Christian Science Monitor on blogging and the Apple thing. Do we have First Amendment Rights?

Ultimately, the issue comes down to whether bloggers act like traditional journalists, says University of Iowa law professor and First Amendment specialist Randall Bezanson. Simply expressing opinions to a tiny audience doesn’t count, he says. If so, “then I’m a journalist when I write a letter to my mother reporting on what I’m doing. I don’t think the [constitutional] free-press clause was intended to extend its protections to letters to mothers from sons.”

Probably not. But what if Mom fact-checks and posts the letter on her blog for thousands of people to read? Is she a journalist then? Courts may make the final call.

Christian Science Monitor, Feb 2, 2005

FT futureizes on search and its application in managing our daily lives…

In the future… finding information would not involve going to a separate place – a search engine – to ask a question. Instead, the answer would present itself wherever you happened to be, and in the most appropriate form. “Search will become more and more important and less and less visible,” says [Craig] Silverstein at Google. “It will be ubiquitous and invisible.” At that stage, depending on your point of view, Google and its rivals would either be one of the most powerful forces shaping everyday life or just another invisible cog in the great Information Age machine that is being created out of the internet.

You know you’ve arrived when… You’ve got a Wikipedia entry… And the Long Tail has definitely arrived as a concept. Here’s the definition from Chris’ About page:

“The Long Tail is the yellow part of the sales chart at left, which shows a standard demand curve that could apply to any industry, from entertainment to services. The vertical axis is sales, the horizontal is products. The red part of the curve is the “hits”, which have dominated our commercial decisions to date. The yellow part is the non-hits, or niches, which I argue in the article will prove equally important in the future now that technology has provided efficient ways to give consumers access to them.

The two big points of the Long Tail theory are these: 1) The yellow part potentially extends forever to the right; 2) The area under that line–the market it represents–may become as big as the hits at the left.”

Shhhhh… Don’t tell anyone… Apple Computer is lowering the price of its iPod only in Korea according to Seoul’s JoongAng Daily… Which kind of supports my thesis that we’ve yet to really see the impact of innovation in the MP3 player space. Apple has established incredible first mover advantage and built an even more incredible ecosystem. But will that hold off Asian and US innovators? It’s not till you start looking at the new generation of players that the iTunes paradox becomes apparent – on the one hand you get mountains of choice and on the other, less choice of players.

According to the Opinion Journal:

Local representatives even asked the media to “keep quiet” about the price cuts, saying that headquarters feared opposition from other Asian countries.

So remember, if you’re in the media, don’t tell anyone about this!

Speaking of PR… here’s a terrific little essay on Bullshit.

Tech Policy Blog launches… care of the 463.

Marketplace on PR Goes Blogging…

Blogs aren’t just for individuals anymore. The web log, or blog, is being seen by many in the corporate world as a good internet marketing tool. Public relations experts, CEOs and customers are starting to realize the benefits of web diaries.