Writers for the popular show on Fox chose to plug Amazon.com's new search engine A9.com as a synonym for hunting down something on the Web, instead of using the well-worn phrase "I Googled it," like leagues of others. "I A9.com'd him last night, and according to the O.C. Weekly, he's pretty much everything that's wrong with Western civilization," one of the cast members said to another on Thursday night's episode.

[cut]

A9, which launched in September with a more personalized approach to Web search, said it did not pay to have its name mentioned on "The O.C."

Right, just like, Interpol didn't pay anything to have their song played five times on that episode either.

So what does it say when we all concluded that A9 paid for that placement? And by 'we' I mean me plus my friends who work at Amazon. Are shows now going to need to disclaim beforehand that the products they are plugging are not paid placements?
11:42:42 PM   []

the Commerce Department reported that Americans' personal income, boosted by a large dividend payment from computer giant Microsoft Corp., rose by a record 3.7 percent in December. That helped boost consumer spending by a solid 0.8 percent during the all-important holiday season.

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Microsoft is one of the most widely held stocks in America. The size of the payment — $32 billion — rivaled the $38 billion the government paid out in federal income tax rebates in the summer of 2001.

Oddly enough I was not holding any Microsoft stock at the time.
4:02:07 PM   []

• Amazon.com Payments
• associates-autoresponse@amazon.com
• ship-confirm@amazon.com
• auto-confirm@amazon.com
• gc-orders@a2zgiftcerts.amazon.com

This sucks. Why?

• Sorting on 'From' field in email clients is broken. I will never think to look under 'ship-confirm' or 'gc-orders' for an Amazon related thing.
• I get so much spam that I often mass delete emails. Emails that don't have reasonable friendly names are often deleted.
• I don't care that you sold off your gift certificate division to a company named a2z gift certs in Nebraska so that you can evade consumer friendly gift certificate laws in Washington.

From: Amazon.com [Product group] < productgroupcustomemail@amazon.com >

(And why does my blogging software insiting on HTML'ing email addresses?)
3:54:17 PM   []

The U.S. government, 40 states and territories, and outside groups from the National Football League to the Christian Coalition of America asked the Supreme Court on Monday to hold services like Grokster and Morpheus accountable for the millions of copyrighted files traded over their networks.

Why not hold Internet service providers liable?

Please, stop the insanity. You can help by supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Billionare Mark Cuban has a take on this, Grokster and the financial future of America:

Everything our imagination creates and touches that can be made digital is at risk if Grokster loses.

What innovations will be condemned by law before they have a chance to come to market because they could have an impact on Hollywood and the music industry ? We have no idea and that is a very scary prospect

12:09:19 PM   []