Saying goodbye to another year. Boston.com has a very extensive "Year in Photos" feature that I find to be pretty interesting. In case you forgot about the Entwistle case or the death of State Rep. Deborah Blumer, the pictorial is here. So long, 2006.  ¶ 7:34 PM 0 COMMENTS.

  Globalized discussion. I'm a big fan of the BBC, and they've introduced something that is pretty cool, in my opinion.

It is a section on their site called "School Day 24," and it links students, often from different countries, to discuss issues such as terrorism, religion, marriage, ethnic struggles and education. The various discussions are called "Link-ups" and often feature discussions between very different kinds of people. Several of the link-ups have already occured, but many are on the way, including a discussion between Mexican students and Hispanic students from Chicago. Prior to the "link-up," which is updated online about as quickly as it happens, readers have the ability to submit questions to the "link-up" moderator.

This is the kind of thing the information superhighway was built for, and I think the BBC understands that.  ¶ 9:22 AM 0 COMMENTS.

  Good journalism amidst tragedy. In light of World AIDS Day on Friday, The Los Angeles Times has put up a really moving photo slideshow of children living in the wake of the HIV epidemic in Swaziland. AIDS awareness is my favorite cause and this slideshow outlines the true victims of HIV and AIDS in Africa - the children that are abandoned as their parents die, and, worse yet, the babies that are fated to death due to their mother's infection.

The feature is located in the middle of the page, just below "The Week in Photos."  ¶ 3:10 PM 0 COMMENTS.

  Like I need another social networking site to be obsessed with. I've been meaning to tackle this subject for quite some time: MySpace for politicos!

Essembly.com has been discussed a lot lately, a self-described "fiercely non-partisan social network that allows politically interested individuals to connect with one another." I joined the site a few months ago and have only been back a few times since, but was inspired to take another look after stumbling over an article on Personal Democracy Forum examining Joe Green's unique web site.

It's actually a lot like Facebook, with similar profile fields. The big difference, obviously, is the interaction. The site is built around "resolves," ideological statements that you can either support or counter, and you can add your personal comments after you vote. The main focus of your profile is your resolve answers, and you can create resolves if you don't find anything you can discuss. Not only do you have friends, you also have allies... and nemeses. Rather than secretly building campaigns and endlessly fact-checking to disprove people who disagree with you, you can be outward in your dislike of them. You can compare your opinions on resolves to those in your network, and examine the differences in your ideological bases.

I find the site to be really fun and interesting, I just haven't convinced anyone else I know to join it, so I've confined my comments to a minimum. I fear the nemeses.  ¶ 10:48 PM 0 COMMENTS.

  Trouble on the horizon? I've been struggling for the past week to actually find any good material to blog about. I found something that seemed worthwhile today.

According to CNN.com, a victory has just been won for electronic speech. The California Supreme Court ruled that web sites cannot be sued for libel, following a case where a woman posted allegedly libelous emails concerning two doctors. The ruling determines that people can only sue the original sources for libel, not the sites that publish the material.

This, to me, is both good and bad news. It's a victory for eBay, Google, Yahoo and several other sites that backed the defendant, afraid that if the defendant were to lose, they would be held liable. This means, also, that Google and Co. are not going to have to watch their backs. It also means a lot more inaccurate crap can float around on the internet and no one has to answer for it. Strange implications....  ¶ 3:59 PM 0 COMMENTS.

  Partnership. According to the Globe, Yahoo has just reached an advertising partnership with seven newspaper chains. It will begin with a jobs board, then expand to providing content and search capabilities to the websites of some of the papers, possibly putting a global focus into the local news arena.

Good news for Yahoo, which has taken a backseat to Google recently.  ¶ 3:04 PM 0 COMMENTS.

  Nothing like waking up in sheer terror. I'm sure everyone is just trying to figure out what happened last night, and I should applaud the slowly-growing photo coverage on Boston.com. The press photos are pretty good, but I'm impressed by the four reader-submitted photos that really show the extent of the fire. I slept at my boyfriend's last night (just off of School Street in Beverly, just across the water from Salem and Danvers) and from the skylight, I was able to see the fireball go into the sky and the subsequent flames. I think probably one of the greatest parts of new media and citizen journalism is the ability to capture an image the second something happens - long before the Globe and Herald photographers could get there.

Also, I'm hoping Prof. Kennedy is uninjured and his house is not in shambles.  ¶ 12:25 PM 1 COMMENTS.