the worst sort. The MSM bears a strong responsibility for the debasement of our political discourse and with it of our democracy, precisely because of their focus on this kind of trivia. Shame on ABC! Shame on George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson!!

Totally pathetic – when CG and GS weren’t sobbing over those poor souls making 200K+ who might have to pay more taxes, they were focusing on the most inane issues possible (Lapel pins? Seriously?). Thanks for killing democracy guys! And you wonder why network news is failing and Jon Stewart’s ratings are soaring…

Watching this "debate" with my eighteen year-old son made me ashamed of being an adult. How can I expect him to take voting seriously when our national media treat the election process so shabbily?

wow abc how embarassing for you. I expect tmz.com could run a better debate.

 

That last one seems especially harsh, don’t you think? Oh well. One thing we can say about the power of the Internet and the now two-way conversation between media and the public is that the public has a much better an efficient way of letting the media know what’s what.

_{*The word "miffed" officially wins the Understatement of the Day Award}
 

CNET’s Declan McCullagh brings us the story of a man who didn’t pay taxes on a vacant lot.  “A supervisor in Northampton’s tax claim department did not check a telephone book to try to reach Charles Fernandez,” reports McCullagh.  “Instead, she did a Google search for his name and found a phone number for a ‘Chuck Fernandez’ with what seemed to be the correct address – but the number proved to be disconnected.”

Charles Fernandez failed to notice a sign on his lot in July and August of 2004, and somehow missed it when the property was sold in January of 2005.  He resurfaced in March, then, “[t]wo months later, he filed a lawsuit arguing that he wasn’t properly notified and accusing Northampton County of not making sufficient efforts to try to find him.”

Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

The first judge that saw the case said about the same thing.  But on appeal, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania sided with Fernandez.  In an official document provided by Paul L. Caron’s TaxProf Blog, the same court puts the word “Google” in quotes as if it’s some unknown term, and goes on describe the process as a “computer-based search.”

It does seem strange that the tax claim department never bothered to use a phonebook, but this case still appears to have gone in a very odd direction.  All complaints – and/or ridicule – over the final decision can be directed to Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer.

“Scoble is so credible as a Microsoft blogger that he is viewed as the voice of the company across the globe. When Ted Demopoulos, principal of Demopoulos Associates, an information technology consulting company, was traveling in Russia recently, he stopped in Surgut, Siberia, where he was surprised to find Scoble fans. “I’m out in the middle of nowhere and they ask me about Scoble,” says Demopoulos. “To them, Scoble is the voice of Microsoft.”

From Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

I’m waving to my friends in Russia! That’s really an honor.

Thanks to Peter Dawson for sending that to me.

By the way, I play a small part in that article, which is one of the better ones on the topic of corporate blogging.

Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.

Go to Scobleizer …

From Shutterbug magazine:

“Whether or not you have any interest in starting your own photoblog, exploring what is out there on the web can be entertaining, and more, as long as you realize there are just a few diamonds with a lot of rough surrounding them.

In my own journey of discovery the first I came to that made me think I should take this photoblog phenomenon seriously was a site called A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania. Besides containing a collection of remarkably sensitive photographs that reflects a keen eye for light and atmosphere, the images, whether intended or not, promote the locale to other photographers who might just want to visit and photograph there themselves.

Today, finding interesting and rewarding photoblogs has been made easy by some dedicated people who have created websites that track individual photoblogs and provide links to many which the managers of the sites have found interesting or exceptional. From a photo enthusiast’s perspective, the website that offers the richest harvest is www.photoblogs.org.”

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.