Real Solutions

With the political season coming to a head and the election is just around the corner few people are still undecided on who they will vote for. When talking to people about their personal lives thing become more confusing, specifically with dating. Everyone has suggestions on what does or doesn't work, and the different types of dating like warm and cold. But no one can come to any real conclusion that aren't just veg assumption, with specific answers. After being in the dating arena for sometime, I have reached the conclusion that people don't really know what it is that drives this process.

No More Class...

Hooray for the end of spring term!

The New Republic under-fire for confusion over "Being Powered," by BP

Earlier this week The New Republic (TNR)blog was wrongfully accused of "Being Power," by BP when readers saw the BP logo followed by its slogan. The issue was over the mistake that the BP aid on TNR's blog page was in support of the oil giant. Large oil companies have been trying to clean up their images by launching PR campaigns that promote the ideas that they are pro-environment. So, many readers jumped to the conclusion that this was the case.

TNR is political magazine its editorial bias is based towards center to center-left, on fiscal and social issues. With this factored in it made for a strong case against the magazine, and eventually the addressed the public that in fact BP was only advertising on their website and nothing more. Soon after, the BP aid was removed from the page and replaced by a different company's aid.

This in my mind was the right response by readers, and because too many companies are becoming forums for corporations to broadcast their(if you want to call it) propaganda. Even thought there was not connection between TNR and BP, it should stop people from asking questions...enjoy.

-Article

The music industry longs for a new lover other then iTunes

Article
The music industry has been on along honeymoon with iTunes and copyright protection on online music sales. Now that its over record labels are beginning to have second thoughts because iTunes has become a powerhouse with no other alternatives.

Copyright protection has allowed iTunes to keep its music on the iPod and off of other MP3 players. This has allowed Steve Jobs to sink his vampire teeth into music sales, but record labels haven't completely given up yet. Their white knight comes in the form of Amazon's MP3 store which has become the No. 2 in online music sales.

Amazon offers only music thats not copyright protected allowing a user to uses their music on a iPod or Zune or any other MP3 player. Record labels originally wanted the security of having copyright protection, but now in hind sight it has cost them dearly.

There are still fears that piracy might begin to creep back into the lime-light again and become and issue. But the only other option they have is to wear a latex gimp suit while being handcuffed by Steve Jobs...I'd go with the pirates.

Makeovers and Makeunders with the Politico and the Post

Politico.com has recently gone under the knife in order to become more appealing to its browsers. The new design is more elegant and easier to navigate according to an article written by Megan Garber of the Kicker.

The piece is titled Nip/Tuck: The Political Journalism Edition which compared both the new Politico and the Post to Micheal and LaToya Jackson in their quest to achieve likeness via major cosmetic change.

Politico's change was need in a world where looks are everything and making a moving to change or redesign a website can be risky because many online users are fickle. It would be nice though to see more variation between different websites.

It would be nice to see more of a variety in a sea of tuna on the internet, so, that definitely leaves the market open for someone to exploit.

Blogging and Group Therapy

Blogging is usually never involved in the same sentence as group therapy, but recent evidence in two recent studies has found a link between both of them.

The studies was carried out by Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne Australia and research was conducted by James Baker and Professor Susan Moore.

Their finding for the studies showed that bloggers compared to non-bloggers feel more connected to others within their social networks, and they also share more connections with like minded people.

This sounded to me that it had many of the same undertones of group therapy in sharing personal problems with like minded people that help support each other through positive reinforcement.

The study was conducted by personally messaging MySpace users and directing them to an online questionnaire.

Later, after they tallied all the results and consalidated their findings they published them in the journal CyberPsychology and Behaviour. ABC broke the news to the rest of the world with this article.

BBC learns Arabic...

The BBC has just announced plans to produce a new television station geared specifically for the Arab world; form a piece done by the NY Times. The BBC thinks that it can deliver a better product then both government and independently fund news organizations that already exist in the Middle East.

Their belief is that the current regional stations that exist now are slanted in one or the other direction. The examples in the article were Al Hurra, France 24 Arabic which are both government funded by the United States and France, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are both independent stations that originated form the Middle East.

The BBC believes it has a leg up on both sides because they haven an "international prospective" that is suppose to be less bias. Who knows whether that statement has any truth to it, but the BBC is the producer of the Discovery Channel which has received high marks for its programing.

How will the residents of Middle Eastern countries respond is the million dollar question. The UK has been involved with fighting the war on terrorism in both Iraq and Afghanistan making them not the most popular in that part of the world.