US President George W. Bush has been dropped from Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Sasha Baron Cohen (better known as “Borat“), Justin Timberlake, and Rosie O’Donnell all made it to the list that included 71 men and 29 women from 27 countries.

“I think Bush by this point in his presidency probably has less influence than the position should grant him automatically,” Time’s Deputy Managing Editor Adi Ignatius said in explaining the non-inclusion of Bush.

The list, which is designed to recognize “the men and women whose power, talent or moral example is transforming our world,” does not appear in any order or give the magazine’s reasons why some people were chosen over others.

Chinese blogger and activist Zeng Jinyan made it to the list.

Some people consider 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama to be the most “wired” candidate in either major political party. That is, he has utilized online social networks and even streaming video channels to his advantage – showing that he’s hip and understands a younger generation. He even has a MySpace page profile that had 160,000 “friends”. An Obama supporter has been running it for nearly three years, with the blessing of the Senator’s campaign team. They suddenly decided, though, that they were uncomfortable with an “outsider” running the page, which of course represents Obama’s viewpoints, etc.

The campaign team wanted control of the profile page, and the supporter, Joe Anthony, a paralegal, was fine with that, though he wanted nearly $50K in total fees to do so, which the Senator’s team said no to. Big mistake. At $50,000 of effort put in by Anthony to build 160,000 friends, each “friend”, and no doubt supporter of Obama, cost only about thirty cents. The stink that ensued caused Myspace to step in and decide that the Senator’s team could have control and Joe Anthony could take the contact info. All 160,000 friends. So what if it was supposed to be volunteer work?

Does this translate into 160,000 lost future votes? Maybe. Maybe less, maybe more. Who can know? The fact is, there are now only just over 21K friends. Obviously, it was a monstrously stupid move for the campaign team of a seemingly well-loved, charismatic candidate who has been a historic figure and may continue to be. Someone on the campaign team should be fired. It’s not like the campaign money isn’t there. But even more to the point, Anthony obviously was a good buffer and did a tremendous job building goodwill for the Senator.

Will the MySpace page be the same with the official campaign team running it? I doubt it. However, the Senator phoned Anthony to offer his apologies and try to win back his vote. Had the campaign team invited Anthony to be part of their team, everyone would be way ahead.

Digg users can take down Digg. Literally. That’s what exactly happened when a code that unlocked copyrighted DVDs appeared on Kevin Rose’s front page and Digg users started digging it. The site’s administrators began taking down the links and suspending the accounts of those who posted them. The users disagreed and revolted by flooding the site. The New York Times has an article about it.

So, Rose posted on his blog: “But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.”

Kevin, you have to realize that you don’t “own” Digg anymore. Well, at least you did, with your blog post.

Sony Corp. launched a video-sharing site in Japan where users can share videos and blog about them, creating a potential rival to Google Inc.’s YouTube. It’s not a little late for Sony. It’s late.

The eyeVio site allows users to upload video clips, watch those of other members and subscribe to channels featuring content from commercial providers as well as models, designers and writers. Sony said it would carefully monitor the videos uploaded by users. How? It was not explained.

Again, late.

Valleywag, ever ready to create rumor, suggested the other day that Weblogs, Inc., founder Jason Calacanis might be wooing disgraced radio personality Don Imus. Calacanis responded later, in the comments section, that the rumor was 100% false.

The question is, is any blog network owner willing to roll the dice and sign Imus? Could they pay him enough? Would he even make a good blogger? (Aside from his ability to offend people Hey, maybe he could write for Jack of All Blogs, since SplashPress is looking for a blogger.)

But really, why wouldn’t Imus just set up his own site, create a podcast/ vodcast, and carry on as before? Maybe someone would be willing to run their advertising on his site.

On the other hand, I vaguely recall watching an A&E (or similar) special on his life, and seem to remember that he’s quite well off. Maybe it’s just time for him to retire to his ranch and practice saying rude things to his horses.

BlackBerry users are back to pounding their small keyboards again as service was restored this morning. An overnight outage left millions of users without mobile access to their e-mail.

Research in Motion Ltd., the Canadian company that provides the devices and e-mail service, said the service interruption began Tuesday night, affecting users in North America (Editor’s note: including me for which my wife and kids were very happy)

“Root cause is currently under review, but service for most customers was restored overnight and RIM is closely monitoring systems in order to maintain normal service levels,” a statement from RIM said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the problems affected all cellular carriers that offer BlackBerry service. In the meantime, while my Blackberry service was offline last night, I was shown this video by my kids… naughty kids… More →

Anyone still think Microsoft shouldn’t be shaking in their boots yet? Google recently snatched up Doubeclick for advertising, but Doubleclick owns Performics, a very large SEO company. Considering Google has their gunsights set against any SEO practices, even “whitehat” techniques, it seems Performics could become the “unwanted relative” of the group. I’m only speculating, but Google might just feel uncomfortable owning Performics, given their perceived anti-SEO stance.

Their purchase of Doubleclick is of course a coup against Microsoft (and Yahoo). And now, they’ve just introduced their own web-based presentation tool, thanks to the purchase of Tonic Systems. It’s very much the same as Microsoft Powerpoint. What’s left? Google Money?

Google does have a suite of great tools. I use at least 2-5 of them daily. But it seems to me that Google is on the same type of acquisition trend that IBM went on in the 1980s, and Microsoft in the 1990s. If Google competitors haven’t started complaining about anti-competitive practices, they will be soon.

The difference is, how do you regulate the Internet, and who should do it? And the bigger question: since history would suggest it, what company will replace Google in the next decade, go on an acquisition trail, peeve every one off, and be replaced in the following decade? Does the company even exist yet, or will we see their appearance in 2008-9?

Terrible, terrible business. I could start on the stupidity on American Gun Control laws (or lack there of) but this isn’t the time nor place.

In an internet sense though, is the Virginia Tech Massacre the tipping point for Facebook?

Did anyone see coverage of the whole thing on MySpace?

Articles like this at Reuters are reflected through out the MSM and the blog world: the response on the ground was covered nearly exclusively on Facebook. We know that Facebook had its day in the past, and was passed over by MySpace, and yet as a destination Facebook of late has become the new MySpace, the new in destination amongst a fickle user base, literally Facebook is experiencing a second coming, a new resurgence of popularity.

I’ve literally just signed up for Facebook today, and a bit like MySpace, I don’t fully get it yet. It reminds me of LinkedIn but with the ability to post stuff.

I’m yet to take the time to find/ read the VT Massacre coverage, but I will be shortly, as no doubt many others already have.

It’s a terrible thing to suggest that a site/ service succeeds off the back of tragedy, but in the same way that blogs came of age during the 2004 US presidential elections, the VT Massacre could be the tipping point for Facebook, the day that a rapidly growing social networking service finally hit the spotlight, a day that shall be remembered not only for the appalling loss of life, but also for a day that Facebook became the new MySpace, the new black.

Now if only they’d do something about the proliferation of guns in the United States.

I am not blocking A&E. Everyone in the family can watch it. They have shows that we all like. But when they started showing past episodes of The Sopranos, it made me a little worried. Our kids have often heard my wife and I talk how good the show is. They might think that because The Sopranos is good, according to mom and dad, then they can watch it as well. Sorry kids. But they can watch this instead… More →

It’s been a long time since I visited my local Chapters bookstore. Chapters is the Canadian equivalent of large bookstore chains like Barnes and Noble. It seems that every time I go there, about every 3-6 months, there are fewer books in the sections I care about and more and candles, knick knacks and chocolate bars for sale. There are less staff. And it’s very likely that the Internet is having an impact on not just newspapers and magazines but on bookstores as well.

When I was there yesterday, at least 10 magazines that used to be displayed prominently on the racks for many years in that very store are now nowhere to be seen. I asked the cashier about two particular magazines, and after checking her printout, she said that they didn’t carry them. I asked about that, pointing out that they used to. Her answer was, “many magazines are going subscription only.”

I actually find this a surprising turn of events. As a former print publisher of a tiny fringe rag, I know how hard it is to make a magazine work. Subscription revenues have never paid the bills – only the ads have, if then. But if a magazine goes subs only, that reduces readership. Which means fewer advertisers and eventually bankruptcy. Unless, of course, a magazine has a successful online presence and the print edition becomes a loss leader.

The two magazines I was looking for are both British and have to do with digital music composition and creation. I was looking for them to revive my own composing bent, to add background music for my new tutorial series at Tubetorial. For years, these two magazines have each included a free CD with their monthly glossy pages. The CD contains audio samples, and demo and free audio software. Sometimes they have short videos as well. In their case, what better medium to switch to than the Internet? It’s ideal for the content that they are really trying to give their readers – and probably cheaper besides. With magazines such as this, print just cannot compete with the Internet.