] When they plotted the links and topics shared by various
] sites, they discovered that topics would often appear on
] a few relatively unknown blogs days before they appeared
] on more popular sites.
]
] "What we're finding is that the important people on the
] Web are not necessarily the people with the most explicit
] links (back to their sites), but the people who cause
] epidemics in blog networks," said researcher Eytan Adar.
]
] These infectious people can be hard to find because they
] do not always receive attribution for being the first to
] point to an interesting idea or news item.

HP tracking the spread of memes through the blogosphere

Comprehensive coverage of O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference and other news stories related to the key topics covered there. Looks very good...

Blogging ETech - etech.weblogsinc.com

] Some bright bulbs over at Microsoft Research (MSR) have
] organized a Symposium on Social Computing on March 29th
] and 30th at the Columbia Winery north of Redmond.  Mark
] your calendars!  Word is, the talks will be streamed to
] the Web.  Stay tuned for details.

Social Computing Symposium at Microsoft

Demographic data on the Livejournal user community. Welcome to Castle Anthrax...

Livejournal demographics

Rattle wrote:
] MemeStreams is a mini Google bomb for the people. Take your
] MemeStream title for instance.. Because if the way our pages
] interlink, if you are one of the people on this system who has
] used it actively for a long time and is highly recommended
] (yes, it matters, alot), you can pretty much pick your Google
] key words..

Very interesting...

RE: Google Time Bomb - Will Weblogs blow up the world's favorite search engine? - Microcontent News, a Corante.com Microblog

] Adam identified a critical loophole in Google's
] algorithm. This article I'm writing may be about Google
] Bombs... but if enough sites linked to it using the
] phrase "Aunt Jemima," then this article might come up as
] the first search result for "Aunt Jemima." In other
] words, the linker can impact the Google Rank of the
] linkee.
]
] And thus was born the Google Bomb.

Explanation for recent funny google searches like "miserable failure." The "angry mob" threat model continues to find new applications.

Google Time Bomb - Will Weblogs blow up the world's favorite search engine? - Microcontent News, a Corante.com Microblog

My interest in the anti-spam legislation's effect on anonymous business transactions has gotten me reading cypherpunks again. Although I guess its a poor idea to recommend other blogging tools, this one is cool enough to be worth a look. Its set up so that you post to it via mixmaster.

Cypherpunk Weblog System

] RPXP v0.74 generates SMIL 1.0 and RealText streaming
] media presentations. These can be hyperlinked via
] standard HTTP URLs. People with web publishing access can
] subset and annotate video streams into clips to which
] URLs can be distributed via email or weblog. The
] original media stream is not changed.

A very poor explanation, but basically this is software for linking to an anchor tag in a real video... So you can recommend a story from the news instead of the whole show. Expect more like this...

Autometa Reciprocal Peer eXchange Projector (RPXP)

] There's a new form of spam. Many blogs allow people
] to add comments. Spammers have begun to add "comment
] spam". These are comments that have nothing to do
] with the blog. The comments are the usual set of spam
] porn, various drugs, and so on.

[IP] Spam attacks on blogs

] Journalism traditionally assumes that democracy is what we
] have, information is what we seek. Whereas in the weblog
] world, information is what we have - it's all
] around us - and democracy is what we seek.

PressThink: What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism?