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February 14, 2006 4:08 PM PST

Valentine's Day, the Dunder-Mifflin way

Valentine's Day may be fast ticking away, but there's still time to snag your loved one a red rose--or perhaps send an irreverant little greeting filled with inappropriate innuendo and petty insults.

If the latter's more your style, the folks from "The Office"--a priceless NBC comedy about a boorish boss and his exasperated employees at fictional paper plant Dunder-Mifflin--are here to help.

Office e-card
Credit: NBC.com
Michael Scott and his poor employees
want you to have a happy Valentine's.

The show's Web site features several e-cards to choose from, including one picturing the hapless and not-so-subtle Michael Scott shoving a red teddy bear at his boss Jan with the caption: "Get it? I can't bear being away from you. It's a palindrome!"

Another pictures toady Dwight Schrute handing his buttoned-up in-office fling a barely visible thumbnail-size present. "I love you this much," reads the caption.

The site also features a gallery of audience-submitted e-cards that show viewers superimposed into Dunder-Mifflin scenes with customized captions such as "I am the new boss and you're fired."

Posted by Leslie Katz
February 14, 2006 3:37 PM PST

Mash-ups for social change

TechSoup, an online resource that helps non-profits meet their technology needs, has created the NetSquared project. The project is a place "where savvy technical professionals with a sense of social responsibility can contribute advice, education, and much needed skills." Among the Internet tools NetSquared promotes are map mash-ups. For example, GreenPeace has created map of where it thinks marine reserves should be as part of their year-long "Defending Our Oceans" voyage. For another mash-up, Steve Hargadon, who sells refurbished computers to public schools, has created a map of locations of computer refurbishers and photos of the computers. NetSquared has even created its own mash-up of its case studies of non-profits that are using Web 2.0 tools.

Posted by Elinor Mills
February 13, 2006 4:25 PM PST

Barron's invites all to witness Google's fall

Just after it predicted a 50 percent drop in Google's stock price on the cover of its print edition, financial magazine Barron's opened its new Web site to the public as a promotion for its "market-moving editorial features," according to its press release.

Dow Jones recently relaunched Barron's Online, formerly part of the Wall Street Journal's Web site, as a standalone site with content exclusive to the Web. But it also contains the content found in its venerable print publication, such as a report Saturday warning that Google's stock is about to take a nose dive. For a week starting Monday, that content is available for free. Normally it will cost you $79 a year unless you also get the print edition, in which case the price falls to $39 a year.

The report appeared to have an effect Monday, with Google's stock falling nearly $17 to close at $345.70, down 4.66 percent. Barron's analysis was based on expectations that the company would fall short of ambitious revenue targets for the year, which would also probably drag down Google's price/earnings ratio. A price of $188 could be in store for Google investors by the end of the year, it said in its report.

Barron's feels Google's stock is about to reach the same day of reckoning that hit dot-com companies like Amazon.com and Yahoo. But it still thinks the company's future is solid, citing data from eMarketer that it knows all too well during a week designed to attract visitors to its Web site.

Adverstising dollars spent in the old standbys of print, radio and television increased 4 percent last year. Internet advertising, Google's bread and butter and Barron's Online's new friend, increased 34 percent.

Posted by Tom Krazit
February 9, 2006 4:10 PM PST

More indie films head to Web

The Sundance Film Festival isn't the only cinematic enterprise that's moving from big screen to computer screen. The Independent Film Channel has officially taken the wraps off its IFC Media Lab, a Web site that lets aspiring Spielbergs, Truffauts and Tarentinos post their efforts online.

Still from Layla Atkinson's
Credit: Layla Atkinson
Keeping an eye on the indies:
Layla Atkinson's "Stealth Lunch"

Site visitors can view and vote on uploaded films (which must be no longer than six minutes), and the top-ranking efforts have a shot at airing on the Independent Film Channel.

The Associated Press reports that the Media Lab, which quietly launched at the end of last year, currently boasts about 400 films. At the moment, those include everything from "Stealth Lunch," a highly polished animated effort, to "Kismet," a strikingly photographed drama that stars children who live in a Delhi, India, homeless shelter.

The site will also be expanded to include blogs and various other resources, the AP says.

Posted by Edward Moyer
February 9, 2006 3:17 PM PST

TiVo wants to find you true love

You watch "Skating with the Stars." He watches "The Sopranos." Can the two of you share a lasting love?

Television preferences may not be the ultimate predictor of a successful union, but anyone who's ever snuggled up to a partner for an hour of "Lost"--or "Wife Swap"--knows the bliss of a shared tube mindset.

Enter TiVo's San Francisco Valentine's Day mixer, where singles will get matched according to their TiVo wish lists. "You can tell a lot about a person from the TV shows they watch!" says the e-mail invite. "Let your 'Now Playing List' be your guide."

The event takes place Monday, Feb. 13 at a downtown bar. Prior to the gathering, registrants are asked to fill out a "TiVo Matchmaker Quiz" that poses such queries as "Name your top three SeasonPass recordings" and "Name your top WishList searches on actor, director or sports team." At the soiree, guests will pick up a personalized "Now Playing List" name badge, which will include "TiVo Suggestions" on the people TiVo thinks could offer you a lifetime of TV harmony. (Don't worry: The names will be hidden on the back-side of your badge, the invite says).

And if you don't find that perfect Renaissance person whose now-playing slate includes "True Hollywood Story" and that latest Discovery Channel expose on semiconductors, you'll still score two free drinks and get automatically entered in a raffle for one of 14 new TiVo boxes.

Posted by Leslie Katz
February 8, 2006 12:03 PM PST

.EU domains now available

An Internet property scramble was going on this week in Europe as companies rushed to bid for ownership in the new .eu domain name space, according to Agence France Presse. And, not surprisingly, the most popular application was for "sex.eu," the wire service reported. Eurid, the nonprofit group appointed by the European Commission, was accepting applications for .eu domain names. They are not expected to replace country domains like .fr for France, but to "offer the possibility of a pan-European identity in cyberspace," the article said.

Posted by Elinor Mills
February 8, 2006 10:09 AM PST

Web offers front-row seat for Enron trial

I'm an Enron junkie.

I have listened to the unabridged audio book of Kurt Eichenwald's "Conspiracy of Fools" more times than anyone should admit to in print. I've read other books as well and, of course, have seen the Enron movie.

Today, I finally got a chance to catch up on the trial of former chiefs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.

Sure, I'd read the daily news stories, but I wanted the gossip, the behind-the-scenes stuff--basically all the minutia. What I'd really like is a Webcam so that I could throw caution (and productivity) to the wind and just watch a few hours (days, weeks) of testimony.

Thankfully, MarketWatch had a column that pointed me to the Houston Chronicle's extensive coverage.

So if there are any other Enron addicts out there, try getting your fix here. But try not to overdose just yet--the trial is expected to last four months.

Posted by Ina Fried
February 7, 2006 11:51 AM PST

Employee blogs--the new legal frontier

A new survey finds that 5 percent of American workers maintain personal blogs and only 15 percent of their employers have a policy directly addressing blogging activities.

The Employment Law Alliance, a practice of employment lawyers, conducted the telephone survey of 1,000 adults last month. The survey also found that of the workers whose companies have blogging policies, 62 percent say the policy prohibits posting any employer-related information and 60 percent say the policy discourages employees from criticizing or making negative comments about the company.

Meanwhile, most of those surveyed think employers should be allowed to discipline or fire workers who post negative or embarrassing information about the company, and only 23 percent support the right of employees to post criticism or satire about employers, co-workers and others without fear of discipline. With all the new blogs going online daily, looks like the lawyers are going to be busy.

Posted by Elinor Mills
February 6, 2006 5:07 PM PST

Murdoch: iPod video is "small time," DirecTV to get broadband

In an interview with Newsweek, News Corp honcho Rupert Murdoch said he'll announce a $1 billion plan later this month for adding broadband satellite Internet access to his DirecTV service.

Along with that service, his MySpace investment, and other Net sites, he expects to have a "conservative" $1 billion in Internet revenues by 2010, he told the magazine.

His Fox network will be distributing shows online, but for now he says he's not impressed with Apple Computer's iTunes video store.

"How many people really want to get video on a tiny screen when they already have TiVo or a similar service from their cable company or DirecTV?" Murdoch said in the Newsweek interview. "What's been announced so far with iPod and Disney and NBC is very small-time at the moment."

Posted by John Borland
February 2, 2006 3:04 PM PST

Founder Kevin Rose digs into Digg

Over on ZDNet Blogs, Richard MacManus interviews Digg founder Kevin Rose to discuss the popularity of the site, which he says has begun to rival Slashdot in popularity among IT geeks. Unlike Slashdot, though, where the content is controlled by editors, Digg prides itself on being run by its community.

Take a look at the interview, in which Rose talks about Digg's battle with spammers, its recent issues with GroupThink and upcoming personalization features.

Posted by Karen Said
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