Old news, but wanted to add my 2-cents worth: Following a link from Radio Free Blogistan, found Flak Magazine has posted an initial assesment of this web log community:

[Salon] takes the same people who might be posting to discussion forums and channels their willingness to write for free into something more structured. Not only that, but the autonomy offered by a blog might draw in some writers who would be loath to be associated with anything as gauche as forum-posting. And it ranks the blogs by popularity, so, theoretically anyway, the best-written rise to the top. Salon gets nothing but free content, from people who are paying $39.95 (after a 30-day trial) to have Salon host their blog for a year.

In the opinion of writer Julia Lipman, by starting this community, Salon corrects one of the oversights Web publications make by relegating these enthusiastic collaborators to the forum: missing on "a possible source of content to exploit."

"Content to exploit?" Hmm... Scott Rosenberg has written that "good journalists would be fools not to feed off blogs." If Salon begins practicing such reporting, allow me to remind them that sources should be given corresponding credit (and link).

Taco Bell Chihuahua watch: Have seen this advertisement only recently. What about you?

...The Taco Bell Chihuahua steps out of forced retirement from the fast food chain and into an ad for Geico, joining the insurance company's own ad mascot, a gecko lizard.
— Theresa Howard, Ad icons star in other brands' commercials

Personally think the ad is hysterical: like that chihuahua. Have missed him since he got dropped by his employers. The use of a mascot from another company seems somewhat odd, but is not as if Geico and Taco Bell are competing for the same share of the market. If Ronald McDonald paid a visit to Jared, the Subway spokesman... now that would be odd.

On the topic of vanity searches, Omelet offers this comment:

Whoa, I guess that vanity thing is on the minds of us all, especially since the Office of Homeland Security is asking for "patriotic" volunteers on one hand to give TIPS about suspicious activities, and on the other, passive-aggressive/discreet/subtle nosing behaviors are so important in our alienated, suspicious-but-longing disunited states.

Agree? Disagree?