The Online Journalism Blog has a post which collects together some examples of the things that the Guardian bloggers are doing on their own with the help of excellent free tools available elsewhere. It should be an inspiration to bloggers everywhere…

Google has released an updated version of Trends called Insights for Search. It allows for comparisons over time of competing search terms as well as suggesting upcoming related terms.

Jeff Jarvis puts the case for the Link Economy.

Technorati Tags: internet

The UK Cabinet Office has launched a site aimed at encouraging budding entrepreneurs to suggest cool things to do with public data – and it’s offering a prize fund of £20k to grease the wheels…

Technorati Tags: Government

Robert Scoble, ex-Microsoft Blogger, now Fast Company TV host/producer and still a blogger, writes an interesting piece illustrating the difference between old fashioned magazine journalism (complete with fact checkers and editors) and blogging. Despite the benefits of all those people now watching his back, his verdict: better a blogger.

Technorati Tags: blogs, media

Mobile Internet World is suggesting that Nokia and Google may be about to do a deal to converge the Symbian and Android platforms to create one near-universal platform for the mobile phone. This, they argue, could create conditions to those sparked by Microsoft’s Windows platform play for PCs.

LinkedIn continues its run of innovations with news of a tie up with the New York Times which will see customised news delivered to users based on their interests (i.e. which industry they are in). This is a nice idea – I wonder if our B2B titles shouldn’t be offering something similar, given the fact that our content is already niched (and a lot deeper than the generalist NYT)?

Technorati Tags: newspapers, online, syndication

Jeff Jarvis has started an interactive spreadsheet where he is challenging readers to reduce the headcount of a large news organisation by 30%. He has started the ball rolling by showing where he would cut (national news, for instance) and where he would increase (local blogger reward programme). Not only is it an interesting exercise in rethinking modern news priorities, but it also showcases Google Doc’s spreadsheet application really effectively.

Technorati Tags: newspapers, productivity

A provocative piece by Jeff Jarvis suggesting that newspapers should outsource their web platforms – and perhaps their ad sales business – to Google. The idea came from a breakfast discussion with Edward Roussel, head of digital at the Telegraph, apparently.

Technorati Tags: newspapers, online, outsourcing

Mike Arrington of Techcrunch gives a clear video demo of the new social search functionality which Google is testing quietly on random people who are using its search engine.

Technorati Tags: Google, search, social media