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