Fifty or so other Republican candidates have also been made targets in a sophisticated “Google bombing” campaign intended to game the search engine’s ranking algorithms. By flooding the Web with references to the candidates and repeatedly cross-linking to specific articles and sites on the Web, it is possible to take advantage of Google’s formula and force those articles to the top of the list of search results.

The project was originally aimed at 70 Republican candidates but was scaled back to roughly 50 because Chris Bowers, who conceived it, thought some of the negative articles too partisan.

The articles to be used “had to come from news sources that would be widely trusted in the given district,” said Mr. Bowers, a contributor at MyDD.com (Direct Democracy), a liberal group blog. “We wanted actual news reports so it would be clear that we weren’t making anything up.”

Each name is associated with one article. Those articles are embedded in hyperlinks that are now being distributed widely among the left-leaning blogosphere. In an entry at MyDD.com this week, Mr. Bowers said: “When you discuss any of these races in the future, please, use the same embedded hyperlink when reprinting the Republican’s name. Then, I suppose, we will see what happens.”

The popular news page on Technorati indicates that enough blogs are participating in this to make the target stories some of the most widely linked in the blogosphere right now.

File this under information warfare case studies... Rattle made the prediction awhile back that we would see a rise in politically motivated Google Bombing at key times.

A New Campaign Tactic: Manipulating Google Data - New York Times

McNorton said the team contacts bloggers to inform the writers about any given topic that may have been posted on their site. This outreach effort enables the team to offer complete information to bloggers by inviting them to visit CENTCOM's Web site for news releases, data or imagery.

The team engages bloggers who are posting inaccurate or untrue information, as well as bloggers who are posting incomplete information. They extend a friendly invitation to all bloggers to visit the command's Web site...

"We don't go in there and get into a debate," he said.

One of the members of this team is Army Spc. Patrick Ziegler, who has recently created a MemeStreams account.

A friend of mine used to be a manager at a telemarketing call center. She said they had a high employee attrition rate because the people who worked there would take it personally when they got hung up on or yelled at by the people they were cold calling. I was kind of amazed by that. I figured if you were in telemarketing you knew what you were in for.

This sort of reminds me of that. Running around the blogosphere posting serious information without getting emotionally involved in the chorus of opinions being lobbed at you requires a spectacular degree of detachment. Its certainly easier then getting shot at on the streets of Iraq, but its about as close as the Internet gets.

DefenseLINK News: CENTCOM Team Engages 'Bloggers'

Recently, discussions about business models surrounding indexing the blog-o-sphere have been popping up. Much of this has been surrounding Technorati. Doc Sears has a great starting point. Wired has an article about how Technorati is becoming a "utility".

Tom Foremski kicked it all off with this account of a statement from a Technorati PR exec:

"It's all about getting the right algorithm" he said at one point, arguing that Technorati's sophisticated automated services would enable corporations to find out what is being said about them, their people, products, and to respond to bad news very quickly, by engaging bloggers in conversations.

Today the part of General Memetics will be played by Technorati.

Technorati in the news

John Jay Hooker, the lawyer who delivered the most memorable comment at BlogNashville, has appeared in the blogosphere.

"You can't call a son-of-a-bitch a son-of-a-bitch without calling him a son-of-a-bitch."

John Jay Hooker Blog

] Remember Howard Beal - the frustrated anchor from the
] movie Network? He's a hero to Bob Cox, who has become
] one of the country's best-known bloggers.

Rattle and I are visible in the video footage included with this article.

BlogNashville brings new breed of writer to Music City

] this is placeholder site only...the official site for
] registration will launch in early March...

A conference about blogging is going to be taking place in Nashville.

BlogNashville