Recently in Blogosphere Category
BIG, HAPPY news! Go read it and congratulate Karol!
Emily Gould - Exposed - Blog-Post Confidential - Gawker - NYTimes.com
Gawker gossip learns lessons of blog discretion.
Upload a GIF, JPG, or PNG and get an editable 16x16 icon file to use as your website's favorites icon.
compfight / a flickr™ search tool
Uses the flickr API to find photos relevant to a topic, and you can filter for images that are under Creative Commons and available for reuse. (Via Mister Snitch!)
XSPF Web Music Player (Flash) - Plays MP3 on your website
At long last! An open-source embedded audio player. Will it work? You may find out later tonight.
BuzzMachine: For bloggers: A stay-out-of-jail card
This entry describes and links to an online interactive course: "Top 10 Rules for Limiting Legal Risk."
The Moderate Voice: Why no big blogospheric libel suits?
Shaun Mullen, who was on the receiving end of a few libel suits targeting newspapers (none successful), summarizes and comments on a paper on libel in the blogosphere by law prof Glenn Reynolds (better known as Instapundit).
World On the Web: Rules of engagement
Tony Woodlief explains how he's going to handle debate in the comboxes: "I will endeavor to exhibit, and will only engage in discourse with those who exhibit, the following qualities." Those are Civility, Logic, and Humility. About Civility he writes: "I think in a Comments forum, however, which endeavors to be something like a roundtable discussion, and where the participants know relatively little about one another's lives, I ought not to attribute motives, ridicule someone's point of view, or speak in a generally combative or mean-spirited manner. Civility doesn't require that I refrain from disagreeing with someone. It means that I begin with the assumptions that: 1) I may be the only Christ someone meets today; 2) the person I'm addressing has good motives; and 3) my responsibility is to make a valuable point, not to score points."
OpenCongress - "Congress, I'm Watching" Widget
A little blog gadget that allows you to notify the world which bills you want to see pass, and which you want to see fail. (Via Captain's Quarters.)
Likelihood of Success: Orthomom blogger fights and wins on blogger anonymity
Ron Coleman, who serves as General Counsel of the Media Bloggers Association, looks at a New York Internet anonymity case: "An opinion can be harmful, and there is no inherent reason why the victim of slanderous opinions should not know who is uttering them. Short of fear of the Klan or the local drug kingpin, most anonymous commentary is simply a matter of moral cowardice. But it is well established that defamation suits have a way of chilling even meritorious free speech. Until we find a way to make people accountable for what they say that does not hinge on legal sanctions, this unfortunate form of asymmetrical assault will remain with us."
