Blogs I Read

My former boss Jason was asking for some blog feed recommendations for his new project, and I was going to tweet them to him, but decided I would give the blogs I like an extra link, since I haven't updated my blogroll in years.

• ...My heart's in Accra - Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Center of Harvard on globalization and the Web


• Jewschool - current issues in the Jewish community and social justice


• Pepys Diary - current issues in 17th century London


• Regret the Error - the best in newspaper corrections


• Geeking with Greg - posts on academic research into online searching


• Compete on Usability - my friend Josh's blog (I feel so 2002, posting it here).
  

Boston.com Snow Plow Game

I'm sorry for putting something so addictive here, but I need to try out the widget.

Ping (pong) dynasty

Well, I'm checking out our new "Share This" functionality on Boston.com, and liked this article by Bob Ryan: Ping (pong) dynasty. I read somewhere else that the reason China excels in Table Tennis is nothing cultural - it's just that while the Communists were retreating from international sports organizations in the 50's, the international federation was run by a French communist who welcomed "Mainland China" with open arms.

Grumpy about Ts and Cs

I decided, for once, to read the terms and conditions before I signed up for some sort of locational blogging site. And I was struck by the site's attempt to put a friendly face on the typical harsh terms imposed by lawyers. So a key section starts "What’s yours is yours. You own your User Content, not us." Wow, they really respect the IP in my blogging. But then...

You grant the Company and its affiliates a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and publicly display your User Content (in whole or in part) and/or to incorporate such your User Content in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.

So I own the content, but they can do anything they want with it, even in forms that haven't been invented yet. About the only concession that they grant to my ownership rights is that the license is non-exclusive. It says later that you can delete your profiles and that removes your content from the site, but they could still use it anywhere else, perpetually.

Oh well, enough ranting for now. I have to try it out.

Finding a bad lawyer

Good news on the work front: after weeks of waiting on this and waiting on that, my team finally got an updated version of Boston.com search out the door and into the wild today. It fixes dozens of little things that were bugging me. My favorite feature: we make it a lot easier now to set your default location for business searches. And we know about local locations that Google doesn't do well, like the North End. And we can help you find bad legal advice in Our Fair City from Dewey Cheetham and Howe.
[where: Harvard Square, Cambridge]

Romanesko - "News and information is the new rock 'n roll," says Abrams

It's not often that the subject line of an email makes you smile the way that one did for me. It's about the new "Innovation Officer" for the Tribune company. (Good innovation, like rock 'n roll, is rarely created by top-level executive hires).

Not that I'm related to Lee Abrams. Or Gen. Creighton Abrams (of the Abrams tank). Or weatherman Elliott Abrams. Or to Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams, lately of the National Security Council (although he did once send me an email he thought was going to his sister).