Blogging Goes Mainstream

Filter's Holiday Break 'Tis the season for eggnog, Rudolph and gift-giving. Filter will be celebrating the holidays too. This column will not publish from Monday, Dec. 23 through Wednesday, Jan. 1. In the meantime, drop me an e-mail and let me know what you think the top technology trends will be for 2003. I'll get out the crystal ball too and kick of the New Year with some of your wise predictions. Still need your Filter fix? Scroll through the Filter archives. Happy Holidays!

Year of the Blog

Blogs, or online Web logs of news and views, were the hot story of 2002, the year when blogging caught the eye of the mainstream press in a big way and pundits began to recognize blogs as useful tools for everything from venting about politics to raving about a favorite band.

MSNBC and The San Jose Mercury News are just two "mainstream" outlets that have staffers who write blogs. UC Berkeley this year started a Web log class for students. London's The Guardian has picked up on the growing blogging trend too: "A way from the big players, as ever, many of the most interesting things to happen on the web this year have grown organically. The continued rise of blogging as a medium is a prime example of the web's power to democratize content," the newspaper wrote this week.

A piece in London's The Independent surmises that the rise in blogging this year might actually have to do with all the unemployed techies -- more time for technology-savvy minds to put their thoughts online: "We once sat in Aeron chairs, played table football on company-provided tables, and sailed midnights on San Francisco Bay on company-rented yachts. We wrote code, we marketed, we worked late, very late. A couple of us became wealthy, very wealthy. A lot didn't," Chris Gulker, a blogger in his own right, wrote in the newspaper. "Many of us are Webloggers 'bloggers' for short. It would be interesting to see if there's a correlation between the meteoric rise of blogging, the practice of keeping a frequently-updated online journal, and the rise of unemployment in Silicon Valley and other tech corridors. When you're not working, you don't have to worry about the boss objecting to you working on a blog."
• The Independent: The View From Silicon Valley: Bloggers Come in From the Cold

Blogs can run the gamut from simple text postings to complex diaries, filled with downloaded pictures and graphics, like jenny.blogspot.com/.

The Washington Post ran a piece on the popularity of blogs yesterday, by writer and blogger Jennifer Balderama (she publishes a blog called "Nonsense Verse." Balderama wrote: "In the past couple of years, hundreds of thousands of people have been drawn to this burgeoning realm of digital publishing. Free Web-based software has made it so easy to publish a blog that even the code-phobic can thrive in a world once dominated by HTML wizards. ... But since many bloggers have no background in publishing, they often come to the medium unaware of the rules that apply, and complaints are becoming more common. Many people publish as if they were untouchable, assuming that because what they write appears in a virtual world, it won't come back to burn them in the "real" world. Many overlook the fact that their rants can potentially reach millions of people when posted on the Internet. The same law that relates to publishing in the offline world, generally speaking, applies to material posted publicly on a Web log."
• The Washington Post: Free Speech, Virtually

Potential legal woes aside, blogging still offers a forum for many people to vent and find a sense of community online. There are technology blogs and blogs on every subject imaginable, even dieting, as the Sydney Morning Herald's Jenny Sinclair noted this week.

We know blogging has hit the mainstream for sure when companies are trying to make a profit on what started as a grass-roots effort. This week a Providence, R.I. company called Traction Software unveiled new versions of Web log software for businesses, designed for marketers to conduct market research online.
• eWeek: Traction Extends Enterprise Blogging

What's your favorite blog? Send them my way!

Insert 1984 Headline Here

As part of the Bush Administration's report "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace" due in early 2003, official are planning to propose that Internet service providers be required to help construct a centralized system to allow monitoring of the Internet -- and potentially monitor the surfing of individual Web users, the New York Times reports today, citing sources who have been briefed on the report. In September, the administration unveiled its blueprint for cybersecurity, but the official report is still being hammered out. "While the proposal is meant to gauge the overall state of the worldwide network, some officials of Internet companies who have been briefed on the proposal say they worry that such a system could be used to cross the indistinct border between broad monitoring and wiretap," the newspaper wrote.
• The New York Times: White House to Propose System For Wide Monitoring of Internet (Registration required)
• SiliconValley.com: Bush To Propose Requiring ISPs to Monitor Net
• Draft: National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace (PDF)

Ditch That Cable Box

The days of needing a clunky television-top box to get fancy channels on your home TV may soon be over. Break out the microwave-popcorn -- the cable industry has actually agreed that digital television should be easier to figure out and watch, which should ease the hassle a bit for consumers faced with the impending nationwide transition to digital broadcasting. Fourteen consumer electronics manufacturers and seven mega-cable companies -- including Cox, AOL Time Warner and Comcast -- yesterday endorsed a proposal that would nix each company's practice of renting a digital-cable box to customers and replace it with devices that people could just plug into the wall and start watching. The FCC says it will expedite its review of the plan. So what will you do with the extra space freed up in your entertainment center?
• The Washington Post: Companies Reach Agreement on Digital TV
• Electronic News: Industry-Wide Agreement Reached On DTV 'Plug-And-Play'
• Multichannel News: Deal Sets Stage For Plug-And-Play TVs (Subscription required).

Wall Street's Pay Out

In a deal expected to be outlined today, an A-list of investment banks and brokerage firms will pay $1 billion to settle a handful of state, federal and industry probes into conflicts of interest that have racked Wall Street over the past year, sources familiar with the deal told The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other major news outlets. So the days of the tail wagging the dog (or is it the other way around?) on Wall Street may be numbered. The settlement will require the firms to pay out another $500 million to $1 billion over five years to scoop up independent research for investors (what a novel concept) in addition to their own research to avoid conflicts of interest. And firms won't be able to dole out IPO shares to curry favor with top investment-banking clients either, a practice that was apparently already forbidden but turned out was quite rampant in the halcyon days of the 1990s tech boom.

"This settlement will be as significant as any major reform we've seen since 1933-'34," Samuel L. Hayes, a professor of finance at the Harvard Business School, told The Washington Post. "If it does what it says it's going to do, it will be a fundamental change in the way securities firms do business. It will mean more reliable research for individual investors and higher costs for the firms." The biggest losers in the settlement? Both Citigroup, part of Salomon Smith Barney, and Credit Suisse First Boston Group will have to pay $300 million and $150 million, respectively, in fines, the newspapers reported.
• The Washington Post: Wall Street Firms to Pay $1 Billion To End Probes
• The Wall Street Journal: Regulators and Research Firms Hammer Out Reform Proposal (Subscription required)
• The New York Times: Wall Street Firms Are Ready To Pay $1 Billion in Fines (Registration required)
• The Associated Press (via Newsday): Wall Street Firms Near Deal With Regulators To End Conflicts of Interest

From Cuff Links to Handcuffs

C. Gregory Earls, the chairman and chief executive of beleaguered U.S. Technologies Inc., yesterday was charged with 10 counts of securities, wire and mail fraud after an investigation. Authorities allege that Earls, known as a networker extraordinaire in Washington circles, raised $20 million for a partnership to invest in U.S. Technologies, but redirected nearly $14 million to family and other failed investment partnerships. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 21. Earls was not available for comment yesterday, according to The Washington Post, but his attorney said prosecutor's actions were "deplorable." In a feature the newspaper ran on Dec. 9, Earl would not comment on his business woes. He did say: "I am not happy with the turn of events right now, and I feel like a failure. .. But I think I developed a good track record."

Earls isn't just another run-of-the-mill tech scandal. Recall, it was former CIA and FBI chief William Webster's ties to U.S. Technologies that led to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt resigning his post.
• The Washington Post: CEO Charged With Fraud
• The Washington Post: A Smooth Operator Unveiled (Dec. 9, 2002)
• Reuters: U.S. Technologies CEO Charged With Fraud
• The Associated Press (via The Boston Globe): U.S. Technologies Chairman Charged With Technologies Fraud

Saved by the Feds?

Never mind its $9 billion in accounting woes or its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, WorldCom is winning big business from Uncle Sam. The telecom provider has nabbed a contract to provide communications services to the U.S. State Department. The contract could be worth $360 million over 10 years. It's the third major federal contract for WorldCom in just two months, a sign that the troubled telecom is not going away. AT&T and Sprint, retract your claws.
• The Washington Post: WorldCom Wins Another U.S. Contract
• IDG News Service (via Computerworld): WorldCom Wins 10-Year State Department Contract

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports today that former WorldCom head Bernie Ebbers might be in the clear with wrongdoing tied to the telecom giant's accounting problems. Information provided by ex-WorldCom chief financial officer Scott Sullivan about discussions he had with Ebbers fall "short of helping prosecutors to directly link Mr. Ebbers to the company's accounting improprieties," the newspaper said, quoting sources familiar with the case.
• The Wall Street Journal: WorldCom Ex-CFO Fails To Link Ebbers to Fraud (Subscription required)
• Reuters (via Forbes.com): WorldCom Ex-CFO Unlikely To Link Ebbers to Fraud

Beware of 'Secret Admirer'

A Welsh hacker pleaded guilty to charges that he used his home computer to create and send a computer virus that infected more than 20,000 PCs in 42 countries. Word to the wise: Don't open an e-mail with a subject line "You have a secret admirer." It was one of the pick-up lines, masquerading as a virus, that 22-year-old Simon Vallor used in the December 2001 hacker attacks.
• BBC News Online: Computer Virus Attack Admitted
• icWales: Man Admits Computer Virus Charge

Final Thoughts on the Aussie Libel Ruling The Dec. 10 ruling by Australia's highest court that allowed a businessman to pursue a libel suit against U.S.-based Dow Jones and Co. is still being hotly debated on editorial pages and in the international press. A few more Filter readers have recently sent e-mails weighing in on the ruling:

* "I'm an Australian citizen, male 30. I think that [Joseph] Gutnick has no right to sue in Australia an article that was written overseas. Where will it lead and where will it end? Will all countries have to change their publishing laws to that of the most right wing country in the world? Will journalists end up with a legal death sentence for insulting a right wing dictator? Libel action in western countries has already gone too far and no one accepts responsibility for there own actions anymore anyway," -- Matthew Law, Australia.
* In Monday's Filter, I posted a response to the ruling by reader John Vilnis of Brisbane, Australia. An excerpt: "People will get very scared by [the ruling]. ... Internet needs laws to be written for it to curb the illegal practices that have been allowed to flourish on it." In response, Filter reader Dan Annis had this to say: "Mr. Vilnis may not understand that the 'needed laws' he speaks of may also include religious laws in those countries the Internet touches who decree that any slander against their religious icons brings the death penalty. Then factor in international trade and tax laws, intellectual property laws and recent US think-speak sanctions against free speech, and the Internet as we know it would summarily cease to exist, except as some Dark Ages II Madison Avenue carney show subset of reality."
* The News of Stuart, Fla., had this to say in an editorial: "The Internet does pose special legal challenges there's no real 'there' in cyberspace and there should be some redress for libel, but the robust and unfettered flow of information outweighs an aggrieved Australian's convenience in filing a lawsuit."

If you've got more to say about the ruling, send me an e-mail.

Filter is designed for hard-core techies, news junkies and technology professionals alike. Have suggestions, cool links or interesting tales to share? Send your tips and feedback to cindy.webb@washingtonpost.com.