TechCrunch reports today that Google finally decided they had to hit a bitch when it comes to the kind of pseudo-link-farming that Weblogs, Inc. popularized and is now fairly common practice among blog networks. Engadget's PageRank of 7 (unheard of for a blog until they reached it) has been walloped down to a 5. Hopefully this is just a penalty that will lose impact when the offending items are removed.

It certainly lessens the impact of the "network factor" of WIN, but at the same time their sites are gaining more individual identities and tend to live in their own AOL channels rather than falling under the big old WIN banner.

It's also true that those sites don't really need the traffic and search boosts that were gained by having a global blogroll and big cross-linking grids. Those formerly controversial, now apparently frowned-upon practices served their purpose back in the day, and allowed sites like Download Squad (now a PageRank 4) to grow on the backs of bigger brothers like Engadget. So I can't say I'm surprised, or totally disappointed: we did our best with those old methods, now it's time to move on. WIN is playing with the big boys now anyway.

GoogTube
Hopefully the Google free lunch program can handle all those words that web pundits are eating right now.

DRM
I logged in to Rhapsody today to find that Operation Ivy's Energy is no longer available. It's one of those "come and go" albums. That means that the next time my mp3 player gets plugged in to my computer, the album will cease to work. What a drag.

Commercials
The reason Tom Waits is constantly suing someone or another over use of his songs in commercials is noble enough-- he said "The memory that you have and the association you have with that song can be co-opted." I'm not sure if reading that quote a few years ago made me notice more, or if the songs-in-commercials business is ramping up for real, but I'm not sure I can take it anymore.

It all came to a head when a department store or something (I don't even notice or care anymore) blasted me with an overly sincere and schmaltzy balladization of Big Country's "In a Big Country." Good band, good thing they have other songs because that one's ruined now. And is anyone going to think of Stuart Adamson, hanging from his neck in a hotel room, when they're buying sheets?

Mangoes
We're in a fruit of the month club. It was a wedding present. What the hell do I do with mangoes? I'm afraid of feeling uncreative if I turn every single fruit of the month into ice cream, but it does sound pretty good.

Monitors
Finally got some good ones. My bandmate Dave won some Events in a giveaway and decided to get rid of his powered E-Mus. I'd have to say, between that and the Xboard controller keyboard, E-Mu has been doing ok since being bought by Creative Labs. The Windows 2000 startup sound has more layers than I thought.

I was adding content to my Google personalized home page (now with Tabs!), and I thought, I wonder if there's a Writely module. So I hit "Add Content" and searched for Writely. The only thing close I found, oddly enough, was a news feed with an item about how there is a Writely module in Netvibes. Huh.