press

Apple's iWeb gets tight Google integration, widgets

Apple's iWeb, one part of the iLife consumer apps suite, has received an interesting update this morning. iWeb is Apple's consumer-level Web site creation tool, and it gives users a simple way to drag and drop various Web site elements as well as fill in the included templates. The latest version is getting integration with two of Google's services: AdSense and Google Maps. iWeb users can now sign up for AdSense right inside the application, and pick how they want it to show up on their site. From the looks of the screenshots, it's much easier … Read more

Associated Press cuts new-media news service

This one's kind of a bitter irony. We've all been reading over and over about how traditional news outlets are turning to the Web in order to boost readership and advertising revenue in the face of a well-documented decline in print media (Wired magazine has a feature in this month's issue about newspaper chain Gannett's attempt to modernize). But in this case, it's the other way around: The Associated Press, according to a report on Friday evening, has announced that it's axing its youth-oriented, blog- and video-heavy ASAP news portal because it proved to … Read more

Highlights from WordCamp 2007

This weekend, hundreds of bloggers and Web developers gathered at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco for the second-annual WordCamp conference.

Day 1 was dedicated to the content producers, and offered advice on how to be a better writer. We heard from John C. Dvorak, Om Malik, and Matt Cutts from Google.

Day 2 focused on the development and future of WordPress. Matt Mullenweg wrapped up the conference with the State of the Word address, describing how far WordPress has come in just a year, as well as a sneak preview of the newly designed Admin section.

I covered … Read more

WordPress app for Facebook handy, but incomplete

I spent part of this morning having a go with the new Facebook app from the folks at WordPress.com (a Webware 100 winner). Once installed and linked up with your Wordpress.com account, you can post to any of your blogs without leaving Facebook. You can also check traffic stats and add bookmarks to your blogroll. The actual blog authoring tool is very limited in this release. There's no way to add links or pictures to posts. You're also unable to manage some of the subtleties of authoring like bold and italicized fonts, indentations, and the handy … Read more

Free the iPhone

Love the new iPhone, but hate the New AT&T? You're not alone. Long before the iPhone hit stores, a backlash was developing against this unholy union. A few clever souls have devised methods to bypass AT&T, but these approaches all involve transforming your iPhone into a device that will no longer dial and that kind of defeats the point, right?

This morning, Freepress announced their own advocacy campaign to Free the iPhone. The site features some basic background information about the issue, several videos, social networking profiles, and a petition demanding both Congress and the FCC take action to ensure that customers can use any device over any network.

Records sales for Toyota in U.S.

On Tuesday, Toyota Motor Sales, which includes the Toyota and Lexus brands in the U.S., announced record sales for the first half of 2007.

Toyota Motor sold 1,331,074 vehicles since the beginning of the year, making it the "best-ever first half of the year" for the U.S. branch, which also experienced record sales for the quarter.

About 725,219 vehicles were sold in the second quarter, with 245,739 of them selling in June alone. The June number is a 6.1 percent increase over June 2006.

The news follows two other major announcements … Read more

WordPress

Category: Publishing

WordPress is a free blogging platform available to everyone. WordPress has two components, one is a free, Web-based blog-hosting service called WordPress.com. The other is WordPress.org, which provides users with software to run a more feature-rich version of the blogging tool on their own servers.

Both services offer a very easy way to blog, with administrative options to work collaboratively on one or several blogs using the same log-in. Bloggers can write their posts on a WYSIWYG editor, or switch over to a code view on the fly.

The service is best-known for its themes and … Read more

Why A Democracy Depends on a Free Press

I recently started reading Al Gore's latest book The Assault on Reason, and have found his analysis on the role of today's media elites to be particularly insightful. Gore writes: If the forum is not fully open, then those who control access become gatekeepers. If they charge money in return for access, then those with more money have a greater ability to participate. Good ideas in the minds of men and women who cannot afford the price of admission to the public forum are then no longer available for consideration. When their opinions are blocked, the meritocracy of ideas that has always been the beating heart of democratic theory begins to suffer damage. The conversation of democracy then comes untethered from the rule of reason and can be manipulated.While perusing this passage, I was reminded of a short educational film made in the 1940s which outlines the continuum between democracy and despotism.

The full video can be found here.… Read more

Without a Shield: A Free Press in Peril

I headed to Washington DC last month to meet with members of Congress and their staff about the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 which had just been introduced days before my visit. For those that don't know, the bill would extend the same protections journalists are afforded in most state courts to the Federal level. These laws are generally known as shield laws and offer legal protections against forcing journalists to testify about their work, and there is some level of shield afforded to journalists in almost every state.

So why are these shield laws important, and why should journalists be afforded this protection in the first place?

One of the basic defining principles of a democracy is a free press. If information is being stymied by the government, or the political conditions make it impossible for people to engage with the press then the public is robbed of all the facts they need to make an informed decision. Much of the work that journalists due relies on a trust relationship between their contacts, and the material uncovered through the investigative process is not dissimilar from that of detectives. Unless there are protections established than journalists can easily be subpoenaed and forced to do the work of law enforcement thus muddying their position as the Fourth Estate and the trust they have worked so hard to establish.

Shutterstock photogs to get press credentials

update Shutterstock, one of a host of "microstock" sites that lets photographers sell stock photography online at low cost, plans to announce a program called Red Carpet that strives to endow its members with press credentials.

"The company will work to facilitate the acquisition of coveted press passes, whether at film premieres, awards shows, concerts or political rallies," the company said in a forum posting on Monday. "While taking steps to secure preferred access for its photographers, Shutterstock will expand its library of celebrity images, a popular category among buyers."

Press passes typically enable … Read more