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THE REAL IRONY HERE... ...is that Google is, for the first time, being a content editor. I've written extensively about how Google, by its very DNA, does not like to be an editor of content. But in China, it's doing exactly that. (SEW) — Google's first big editing job?
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Why Google made the right choice in China — A lot of folks, including John Battelle, are taking a hard line on China and our involvement there as technologists. For those of you who don't know, Google is going into China and they are—shockingly for Google—censoring their results at the Governement's request.

Google fixes China search bugs — A day after Google's buggy censorship of sites for Chinese-users was revealed, the search giant has responded by fixing its filters so topics such as beer and jokes are no longer deleted. — An investigation published Thursday by CNET News.com showed …
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Microsoft News Tracker

How Google Censors Itself For China & Paid Exclusion As Being Evil — Declan McCullagh posts an update to his great earlier story looking at how Google is censoring results at China. I talked with him a bit about this today and actually found myself even more upset over what Google's doing.
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Google Blogoscoped

Dinner with Jim Allchin — The invite suggested an informal dinner with a rich discussion. A Vista demo would be involved. — I expected the night to include a group of people casually interested in Vista and a Microsoft-steered Q&A session. I imagined I would meet some people whose interests …
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Dinner with Jim Allchin — [photo taken by: Thomas Hawk of Jim Allchin] — Somehow, I got added to this very intimate list of people to go for dinner with Jim Allchin and see a demo of MS Vista yesterday evening. I didn't know who the other attendees would be, either, so the entire evening was shrouded in a sort of mystery.

Rex Hammock points to Richard Edelman's Me2 Revolution, and says I am requiring all of my employees to read it. … Credit where due: Richard is channeling reality. He's listening to what Chris Locke called networked markets and he's calling for PR to participate in what David Weinberger began began calling …

Del.icio.us Competitors Try Paying Users — At least two Del.icio.us competitors, Simpy and RawSugar (profiles) have begun paying users to use and promote their services. While the companies have different payment models, both pay based on traffic generated at a particular users page containing the user's bookmarks.

AOL, Broadband Providers Form Alliance — AOL Forges Partnerships With Broadband Providers to Provide High-Speed Subscription Packages — NEW YORK (AP) — America Online Inc. may be focusing lately on expanding free offerings on its advertising-supported Web sites, but that doesn't mean …
Discussion:
VoIP Watch

Bubble V. Boom? — There is a lot of talk about how we should redefine what's going on right now with the Internet not as a bubble, but at a boom. But I can't help but think that the third B word we should keep in the back of our minds is bust. — We're all very close to the last bubble …
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Allchin: Buy Vista for the security — If new features won't get you to upgrade to Vista, security enhancements should, Windows chief Jim Allchin has urged. — Microsoft has already touted the bells and whistles it is putting into Windows Vista, the operating system successor to XP that's due out by the end of the year.
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Alice Hill's Real Tech News

BAR CAMP DALLAS IN PROGRESS NOW READ THIS PART IT IS IMPORTANT : HOW TO GET IN — Update: you should sign up on the wiki, then come to loading dock "c" at the informart and tell the security guard you are with barcamp. they probably won't check the list, but if they do object …

I Pity The Fool — Normally I don't write blarticles related to the news. However, I could not resist writing something about Oracle's dog and pony show last Wednesday at San Francisco's City Hall. Oracle put on an event called "Half Way to Fusion". It was meant to be sort of a round …

New ANZ Launch Dates for Xbox 360 — January 27, 2006 - Xbox today announced a new launch date in Australia and New Zealand for the Xbox 360™. The new launch date is 12:01am on March 23 2006. — The new launch date has been set due to unprecedented global consumer demand …

Judy's Book Gets "Social Search" Trademark; Yahoo Apparently Says Jump In A Lake — Judy's Book would like the world to know they know have a trademark on the phrase "social search." Never start a land war in Asia on their blog explains how they filed for it almost two years ago but that since then …

Questions for Andrei Broder re emerging search technology? — You may have heard some buzz about Andrei Broder joining Yahoo! as a research fellow and vice president of emerging search technology. Longtime search industry folks will know that Broder is a noted expert on design, analysis …

Post Search Champs v4 non-NDA thoughts — Search Champs, the event itself is now over and as readers might recall I was very excited about being invited. I have many, many thoughts about the event, the interaction and what we saw, but of course to respect the NDA I must — and will — be careful about what is shared.

Google's new logo — I think it's a winner. — UPDATE: I did NOT create this logo, the photoshop credit goes to Paul Bubel. I should have made the link above more prominent to avoid any confusion.
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Scripting News