Readers' Favorite Blogs

Blogs, personal Web sites featuring everything from diaries to artwork, are bubbling up from the underground. Even America Online reportedly may be jumping on the blog bandwagon. Sites including Blogger.com and UserLand Software already do this, but it's no secret that AOL is looking for ways to boost revenue. Why not latch onto this popular trend as more people and organizations use Web logs to run their own personal Internet soapbox?

"What blogging has brought back to the Web is that initial beauty of connecting to other sources of information," Tiffany Shlain, director of the Webby Awards and an Internet trend watcher, told The Globe and Mail of Toronto. There are some 500,000 blogs estimated to be online, according to the article.

The subject of blogs sparked a lot of interest with Filter readers. As proof that blogs are going mainstream, and some would argue are mainstream already, Filter readers submitted scores of suggestions for their favorite blogs. While by no means comprehensive of the thousands of blogs out there, here's a sampling of our readers' favorites:

• Marc's Voice and Oblomovka -- Submitted by Tom Bridge, who runs his own blog.
• Bloggus Caesari -- Submitted by J.P. Fozo of Toronto.
• Karlin Lillington's techno\culture -- Submitted by Bernie Goldbach of Ireland, who runs his own blog, www.topgold.com/blog.
• PhillyBlog.com -- Submitted by PhillyBlogger Jennifer Kronstain.
• Chinese blog -- Submitted by blogger wjue.
• Plum Crazy -- Submitted by Natalie Cohen.
• MaxSpeak, Plep and Wood S lot -- Submitted by Kristin Anderson, who runs Sassafrass Log.
• Tonecluster -- Submitted by Sherwin Rubenstein, who is listed as dad to Tonecluster's main poster, Jason.
• The Rittenhouse Review and TalkLeft -- Submitted by Madeleine Begun Kane, who runs her own blog, www.madkane.com/notable.html.
• Log Cabin Chronicles -- Submitted by site creator John Mahoney.
• Lawblogs.com -- Submitted by John Kramer.
• Ben Hammersley.com -- Submitted by Liza Graham.
• Andrew Sullivan's blog -- Submitted by Joe Goldberger.
• Heller Mountain -- Plugged by its own author, Paul Heller.
• Little Green Footballs and USS Clueless -- Submitted by Jennie Taliaferro of Dallas, who has a cool blog of her own called The Greatest Jeneration.
• Mr. Piffington -- Submitted by Caroline Gelb.
• Ipse Dixit -- Submitted by Kevin Jacox.
• Argentinian Bloggers Report -- Submitted by the blog's author, José María Lamorte.
• Lagniappe -- Submitted by Dick Moore.
• RealClearPolitics and Power Line -- Submitted by Cory Skluzak.

Thanks to everyone who submitted blog links! Now, on to today's tech headlines.

Cough Up The Cash

Sterling, Va.-based NeuLevel Inc., which operates the ".biz" domain, has agreed to refund applications fees it scooped up when it initially awarded .biz names in 2001. The refund is a victory for applicants who filed a class-action lawsuit, accusing NeuLevel of running an illegal lottery for the names, since people who did not get names did not get their application fees returned. NeuLevel said the settlement would cost about $1.2 million, mostly money to cover legal fees. "We still think that our original process that we put in place to distribute domain names is the most fair and equitable way to do it, but we're happy that the matter has been resolved," a company spokeswoman told washingtonpost.com.
• washingtonpost.com: Seekers of '.biz' Names May Get Money Back
• Reuters (via CNET's News.com): Domain Manager Settles Class-Action Suit

Digital Piracy

A 19-year-old University of Chicago college student was arrested by the FBI yesterday in Los Angeles, accused of snatching and copying documents from satellite television company DirectTV that outline the company's access-card technology that keeps people from pirating the service. The student worked with his uncle, who is employed by a company that made copies of the documents for DirecTV's lawyers in Los Angeles. According to the FBI, the documents were distributed to at least three Web site operators that specialize in hacking and posted on the Internet. The data has been posted on the Internet since September, but El Segundo, Calif.-based DirectTV told The Washington Post that its anti-piracy technology does not appear to have been hacked.
• The Washington Post: Student Accused of Taking DirecTV Data
• The Los Angeles Times: Student Arrested in DirecTV Piracy Case (Registration required)
• Cnet's News.com: DirecTV secrets allegedly pilfered

High Tech Hatfields and McCoys

Two high-tech trade groups, the Business Software Alliance and Computer Systems Policy Project, plan to start a fresh lobbying campaign in Washington later this month to battle Hollywood over rules governing new digital technologies. The two groups will argue to congressional lawmakers that copy-protection legislation may harm consumers and stop innovation, according to The San Jose Mercury News.
• The San Jose Mercury News: Tech Industry to Take On Hollywood Over Digital Rights
• The Inquirer: Intel, Microsoft, HP Alliance Attempt To Kick Hollywood's Butt
• The Washington Post: FCC Preparing to Overhaul Telecom, Media Rules

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that new rules hashed out last month to make high-definition TV sets "plug and play" (read: no separate, annoying set-top box) will speed up consumer's transition from analog to HDTVs. The Federal Communications Commission still has to rubber-stamp the agreement between the Consumer Electronics Association and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.
• The New York Times: Pact Lifts An Obstacle to HDTV Transition
• The Washington Post: Companies Reach Agreement on Digital TV (Dec. 20, 2002)

WiFi Sets Sail

WiFi -- short-hand for wireless, high-speed Internet access -- is hitting the seas. Washington entrepreneur Forrest C. "Woody" Wheat has been selling WiFi service for three months through his privately held Reston firm, Wheat Wireless Services. The firm also plans to expand its services to boaters along the U.S. coastline through its TeleSea division, which beams signals as far as 30 miles from the coast. For $500 a month, cruise ships and yachts can use the service to scan the Web for weather and other information. "Our goal is to connect the entire coastal U.S.," Wheat told The Washington Post.
• The Washington Post: Testing the Wireless Waters With WiFi

While businesses stateside are testing the limits of wireless Internet access, an older cell phone technology is taking off like wildfire in Africa, according to a dispatch from Wired. Vodafone UK set up Safaricom, a cell phone operator jointly run with Telkom Kenya in July 2000. The company expected about 50,000 subscribers. Now Safaricom and its competitor KenCell Communications have nearly 1.3 million cell users. "Wireless technology has had a tremendous effect on people's lives in Kenya," Vodafone's Michael Joseph told Wired.
• Wired: Wireless In Kenya Takes A Village

You Don't Say

A new study reveals an earth shattering fact: people don't like spam, that pesky, unsolicited e-mail that floods e-mail inboxes worldwide. A Harris Interactive survey of 2,221 people to be released today found that nearly three-fourths of online users support making spam illegal. Only 12 percent oppose a spam ban (try saying that three times). And another study, due out on Monday, by Ferris Research has found that the spam costs U.S. corporations nearly $9 billion a year. Talk about a time waster. Think of all the wasted worker productivity, sapped by clicking on the delete button to dump hundreds of spam e-mails.
• The Wall Street Journal: Most E-Mailers Want Lawmakers To Ban Spam, Harris Poll Finds (Subscription required)
• The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Study -- Spam Costs U.S. Corporations $8.9B

Filter Sounding Board

Yesterday's Filter listed my top eight predictions for 2003's major technology trends. WiFi, Web services and technology IPOs topped my list. Readers have piped in with their own predictions, with the popularity -- or lack thereof -- of WiFi sparking a bit of a debate. Here are a few reader comments:

* Cherie Gary of TechCom Partners in Dallas: "I think wireless broadband will be a big trend in 2003 - the ability to have high speed Internet access anywhere you are. You addressed the popularity of WiFi, but what a lot of people don't realize, is that the range for WiFi is limited (think in feet) and wireless broadband has a much larger range. But the two technologies are inextricably linked with other similar technologies - there will be a day when someone may use a personal area connection (like cellular Bluetooth) in their home or office, wander out to another room on their WiFi connection and then move completely out of the original area using a wireless broadband connection - all seamless."
* Ged Carroll from London writes that he doesn't see WiFi's "world domination." "I think many of the carriers offering hotspots (at least over here) may have some serious problems with their business models -- due to their high gearing, established commitment to 2, 2.5 and 3G flavors of mobile services and regulatory demands to roll out wired broadband." Carroll adds: "WiFi doesn't have that goldmine effect on the horizon yet, from an enterprise point of view I would have serious concerns about hackers listening in to executives file transfers and e-mails in an airport lobbies." But he adds his own predictions of trends, including: "Japanese cell phone handset companies outstrip Nokia, rather like Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki did to Triumph and Harley Davidson back in the day" and "PC's become intuitive and easy-to-use (yeah right)."

Thanks, readers, for the great feedback!

And speaking of predictions, The Boston Globe offered up a quite gloomy take on the tech sector. "Tomorrow brings an end to another dismal year," the newspaper wrote on Dec. 30. "A sharp decline in spending on information technology slowed in the second half of 2002, but spending will nevertheless end down 7.9 percent from last year, according to a report by Forrester Research. Many industry observers predict that the industry's slumping revenue will finally turn around in 2003, though the growth should be modest."
• The Boston Globe: Tech Outlook for Next Year: Short on Optimism

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.