A few months ago Sequoia Capital doused the ever ebullient Silicon Valley with a bucket of ice cold reality when it laid “good times” to rest. Today, one of Sequoia’s all time stars laid a big wreath on that grave in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Google. And while it didn’t implicitly state that it might face tough times next year, comments by its CEO amount to a proverbial bear call which could mean bad news now only for Google but also for rest of the media and advertising sector.

“We have to behave as though we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal. It seems like a prudent move. But I see it as a big red flag and I think Schmidt is preparing us for what could be a terrible 2009. The WSJ says that Google executives have been preparing for slower growth for a year but “the economic crisis is forcing them to step up their efforts.”

According to conventional wisdom (and investors) Google is the best positioned company to survive and perhaps thrive in the current advertising slump. If the leader of the pack is feigning ignorance about its chances, what can one say about mere mortals.

I find it hard to believe that a company that keeps world famous economist like Hal Varian (who muses on economy and Google’s prospects often on the investor calls), doesn’t know. As a company Google collects enough data on a daily basis that it can take a fair pulse of the broader economy. Remember, they could accurately track the spread of flu across America just based on searches, so why can’t the track the economic-sentiment? Additionally it sells ads to everyone from mom-and-pop shops to consumer durable giants and it has a fair idea on the degree of tightness people are holding their billfolds. They have enough intellectual horsepower on campus to put two-and-two together.

Beyond Schmidt’s statement, one has to look at their other moves such as plans to slash 10,000 or so of their contractors, slowing cap-ex investments and killing off projects. These point to tough times for the company that has lived a lush life so far.

Projects that are too pie-in-the-sky are going to be killed. Schmidt calls it the “dark matter.” Google Lively and Google SearchMash are two of the many projects, which will soon not matter. Google is contemplating killing of Google Notebook and Google Audio Indexing as well. Google Page Creator has given way to Google Sites. In that vein, Google is going to prune overlapping products. No more the 20-percent time for pet projects for engineers, though it might come back once the economic wheel churns. These are smart and prudent moves even if they are prompted by desperate need to control costs and meet their numbers.

I know it might sound hokey but rich don’t stop driving their Aston Martins just because the price of gas is going up. They do so when they are not as rich! The same analogy holds for Google and its cost cutting efforts. Just remember how much of PR they milked out of their 20-percent philosophy. They are essentially eating a cow-pie on that. They wouldn’t be doing this unless things are really really and REALLY tough.

Google needs to keep its sales machine going at a time when it is facing the same malaise as that of broader market – slowing spending on marketing and advertising. There is some argument that Google is going to win because of their performance-based advertising system.

While that is true to some extent but what happens when the economy goes into a deep freeze? If you don’t have money to splurge on a large screen Plasma TV, there is little chance you are going to search for that, and fewer the opportunities for Google to sell more ads against those searches. Of course, if there is no intent to buy amongst the searchers, then there is less inclination to click on those ads as well. And that is not good news for Google.

Google, of course is going to try and meet its targets by taking more out of the pocket of its “adsense” partners and undercutting competitors. WSJ points out that the company is focusing heavily on display, mobile and other ad-opportunities, which can only mean bad news for their rivals.

Related: Why Silicon Valley Should be Worried

TechRepublic: "For many new Linux users, removable media can be a deal-breaker. Anyone coming over from Windows knows you simply insert the CD, use it, and eject it. With Linux, it isn't always that simple. In fact, with Linux, removable media has always held a completely different philosophy."

Phil Windley, in The Conservative View on Guantanamo: “…a position consistent with basic conservative philosophy would argue for human rights and due process — not against it.”

It’s good that thoughtful conservatives like Phil are examining what went wrong with an administration that turned out to be conservative in label and loyalty, but not in principle. Looking forward to more of that.

Grand Valley State University (in Michigan)br / Department Art And Designbr / College Lib Arts/Sciencesbr / br / [b]Graphic Design - Assistant Professor (2 positions)[/b]br / br / Responsibilitiesbr / Teach three courses per semester in a NASAD accredited undergraduate program with approximately 350 majors, participate in portfolio reviews and student advising, provide leadership and vision in curricular development, participate in university and departmental committee work, and maintain an active research and professional practice.br / br / Required Qualificationsbr / * MFA in Graphic Design or related field by August 2009 required.br / * Professional experience and/or prior teaching experience preferred.br / * A combination of skills covering the following areas: typography, identity design, page layout, print production, and contemporary media (web design, motion graphics, interactive media, and video). Additional skills might also include letterpress, contemporary illustration, packaging, or exhibit design, and the ability to teach classes outside of the graphic design emphasis such as drawing, composition, etc.br / * Background in historical and contemporary design literacy.br / br / Salary Rangebr / Commensurate with Experiencebr / br / Application Deadline Infobr / Review will begin January 5, 2009 and continue until the position is filled.br / br / How To Applybr / Send (as hard copy or digital files): letter of application, CV, teaching philosophy, artist statement, documentation of creative research, sample syllabi, unofficial transcript, contact information for at least 3 references, and SASE. Send 20 examples of professional work and 20 examples of student work (if available) on a MacIntosh compatible CD or DVD in an easily viewed presentation format such as PowerPoint, pdf, Flash, html, mpeg, or jpeg.br / br / Send materials to:br / Virginia Jenkins, Chairbr / Department of Art Designbr / 1105 Calder Art Centerbr / 1 Campus Drivebr / Grand Valley State Universitybr / Allendale, MI 49401-9403.img src="http://rhizome.org/syndicate/nothing.gif?f=announce" border="0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rhizome-announce/~4/473153486" height="1" width="1"/

I am wondering how to make this at all interesting and tell you about myself at the same time.

Hi.

You might be please to know that I am not every girl ever. I don't read gossip magazines or websites (I have a hard time caring about Beckham's wife's new haircut or how many babies Angelina Jolie is accessorizing herself with nowdays). I avoid and/or ignore any source of drama that could potentially enter my life and am therefore labeled easygoing. I hate living in a routine, so I generally welcome spontaneity. I also haven't worn makeup since my early high school years.

Hmmm...

I sing in the shower. And while walking down the street. I read French poetry and I enjoy photography, even though my camera sucks. I always chew on the end of my pen. I give money to the SDFs and buskers who play in the metros, even though all my French friends lecture me on why I shouldn't. I highly enjoy drinking coffee out of bowls and nothing beats warm baguettes, mushroom soup, or Asian cuisine. My philosophy on life is that too much time is wasted worrying about making the "right" decisions. My life is about constantly jumping off cliffs. Finding someone who doesn't mind jumping with me might be a fun time.

Bottom line:

No expectations, just bored and ready to break out of routine. Let's hang out.



PS- come on now. 19-32 only. don't make me call my goons on you.

PSS- picture etiquette rules apply. i'll show mine if you'll show me yours! and i will probably show you ton because i am a photoholic. help me please.

PSSS- you should just go ahead a email me already.

and i am totally in this photo. the one with the uke. it's a dude magnet. don't you want me already?!

Last week, I dropped by the PlayStation.Blog to find out what you wanted to know about Ubisoft’s new release, Prince of Persia. And to my excitement, there were well over a hundred questions about the first Prince of Persia game on the PS3. I took the time to answer some of the most interesting questions regarding everything from combat to the game’s new art style. Thanks for your support, and don’t forget that Prince of Persia is available today!
Charliesdad asked: Wondering how you addressed the balance issues from earlier entries in the series. For example, Sands of Time was amazing, but going back to it recently the combat wore thin after a while (especially in the first big group fight) to be followed by long stretches of almost no combat. Does the new game fall on one side or the other or is there a middle ground that you all shot for and hit? And Demo tomorrow? Maybe?

• First, one of our main goals in combat was to make every fight grandiose and meaningful, to make every encounter feel more epic. Thus, we decided to make the new combat system a duel mode in which every enemy has special attributes, a unique personality, cool moves, and his strengths and weaknesses. Having one enemy to fight at one time gave us much more possibility to push this encounter to the limit. Every enemy is as strong as the Prince and will seize his chance to use the environment, his corrupted abilities to counter every mistake the player makes. Every enemy has a background and their own personal objectives that will help push the story forward. Also, there are multiple combat moves and these will take some time to figure them all out and access the most spectacular combos. Using your glove, Elika, your sword and acrobatics, players will be able to combine those to create some breathtaking moves. This new combat system is not meant to be button mashed, but instead requires timing, strategy and the right combo depending on the situation. Also, many quick real-time mini-games where the player has a little fraction of time to react will keep the tension high. The battle system uses some dramatic camera shots that make every fight feel even more epic. Battles will take place usually before saving a fertile ground and pushing away the Corruption. There are different challenges before healing a fertile ground, one might be an acrobatic challenge, a puzzle, a fight and a lot of them are mixes of them all.
  Sorry, there are no demo plans at this time.

KingBroly asked: What’s the framerate like on the PS3 version? I’ve heard this game employs the same engine as Assassin’s Creed, and the framerate on the PS3 version of that…not so good.

• Fluidity of control and animation quality are hallmarks of Prince Of Persia games. We would never ship a POP title unless we were confident the player could fully appreciate the movement of the Prince in acrobatics and combat and – simply put – framerate hiccups get in the way of that. They break the </p> We have some of the most talented PS3 engineers at Ubisoft working for us on POP (and Ubisoft has now made quite a few PS3 titles) and I can assure you the performance on the PS3 is the same as the 360 – a solid 30fps throughout the game.

narde15 asked: are their any trophies?

• POP does indeed ship with trophies from day one.

FeaturePreacher asked: Will the prince be able to use different weapons besides the sword that is seen in gameplay videos?
AND
Will the prince be able to level up his combat abilities? I hope the prince has a long list of combat combinations. Does he?

• We want the player to feel like the Prince is an adventurer with a lot of experience already – he is an acrobatic warrior who has already been through and seen a lot. As such it made sense to us that he start out this adventure with all his abilities unlocked. Elika, on the other hand, evolves in her abilities as the game progresses, unlocking new magical abilities. What is important to us is that the player still feels a sense of progression and development because the « duo » of the Prince and Elika are certainly evolving as you play.
  Finally, simply because the Prince has access to all of his abilities from the beginning of the game, doesn’t mean the players will know how to use them all. If it is your first time playing POP, don’t expect to be able to pull off the 14 hit combos and complete long uninterrupted strings of acrobatics without pausing - you’ll evolve towards that in time as you get more comfortable with the game systems.

SantanaClaus89 asked: Ever since The Sands of Time this series has been in a downward spiral. What if anything has been done to take the series ”back to its roots” so to speak?

• In POP Sands of Time trilogy, the innovation was the Sands of Time. We felt the need to find a new innovation for this new chapter:
  • Open-ended structure
  • New combat system
  • New artistic direction
  • Role of the secondary character, Elika
  But you can also rest assured we’ve also kept the core fundamentals of what made the Sands of Time trilogy great.
  • The balanced mix of acrobatics and combat
  • Excellent visuals
  • Highly detailed character and story
  • Highly responsive controls
  • 1001 night’s universe / fantasy elements
  As you read this some reviews will have already hit online (IGN scored PoP 9.3, for example). One of the best compliments that any reviewer has given us so far is that we’ve recaptured the magic and mystery that made the original Sands Of Time so great.

narde15 asked: are you working on a prince of persia, playstation home space? will you consider one in the future?

• We are not currently working on a Prince of Persia home space but we might consider it for future games.

DeforMAKulizer asked: What made you guys ditch the realistic style followed in AC and trying out for the new water color style? And which game was hard to code for… AC with its realistic graphics? Or maintaining the water color feel in PoP?
Thanks! Can’t wait to go back to the PoP series =D

• We wanted to embrace the fantasy nature that defines every Prince of Persia game. The ‘Photorealistic’ artistic direction that is seen in so many games right now did not fit in well with the magical world we were exploring with this game. We wanted to try something new and the ”Illustrative” art style really represents our vision in this game – to make it feel like a storybook.

chaosatom333 asked: I am disappointed that U guys didn’t include any time-shifting powers.
They were awesome. Why did u guys do that?

• That mechanic started to feel old to us – it had been copied in many other games and had lost some of its uniqueness. Elika is our new sands of time and I think she more than makes up for their absence.

chaosatom333 asked: How long in production have u guys been?

• Three years, start to finish.

chaosatom333 asked: How long is the game relatively speaking? like 12-16 or less. Something like that. How much platforming is there? The more the better imo.
Fights are nice too.

• An average player will probably take around 12-15 hours to finish the game if they do the bare minimum needed to complete it. If you take the time to learn all of the backstory of the characters (through our ODD system) and collect all of the lightseeds (to get all of the trophies) I think you can certainly expect more in the range of 18-20 hours.
  In terms of the breakdown between acrobatics and combat, it is hard to say for sure due to the open structure of our world. Certainly, though, there is the potential for you to spend a lot more of your time doing acrobatics then combat.

narde15 asked: how big is the world of prince of persia? will their be side quests?

• It’s quite big. It will take you some time to travel from one end to another. Also, It depends of the path you take to make your way around. Additionally our world features a lot of vertical gameplay, taking you up to some dizzying heights to survey the world down below you as you progress through your quest. The size and height of our world certainly gives it a massive sense of scope.

Munkeh111 asked: What percentage of the game is combat? I am hoping for a high percentage of platforming!

• It’s hard to say for the exact percentage but you will spend more time platforming than fighting that’s for sure. Collecting all the light seeds will definitely make you spend hours exploring the world, platforming and using your head to figure out how to get to that light seed! There are many combats as well.

lifeRPGs asked: What are Ubisoft’s plans for the after-PoP?

• I’d be drawn and quartered if I gave away those secrets. Just a few days ago I saw an advanced prototype of an incredibly top-secret game and was floored with how cool it looked and felt. While I watched it being demoed I was furiously taking notes for ideas to draw inspiration from on my next game.

CrimsonFox13 asked: Beautiful art style. I’ve never played a Prince Of Persia game before, although I’ve always been interested. The beauty of this game captivated me. The game reminds me of Team ICO games. There’s a beautiful landscape with platforming involved, like the Team ICO games, and you’re traveling with a woman, just like in ICO. Did you draw any inspiration from either or both of the Team ICO games?

• Team ICO is definitely an inspiration for us and both Shadow Of The Colossus as well as ICO were games we played extensively during the development of POP. Team ICO consistently proves that videogames can be so much more then ”just” a form of entertainment – they can enlighten, teach, and make us feel. I welcome any and all comparisons to the incredible development talent of that studio.
  It was very important to us, though, that our game be incredible accessible and action packed, too. We were not creating a game just for those players who like ”art” in their games. We have spectacular acrobatics, incredible combat and a rich story. In many ways we consider games like Burnout influential as well in their immediate accessibility – you pick up the controller, press a few buttons, and right away spectacularly rewarding things occur. This was very important to us in the development of POP.

farmer_steve asked: For somebody who has never played a Prince of Persia game, how would you explain the experience? And what do you think is the main draw to it?

• The first Prince of Persia game was created in the late 80s by Jordan Mechner and has become one of gaming’s most well-known franchises. Prince of Persia is a game with a balanced mix of acrobatics, combat and puzzle solving set in a fantastic Persian world where you control The Prince, the most agile warrior of all time as he Runs, Jumps, Flips and Fights his way towards saving the world. All the games are inspired by the 1001 night’s universe and feature an epic storyline with strong character development.

luckettx asked: How many language tracks have been recorded for the Blu Ray release of this game in Europe?

• English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. There are other localized versions (one Dutch, another Polish, another Russian) but the main version will have those five languages on it.

Yuriki93 asked: Does this game have anything story-related to the previous games?

• No, nothing that will affect the main narrative. We put in a few tongue and cheek references (hint: pay attention to the ODD system) but just as a ‘nod and a wink’ to the hardcore fans. We are telling a new story within the ”Book” of Prince of Persia.

SomethingClever asked: From where did you draw inspiration from (games or other) in this iteration of PoP Some of the big reactions to date have been about the voice of the Prince. What led your team to choose such an American sounding voice actor, and was there any concern over people associating that voice to Nathan Drake?

• The choice of Nolan North (Nathan Drake) as the voice of the Prince is entirely intentional. When we were designing the character of The Prince and trying to identify his personality, the two characters we returned to most often were Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Both, of course, played by Harrison Ford. Nolan North showed in his characterization of Nathan Drake an uncanny resemblance to Indiana Jones both in terms of tone and delivery. We thought it particularly appropriate given the heavy influence of these characters in the writing of The Prince that the voice actor we use be one who manages to capture the essence of the influencing characters deeply.

zombiefriend asked: oh also i just remembered is PoP going to have subtitles? i rly hope so b/c i have hearing loss and i wasnt able to fully appreciate ACs story like i wanted to

• Prince Of Persia, like all Ubisoft games now, is subtitled in all languages.

PlasmaGlory asked: I know that your philosophy with Elika was to make someone that would never hold you back, so what’s to stop someone from just hiding in a corner and mashing the ”Elika Button”?

• It wouldn’t help much to just tap the Elika button in a corner. The game requires you to use all of the Prince’s abilities combined with Elika in order to be effective. Whenever you need Elika’s Help, she is there to do so, but only if you are doing something as well (ie: fighting, in the middle of a jump, etc).
  Standing in a corner and mashing the Elika button will just summons a compass power over and over again – not much help in defeating the guardians of Ahriman.

jazzyrider asked: what additional items are packaged with the limited edition versus the normal package?

• Collectible Limited Edition packaging
• An exclusive look at the making of Prince of Persia
• A Prima digital mini-strategy guide full of developer’s secrets
• A digital art book
• The original soundtrack scored by master composer Inon Zur

sainraja asked: I am looking forward to this but how similar is this to Sands of Time?
Sands of Time was magical! I loved every minute of it. I thought the story was put together very well. It was the Uncharted of last generation! I can’t to try this out but I am hoping it will give me the same feeling that Sands of Time did.

• We consider POP to be the spiritual successor of Sands Of Time. We invested a lot of time and energy into trying to ensure that the sense of magic, wonder and mystery that was so special and unique in SOT was reproduced in this new POP adventure while still bringing some strong visual and gameplay innovations to the series.
  In terms of your passion for Uncharted, let me simply say I share your enthusiasm. Uncharted for me was an incredible game because it was so much more than the sum of its parts. I have a hard time putting my finger on the one feature of Uncharted that stood out as my favorite while I was playing, but as soon as I finished I wanted to start over from the beginning and play through again. It is easily one of my favorite PS3 games to date.

Dark_Vincent asked: Will there be different difficulty levels?

• The game has just one difficulty level, but the challenge certainly progresses as you play and (hopefully) get more comfortable with the mechanics. New traps are released, more corruption infects the world, and the enemies unlock new abilities and combos.

TripOpt55 asked: Hey, I can’t wait for this game. Here’s my questions: Does the game autosave (or how does it save)? Can you create multiple save files?

• POP features a ‘save anywhere’ system. No matter what you are doing, you can create a save (new save or overwrite – there is space for 10 save game slots). We don’t save the exact location, though (ie: if you are in the middle of the air and save, when you load you won’t fall to your death) but rather the last stable platform you were on. Don’t worry, though, these are never very far apart.

Zankantou asked: What motivated your team to take the franchise into a radically new direction artistically?
How did you guys come to the conclusion that this new installment should be not, or loosely, related to the previous trilogy in the last generation of consoles?
Is your team considering using this new artistic engine for future games as well?

• In terms of the art direction, we wanted to do something new, something unique. Most of our favorite games – the ones that stand out in our minds years after playing them – had unique visual styles that did not try to emulate reality. Additionally, as I said above, we felt a more fantastic artistic direction would mesh well with our fantasy universe and story. Finally, we wanted to take the incredible concept art and illustrations that our teams created as reference material and do them justice by creating the tools and technology needed to make our game look like the illustrations – a highly detailed painting brought to life.
  In terms of why we left behind the old trilogy, we felt the story of the Sands Of Time had been told and it was time to move on. We had never planned to continue to tell the story of the Sands of Time Prince forever, and the universe of Prince of Persia has so much potential for other themes to explore. By creating a new Prince, on a new adventure, we’ve added a wealth of material to the Prince of Persia universe to potentially explore in future games.
  
  Finally, I believe very strongly in the artistic choices we took for POP and sincerely hope that this Illustrative style is used again at Ubisoft moving forward. Of course I don’t have any specific details, but I think it safe to say that the response has been positive enough that we’ll likely be returning to this stylistic choice in the future.

More...

Modern newsrooms have to engage in a never-ending conversation with their community. This may sound self-evident, but it can be a tough sell in a newsroom working under high pressure. So how do you get reporters to buy into the proposition that they need to listen to their audience? They need to see for themselves the enthusiasm that the community has for talking back to its reporters.

The people formerly known as the readers have now become readers/writers. In the "good old days" of the print newspaper, we only got a few letters each day. Today, we get hundreds and sometimes thousands of comments on our news articles each day. With the click of a button, readers can easily and instantly post reactions to articles. Furthermore, the readers don't only react to our articles -- they react far more often to each others' comments. The article may start a discussion, but it does not necessarily remain the center of attention.

This interaction gives us more than additional eyeballs; it teaches us new aspects of storytelling. For instance, a news website is sometimes more about telling a story in a way to bring the community together rather than about providing "hard news."

Three recent stories published in Belgian business newspaper De Tijd provide good examples of how a newspaper can adapt to its new role as a community center.

The Story of a New American President

The election day in the U.S. was an election night for the people in Belgium. Of course, our newspaper covered the elections intensely, but we were at a loss for what to do during the night. People who were so interested in the election that they would stay up all night would surely watch for the results on CBS or CNN, so what would be the point of De Tijid scrambling to post breaking coverage on its site? Would it not be better to focus on "the day after" and deliver more value by writing detailed analysis about the results?

We thought it over and realized there was something valuable in covering the election as it happened, but it was something beyond scoops and analysis: We could gather the community and facilitate a conversation. Compare it with a soccer game: One can watch it at home, alone, or experience the magic of being all together with fellow fans in the stadium.

That night, we launched our CoverItLive live-blog application and I commented on the election night with our colleague in New York City. Several other colleagues also made guest appearances that night. Most striking of all, several thousand community members also visited our live-blog/chatroom that night to post comments -- even as they were, indeed, watching the election results on CNN and CBS.

Even though they were technically getting their news from another source, that did not matter. They wanted more than to just hear the news; they wanted to discuss what had happened, share in the joy (of many) and the disappointment (of a few), and hear what other ordinary people had to say about it. We found that as live-blog hosts we didn't have to comment all the time, as chatty community members filled the "dead air." Besides, as soon as you get hundreds or thousands of participants, moderating what others say is sometimes enough to keep you busy.

A Judge Decides

Like so many nations, Belgium has been suffering the consequences of the global financial crisis. The biggest bank of the country, Fortis, had to be urgently sold to the French bank BNP Paribas. Fortis shareholders went into shock as the value of their stocks plummeted and they immediately began to question the government's response in organizing the transaction.

Inevitably, people went to court.

On the week in question, a judge would deliver a very important ruling on the Fortis sale. The event was structured simply enough: The judge would begin by explaining his reasoning, often meandering in one direction and then another, before finally announcing his final decision. In this type of proceeding, it is impossible to know whether the judge's monologue will go on for one hour or four.

We had doubts about whether or not to live-blog the event. Why not just wait for the news of the verdict -- the only hard, fundamental fact that mattered -- instead of having live coverage of the long speech?

Once again, we reasoned that there was a community out there -- tens of thousands of people in the financial sector and, of course, many Fortis shareholders and clients. There are a lot of emotions involved in this case; it is the biggest issue in our De Tijd community. We just felt we had to be there, with our community, being their ears and eyes (other events taught us that even streaming video of an event does not change this).

So some colleagues did the live-blogging (Dutch language), while others moderated the community dialogue (community members could react in real time in the chatbox). There was a lot of moderating to do in this conversation -- more than 10,000 people attended the session! And they had hundreds or thousands of thoughts and questions to share.

At least as impressive were the reactions after the event. We got numerous responses by chat and email, thanking us by chat or email for the live coverage. It was evident this was not only about reporting the verdict. Although the news value of the judge's speech may not have been particularly high, it was evident that this was what the public needed to hear. And, even more, they needed it as an opportunity to be heard.

Who Was First?

On one recent weekend, another newspaper ran a story about a huge bridge loan authorized by the Belgian state for Fortis. The newspaper said the loan had been authorized very discreetly. Our website did not run that story, because the very discreet loan was, in fact, not very discreet at all: De Tijd had broken that same story three weeks earlier.

We decided not to run the "new" story for reasons that should be familiar by now: There was no new hard news. In fact, we considered this a non-event. However, our community was shocked. They heard about the news in the other newspaper and yet saw no mention of it on our site, which is often thought of as the leading source of information on the Fortis case.

People started posting the article in the comments section of the site, complaining that De Tijd was "giving up" the Fortis coverage. Some suggested the journalists "gave up" after pressure from high places.

Suddenly, our newspaper found out that it had limited control about what was published on the site: Even if the editorial staff did not run a story, people would do it themselves by posting it in the comments and, more so, add their own conclusions. Suddenly a non-event had become a news story after all.

The editor in chief reacted (Dutch language) immediately. He told our community that his journalists had no intention of abandoning coverage -- quite the contrary. He explained that the story about the bridge loan was actually an old story, and linked to the story we had published three weeks earlier.

The Monday after we learned that his reaction was by far the most read story of the weekend. There was a lot of "real hard news" on the site, but for our community the discussion about the Fortis coverage was far more important, even though nothing new had happened there.

Unanswered Questions

After these incidents, many colleagues now seem to accept that engaging in conversations with the community is an important part of our role as a newspaper. The community appreciates it enormously, and it is also the sensible thing to do in terms of encouraging visitors to spend more time on the website.

Of course, this current financial crisis limits the amount of time that reporters can spend fostering a sense of community as those working in the newsroom have other jobs to do. So how can we still make sure that we don't ignore community development during these troubled times? Some possibilities we are working on include:

> Considering inviting community members to be moderators or else outsource moderation duties.

> Explaining the rules and guidelines for comments clearly and in a positive way.

> Using well-known symbols to make moderation clearer: We give serious offenders a "yellow card," which means their reactions are no longer published in real time but need prior approval. In extreme cases we give a "red card," banning them. We do not use these cards for someone who only went off-topic, but for people insulting other participants, for instance, or using repeatedly unacceptable language.

> Buying or developing a system wherein community members can rate comments and filter out those with low marks.

Whatever system we go for, it remains crucial that journalists running a story know how the community responds. Reporters should realize that while not every reader of a business newspaper is a CEO or a PhD in Economics, they can still learn a lot from their community just by engaging them in online conversations.

Roland Legrand is in charge of Internet and new media at Mediafin, the publisher of leading Belgian business newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo. He studied applied economics and philosophy. After a brief teaching experience, he became a financial journalist working for the Belgian wire service Belga and subsequently for Mediafin. He works in Brussels, and lives in Antwerp with his wife Liesbeth.

Illustration of social media by Omar Lee for MediaShift.

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pimg src="http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/google-gears.png" width="150" height="58"/We recently had the opportunity to meet with two senior executives at Google. At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, ReadWriteWeb editor Richard MacManus and I met with Dave Girouard, President of Google Enterprise. Then a few weeks later, I met with Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering, via video conference. Both meetings provided some interesting background - but the one question that keeps returning and that was not so well answered is: why is Google not deploying Gears aggressively?/p p align="right"emSponsor/embr /a href='http://d.openx.org/ck.php?n=12733amp;cb=12733' target='_blank'img src='http://d.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=861amp;cb=12733amp;n=12733' border='0' alt='' align="right" //a/p h2What Is Gears?/h2 pAs explained on a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gears/gears_faq.html#whatIsGears"Google's FAQ/a:/p p"Gears is an open-source browser extension that lets developers create web applications that can run offline. Gears provides three key features:/p ulliA local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server;/li liA database, to store and access data from within the browser;/li liA worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background."/li/ul pThat is important. The biggest single hurdle to mass adoption of web-based office software is the inability to use it when online access is not possible (in airplanes and other fun places off the grid). Offline access is also reassuring for those times when the cloud platform is having trouble: at least you can work offline for a while. This is not a small feature. It is the big one./p pWe get the usual beta warnings from Google:/p p"Gears is currently a beta product; moreover, it is currently considered to be a developer-only release. When the developer community has had a chance to examine, critique, and improve Gears, a final version suitable for use with production applications will be made available."/p pBut we learn to ignore these beta designations from Google. Gmail still says beta./p pBut in this case, Google really is being shy about fully bringing Gears to its own product line-up./p h2Zoho Is Using Gears. Why Not Google Apps?/h2 pZoho started using a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/zoho_writer_adds_offline_support.php"Gears in Writer/a as early as August 2007, nearly 18 months ago. In October 2008, a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/zoho_mail_gets_offline_support.php"Zoho Mail went offline with Gears/a./p pOn March 31st, 2008, a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_docs_offline_support.php"Google announced Gears for Docs/a. This was a step forward, albeit 8 months after its competition (Zoho) did it./p pSo, the big question is, "When will Gmail enable offline use via Gears?" I posed this question to Dave Grirouard, President of Google Enterprise. The response was along the lines of, making it work on the scale of Gmail is not a trivial engineering challenge. That sort of made sense. But Gears has been out for a long time; it is a critical feature, and Google has the best software engineering talent on the planet./p h2Ahem, What About Chrome?/h2 pAgain, from Google's FAQ:/p p"Gears works on the following browsers:/p ulliApple Mac OS X (10.4 or higher) ulliFirefox 1.5 or higher/li liSafari 3.1.1 or higher (requires OS X Tiger 10.4.11+ or Leopard 10.5.3+)/li/ul/li liLinux (Requirements) ulliFirefox 1.5 or higher/li/ul/li liMicrosoft Windows (XP or higher) ulliFirefox 1.5 or higher/li liInternet Explorer 6 or higher/li/ul/li liMicrosoft Windows Mobile (5 or higher) ulliInternet Explorer 4.01 or higher/li liThe following devices are not supported ulliSamsung i320 and i320N/li liOrange SPV C600/li liMotorola Q/li/ul/li/ul/li/ul p Additionally, the team is working on supporting Safari on Mac OS X in a future release."/p pNotice the elephant not in the room? Yes, Gears does not work on Chrome. Is that because Chrome does not support extensions?/p pIs Google holding up Gears until Chrome can support Gears? We hope not. That seems contrary to its philosophy to date, which has been to couple them very loosely. So that is probably just coincidence./p h2"Gears for Mobile Is the Holy Grail"/h2 pWe had a fascinating talk with Vic Gundotra (VP of Engineering) and Sumit Agarwal (Mobile Product Management). They laid out a mobile strategy that clearly shows that Google is thinking bigger and deeper than anyone else about the future of this huge market. They were also frank about the scale of the engineering challenge. Looking globally, there is no dominant mobile device. In fact, it is an extremely fragmented market. That is a problem when each user expects a native interface./p pVic Gundotra described how about a year ago Google bet that the mobile browser would be the unifying force. Specifically, the strategy was to standardize on a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit"Webkit-based browsers/a. That makes sense but still leaves out the all-important offline access question. So, I posed the "What about Gears?" question. I was told that Gears in a mobile browser was, of course, the "holy grail."/p h2The Answer Given Is Probably Correct/h2 pGoogle is confirming that Gears is critically important to both its web apps and its mobile strategy, and that the delay is simply because deploying Gears on the scale that Google operates is a tough engineering challenge. That seems like the best explanation. But we would love to hear from our readers. Have you used Zoho Mail with Gears, and did it work well? Is it simply a scale issue that is delaying Google's more aggressive deployment of Gears?/p stronga href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/why_is_google_not_deploying_gears_aggressively.php#comments-open"Discuss/a/strong pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/55KwOMFlRoDepw3qCJYrLD0Pkxo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/55KwOMFlRoDepw3qCJYrLD0Pkxo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=RMOxVCWj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1035" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=rMxZKv3J"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=KTMCp6CG"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=KTMCp6CG" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=rY4Ugtsh"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=rY4Ugtsh" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=0U16bMpz"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?i=0U16bMpz" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=mFg8C4O0"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?a=LLzlbJdk"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/readwriteweb?d=1034" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~4/o-X0CKCRJoA" height="1" width="1"/

I’m a signer of a letter on a new site called “An Open Transition,” where a group of folks led by Larry Lessig:

• celebrates the incoming administration’s decision to put a Creative Commons license on its Change.Gov transition website, thereby allowing anyone to share, remix and otherwise reuse and copy the material there;
• and asks that this philosophy be extended widely in the new administration, and around the government in general.

Politico has a short story on this here.

Muhammad Yunus works to a simple philosophy. He looks at the way in which conventional banks work and then does the opposite: “They go to the rich, I go to the poor. They go to men, I go to women. They go to the urban areas, I go to the rural ones. They look for collateral, I look for collateral-free.”

pThe main purpose of this communication is to orient you to free software and its philosophy, without going into the technical and economic reasons./p

br /What it doesbr /br /The tagline of this web-based resource is “Access without boundaries”, and the company makes this philosophy come true by giving you access to the files you have scattered everywhere via a single desktop. br brEssentially, Gladinet is a solution that centralizes not only the files you have all over the web but also all over different computers, as it provides remote access to multiple personal computers from any one of them. It is also possible to share files and folders with any person you wish, and this system is implemented without additional software installs of any kind. br brOn the other hand, the company provides you with web applications that make for desktop integration and further flexibility wherever you are. There is also a password manager to ensure that you can access your files securely. br brWhen all is said and done, this is a very suitable option for those that are forced to use several machines due to the pace of their work and look into a way of centralizing proceedings in a hassle-free manner. brbr /br /In their own wordsbr /br /“Access without boundaries.”br /br /Why it might be a killerbr /br /Those who have to use more than one computer on a regular basis will find the flexibility this virtual desktop provides an interesting proposition.br /br /Some questionsbr /br /How does the system work from a technical viewpoint?br /br /Link: a href='http://www.gladinet.com'http://www.gladinet.com/abr /Our Review: a href='http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/gladinet-com-access-your-files-from-anywhere'http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/gladinet-com-access-your-files-from-anywhere/abr /br / nbsp;div class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=c2RJVaCN"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=OSNQVbyQ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=pyE2tzb5"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=pyE2tzb5" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=q0QF3Smd"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=q0QF3Smd" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=Kq7tDMKC"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?d=43" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?a=NuLMnGnX"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/killerstartups/BkQV?i=NuLMnGnX" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/killerstartups/BkQV/~4/MXNkw0iQCYA" height="1" width="1"/

img class=face src=http://planet.ubuntu.com/heads/sridhar.png alt= pJust for a second, put yourself in the shoes of an average PC user. You use the software that came with your computer, plus perhaps some others that you downloaded, bought in a box or #8216;borrowed#8217; from a friend. You#8217;ve heard some good things about something called #8220;open source#8221;, but you haven#8217;t the foggiest clue of where to get it or what applications to try. You aren#8217;t a technical person, have limited time and even less patience. Ultimately, you#8217;re looking for something that #8216;just works#8217; and is either free (of cost) or clearly better than what you#8217;re using now. Why make the effort otherwise? Honestly, you#8217;d rather be down at the pub watching the cricket with yournbsp;mates./p pHow would free software advocates best woo such a person into their camp? They aren#8217;t going to immediately repartition their hard drive and use GNU/Linux exclusively. They would more likely be willing to try some free software on their existing OS, provided that the barrier was sufficiently low. If you#8217;re lucky, that toe-dip will lead to deeper immersion in the world of FOSS, and hopefully also into some appreciation of the philosophy beyond thenbsp;practical./p pIf this person has a knowledgeable friend or pays attention to certain information sources, they might get some ideas on what software to use. Applications like Firefox and OpenOffice.org are fairly popular choices these days, but what about less publicised treasures like the GIMP or ClamWin? Sure, there are a title=Introduction to Linux, Free Software and Open Source href=http://www.linux.org.au/linux#FindAppsWeb sites/a that let you search for FOSS equivalents to proprietary applications, but these still require somenbsp;effort:/p ol liSearch for the application younbsp;want./li liGo to the Web site for thatnbsp;application./li liFind the download page and pull itnbsp;down./li liRun thenbsp;installer./li liTo uninstall, use Windows#8217; emAdd/Removenbsp;Programs/em./li /ol pThese steps need to be performed for emeach/em application you wish to install, so can become tiresome verynbsp;quickly./p pHow could we simplify this process? What I propose is a software management application. Let#8217;s for the sake of brevity call it emFOSS Pack/em, named after the closest analogue I can think of, a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_PackGoogle Pack/a. The process is intended to be as simple as possible for the endnbsp;user:/p ol liThe user downloads a single application (emFOSS Pack/em) and installsnbsp;it./li liWhen they launch FOSS Pack, they can select from a menu of categorised FOSS applications to install, similar to how a GUI package manager front-end works onnbsp;(GNU/)Linux./li liThe user selects the applications they want, and then they are downloaded and installed innbsp;batch./li liUninstallation should be as simple as installation, all within FOSSnbsp;Pack./li /ol pHere#8217;s the killer feature: FOSS Pack should be able to scan the user#8217;s system for proprietary applications. These are identified based on an internal list, which also contains information on FOSS alternatives to those applications. Those alternatives are presented for easy download andnbsp;install./p pFOSS Pack contains descriptions of each application, so the user doesn#8217;t have to visit another Web site to understand what they do (although a hyperlink should be provided as well). The option should exist to be able to select only from applications that have Linux versions, as a means of facilitating an OS transition. FOSS pack should also be able to automatically check for updates at regular intervals, and offer to install them whennbsp;available./p pI#8217;m not expecting any of this to be as clean as a real package management system. FOSS Pack will likely have to execute the external installers. Perhaps in the future the applications authors could co-operate with FOSS Pack maintainers to deliver a more seamlessnbsp;experience./p pIt looks to me that a lot of the pieces to create FOSS Pack are already there, and as is often the case in the FOSS world all that#8217;s required is to tie them together in an appropriatenbsp;way./p pstrongLotD:/strong a title=K12 Open Technologies href=http://www.k12opentech.org/solveig-haugland/2008/05/16/30-things-are-same-microsoft-word-and-openofficeorg-writer30 Things That Are the Same In Microsoft Word and in OpenOffice.orgnbsp;Writer/a/p br /pcopy;2008 a href=http://www.dhanapalan.com/blogSridhar Dhanapalan/a.br / This work is licensed under a a rel=license href=http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/au/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Australia Licence/a.br / a rel=license href=http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/au/img src=http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/2.5/au/88x31.png alt=Creative Commons BY-SA Licence //a /p.

Next summer, you and all your so-called friends from Facebook and MySpace will be able to finally meet in a giant arena, where you ill be able to play dating games, compete against each other in Guitar Hero or Lacrosse, listen to live bands, or check out the modeling contest. The event will be called ArenaFest, and will eventually be held at 50 major sports arenas around the country. Next summer, it will start with 10 arenas in places like Dallas, Detroit, Cleveland, Phoenix, and Anaheim.

ArenaFest will have several draws, including live sports, live music, and live contests. John Ossenmacher, CEO of ArenaWorks Entertainment, which operates ArenaFest, calls it ” our version of live social networking.” People who go will be able to interact with their friends on Facebook and MySpace. And their friends on those social networks will be able to interact with what’s going on inside the arena.

The sport at the event will be lacrosse, which is one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S. “We are basically building a brand new sports league targeted at this 16-to-24 year old demographic,” says Ossenmacher. But that’s not all.

Live bands, both signed and unsigned acts, will play onstage. For the unsigned bands, ArenaWorks is partnering with SellaBand, the site where music fans can fund unsigned bands. Since its launch in 2006, SellaBand has raised $3 million for musicians to record nearly 30 albums. Now bands on the site will have a chance to tour as well. They will be able to sign up to apply for the ArenaFest slots. If they gather 200 fans, $10,000 towards an album, or the most weekly votes, they get to proceed to Round 2 and play a local venue. The best of those will then be screened by a professional jury, which will determine who will play at ArenaFest.

At ArenaFest, the audience will be encouraged to participate themselves through a variety of contest stations, including a Lacrosse Challenge, Guitar Hero, Next Top Model (to lure the ladies), Dodgeball, and Break Dancing (yes, break dancing). There will also be some sort of dating game.

All of this will cost just $27.50 per ticket, and the whole thing will be repeated weekly throughout the summer at the same venues to encourage the high school and college crowd to keep coming back. “We are changing the whole philosophy of how the arena system works,” says Ossenmacher. Fill up the cheap seats in between games.

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