Have a great weekend…

“The best part is that it bounced right back out of bounds, so he gets to do it again after the other kid stops crying.”

(If you can’t see the video click here to view it)

• Technorati: State of the Blogosphere 2008 - There have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere, yielding widely disparate estimates of both the number of blogs and blog readership. All studies agree, however, that blogs are a global phenomenon that has hit the mainstream.
• Web 2.0 Asia : Do they sell Mercedes-Benz cars on TV elsewhere? - A Korean dealer of Mercedes-Benz cars saw dozens of customer sign-ups (what they call "pre-contracts") after they aired an infomercial on the $170K Benz S550's on Korea's home shopping TV channel.
• The noise in Web 2.0 is mainly a Tech Elite’s problem - If anything the current web 2.0 trend is fragmentation. There are thousands of social networking sites out there, each fighting a battle to get users. There are a whole lot of services that let you interact, publish, follow or be followed. There are aggregating sites that aggregate it all for you. There are aggregators that aggregate all the content from the sites that already aggregate content for you. And if that wasn’t enough we now need to take it away from the browser and move each of these services into tiny little desktop applications. I can already predict the next wave in desktop application development. Someone is bound to get the idea to integrate Twhirl and all those other desktop applications into one big aggregator on the desktop.
• filtrbox - filtrbox's mission is to leverage the power of the Internet by delivering the timely market intelligence that is critical to success in today's hyper-competitive business world.

Hilarious video and a well executed political social media campaign…

Link: CNNBC / Moveon.org

• Tell-a-Friend: Leverage Word of Mouth Marketing - Tell-a-Friend makes it possible for your site visitors to share your content with their friends without directing them away from your site. Tell-a-Friend synchs with their IM, email in the context of the content they're sharing without those tedious pop-up forms that require manual input.
• Open Source Intel Rocks — Sorry, It’s Classified - So-called "open source" intelligence — spook-speak for tidbits taken from newspapers, internet postings, and TV shows — is starting to play a major role in the nation's spy agencies. That's a major change, in a world that's used to relying on secret satellites and clandestine agents. But old habits die hard. Open source intelligence may come from unclassified material that's available to anyone with a TV or an internet connection.
• Leave Wall Street and Join A Startup - For years, one of the biggest challenges facing New York city based startup companies has been the competition for technical talent. It was very difficult for a venture-backed startup to compete with the compensation packages offered by the big investment banks. Stock options had a hard-time overcoming oversized cash bonuses.
• It’s Time To Open Up The Feeds To Marketers - So it's time to start allowing marketers into these feeds on a highly targeted/highly relevant basis. FeedBurner did that with this blog's feed and many other feeds with ok results a few years back. But honestly, the ads were not targeted enough or relevant enough to work really well. Facebook has probably done the most of anyone to allow marketers entry into the feed. Here's a screenshot of facebook news feed this morning. You can see the sponsored feed entry for the vista business network in there at the bottom.

• There isn’t any recession. - "There isn't any recession. The latest figures show that we clearly were not in one as of midsummer, whether you use the rule-of-thumb definition - two consecutive quarters of GDP shrinkage - or the looser concept of a sustained and significant economic decline.

  The economy shrank marginally (-0.2%) in the fourth quarter of 2007, but otherwise it's been growing steadily for years. In the most recent quarter it grew at a vigorous 3.3%, fueled not by government stimulus checks but by a strong rise in net exports.

  Consider the 1992 election: The last recession had been over for 18 months, and President George H.W. Bush campaigned by asserting that the economy was growing smartly. But the psychological recession, stoked back then by corporate restructuring, was still going strong. Bill Clinton understood that and campaigned by telling voters he felt their pain. Bush was right, but Clinton won."

• Donate to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation - This year, I'll be taking part in JDRF's Walk to Cure Diabetes, along with one-half million other walkers across the country, as we try to reach our goal of raising $100 million.

• Burton EST - EST™ stands for Extra Sensory Technology. Its focus on the ability to feel and read the snow is essential no matter where or what you ride. EST breaks free from traditional thinking, offering seamless flex and the purest connection between you and your terrain. This creates super natural feel, control, and response unlike anything you have ever ridden before.
• Truth in Engineering | A4 - Audi raising the bar for online virtual test drives…

• Dell buys $100 million of Dell - At least Michael Dell sees value in Dell (DELL). The company founder and CEO spent $100 million late last week to acquire 4.7 million shares, according to a Federal filing Monday.
• Hadron Collider - Large Hadron Collider Video
• Multibillion-dollar experiment to probe nature’s mysteries - The Large Hadron Collider will look at how the universe formed by analyzing particle collisions. Some have expressed fears that the project could lead to the Earth's demise — something scientists say will not happen. Still, skeptics have filed suit to try to stop the project.

• iPhone Web share hits record 0.48%, up 58% in one month - Apple 2.0 - The percentage of Web hits coming from iPhones passed 0.2% in June and then dipped in the weeks that followed. But it peaked on August 23rd at a record high 0.48%, according to the new data, before drifting back last week.
• U.S. Presidential candidates by Website Traffic - During the primaries we took a look at the visitation to the websites of presidential candidate hopefuls to predict the winners by state. Now that the nominations have been decided and the DNC is underway with the RNC not far behind, I thought it would be interesting to revisit this analysis.
• The Golden Age of Streaming - Comcast’s decision to cap monthy broadband usage at 250GB is being decried as the end of the Internet as we know it. Maybe so, but it can also be seen as the dawn of the Streaming Era.
• Google Chrome - Download a new browser - Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

• Power to the People - Now that consumers can create content of their own, marketers no longer control the message. If you can't lead the conversation, you'd better learn how to be part of it.
• Your Web Site Is Your Oyster: 10 Pearls of Wisdom - The head of Internet marketing company Ten Golden Rules shares the top 10 online trends — and how to make them work for you.
• Citizens Guide to the Financial Condition of the United States Government - Americans should only expect the federal government to do
  what they are willing to pay for it to do.

• Microsoft Surface - Surface is the first commercially available surface computer from Microsoft Corp. It turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, interactive surface. The product provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects.
• CPI Inflation Calculator - Simple Inflation Calculator
• Even More Awesome Snow At Mt Hutt - Locals are saying our 257cm base is the best they can remember in over two decades and the regular top-ups we seem to be getting each week are keeping the mountain in pristine condition
• Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans - Tax and fiscal policy will loom large in the next president’s domestic policy agenda. Nearly all of the tax cuts enacted since 2001 expire at the end of 2010. The individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) threatens to ensnare tens of millions of Americans in a web of pointless complexity and higher taxes, but a permanent fix palatable to both political parties has proven elusive. In the past year, the federal budget deficit has ballooned, and, more worrisome, large projected increases in spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will put unprecedented demands on federal government revenue sources in the coming decades.
• About I O U S A The Movie - Did you know that the federal government is in a $53 trillion financial hole? A hole that’s growing by $2 trillion to $3 trillion every year? That amounts to a burden of $175,000 on each and every American citizen.
• I.O.U.S.A. Movie Trailer - Preview of the I.O.U.S.A. Documentary

Happy Friday…

The Great Office War from Runawaybox on Vimeo.

• Independent Music
  If you’ve run out of music indie-music.com will help you uncover some great new independent artists.
  (tags: independent music artists reviews)
• OurStage: Independent Music Ranking Engine
  OurStage is about helping listeners sort through the thousands of independent artists and helping the artists gain exposure and get funded.
  (tags: independent music)
• Hacking the iPhone
  Watch security expert Rik Farrow steal emails, bug conversations, and read web-browsing histories using his laptop. All SmartPhones are vulnerable, he says.
  (tags: security iphone hacking)

• Kiva.org - Loans that change lives
  Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world.
  (tags: Banking Business community philanthropy microlending)
• MicroPlace, an eBay Company: Learn about MicroPlace, Poverty, and Microfinance Investments
  Microfinance institutions around the world have discovered an effective way to help the world’s working poor lift themselves out of poverty.
  (tags: microfinance poverty lending)
• One Laptop, One Child
  to stimulate local grassroots initiatives designed to enhance and sustain over time the effectiveness of laptops as learning tools for children living in lesser-developed countries.
  (tags: computers education Kids technology emerging countries)
• IMAP and GMAIL
  YES! FINALLY! Sync your inbox across devices instantly and automatically.
  (tags: imap gmail Email News)

• Microsoft to integrate Phone, Instant Messaging, Email, Video Conference and More…
  “100 million people will be using unified communications within the next 3 years.” Microsoft is creating a communications system that promises to make offices more efficient by allowing users to see when their coworkers are busy, in meetings or on a call.
  (tags: unified communications microsoft)
• Toyota: Growing too fast?
  In a recent survey Toyota dropped from first to fifth place - behind Honda, Acura, Scion and Subaru - in average vehicle reliability.
  (tags: toyota quality growth automotive)
• Chris Anderson: Technology’s Long Tail (video)
  Chris Anderson, the editor of WIRED explores the four key stages of any viable technology: setting the right price, gaining market share, displacing an established technology and, finally, becoming ubiquitous.
  (tags: technology wired ted talks video)
• Hype cycle
  A hype cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. The term was coined by Gartner, an analyst/research house…
  (tags: psychology reference technology)
• Example: Gartner Hype Curve
  Image of some current technologies charted on a Gartner Hype Curve
  (tags: computers economics technology gartner adoption)