DreamHost Offering Jabber Hosting Services. First company to provide hosted instant messaging based on Jabber. [JabberCentral]

UPA Site Redesign. The Usability Professional's Association is currently redesigning their website. The interesting thing is that they have a redesign journal of sorts that documents the process and many of the deliverables. What interests me most is how “usability professionals” are engaging in IA (not a bad thing)…and it underscores for me how little [...]

Some polar bear goodness. So while I'm impatiently awaiting the release of Information Architecture for the WWW, 2nd ed., I was wandering around O'Reilly's book site and found five sample chapters to whet the appetite. [ia/ - news for information architects]

Jef Raskin setting up open source project. So the author of The Humane Interface, who pedantically claims “there is no such thing as information design”* has set up an open source project that will demonstrate his ideas. Thanks Slashdot ps – Jef's site is being slashdotted right now, Tues. July 30, but should recover tomorrow. [...]

They Shoot Dead Media Companies, Don't They?. Marylaine sends along notice that libraries aren't the only ones that need to shift: Investors May Have Repudiated the Internet, but Consumers Have Not “The reorganization of AOL Time Warner last week has been recounted as a story of Time Warner, the king of traditional media, reclaiming its [...]

Digital Service Convergence.  PayPal, Stamps.com Ink a Deal “Online payment processor PayPal and online postage provider Stamps.com have joined forces to enable PayPal users to buy and print postage from their accounts. The companies say the Web-based service will allow PayPal sellers to calculate the exact amount of postage needed and to print a shipping [...]

I Guess Magazine Publishers Will Be Lobbying Congress Now….. Doubleclick: Web Sites' Reach Matches TV, Nears Mags “The Internet's most popular sites consistently deliver larger audiences than television's most-watched programs and are comparable in reach to popular consumer magazines, according to a study released yesterday by DoubleClick Inc. The top three Web sites — Yahoo [...]

Big Brother Hits the Books “Under the Patriot Act, the FBI doesn't have to demonstrate 'probable cause' of criminal activity to request records. In fact, the so-called 'search warrant' is issued by a secret court. Once granted, it entitles the FBI to procure any library records pertaining to book circulation, Internet use or patron registration. [...]

The Hacker in the High Castle. Paul Ford has an outline version of an Alternate History novel about the development of the digital computer in a world where Nazi Germany won WWII. The opening scene, and its implications, chilled me. The real Hitler bought tons of punch cards and readers from IBM. [More Like This [...]

Here is a great overview of the amount of money from the entertainment industry that is buying votes in Congress.  Berman tops the list on this election cycle.  A couple of things are obvious:  the amount of money being spent to buy votes is accelerating.  It is up 400% over 1990 mid-term election cycle.  How [...]