Blogs in Action feature

There is an interesting (and long) article on blogging via Corante. The article is by Suw Charman and basically is what she brought home from the Blogs in Action seminar put on by the Six-Apart folks. One of the seminar speakers was lawyer David Carr who had this to say about libel:

In 97, someone pretending to be one Dr Godfrey posted to a Usenet group and said lots of horrible things about him, the real Dr Godfrey took the view that the comments were libellous. Faxed Demon internet, and asked them to take it down. Demon said it's nothing to do with them, they were just hosters. Godfrey took Demon to court and won - Demon said they were innocent carriers. But that only works up to the point that they have received notice of the libel. Because Dr Godfrey had noticed them, and not taken down the posting, they lost their defence.

Law does not require you to police your comments - if someone leaves a libellous comments, you are not necessarily obliged to do something about it unless someone notifies you, and then you must take it down. Difficulty is what is a plausible complaint and what is silly and frivolous. Puts blog owners in difficult position, because they will remove the offending item rather than face a lawsuit, although implication that someone wrote something libellous could also be interpreted as libellous.

Yahoo joins blogging

Yahoo announced a beta version of its new blog service called Yahoo 360. The release will be by invitation only at first until some testing is done.

There was talk about this back when Microsoft released MSN Spaces. Spaces, as you may recall, got some big publicity at release time and then faded into obscurity. I'm not sure how Spaces is doing these days. One problem with Spaces is that it has a "me too" feel to it.

One of the interesting features of Yahoo 360 is the ability of the blogger to restrict who can view their blog. I know at least a few people are interested in this feature since it has been the topic of a few posts here at Blogger Forum.

Available March 29, the free test will integrate Yahoo's existing products, such as instant messenger, photos, local search, music and groups with new offerings such as blogs, mobile blogs and sharing tools for recommending movies, restaurants and other items. --CNN

Both Spaces and Yahoo 360 are geared more towards the personal blog meant for sharing within circles of friends.

World view of bloggers

Here's one of the fascinating aspects of blogging: seeing "unofficial" opinions of the world from new viewpoints.

For example, the view of Iran from Venezuela.

VCRISIS, with the tagline "Venezuelan News and Analysis, has a recent blog about the visit to Venezuela by Iranian President Khatami. Outside Venezuela, people might wonder why Iran's decision to go forward with it's nuclear capability is officially supported. Sometimes it takes a blogger to get the unofficial view:

"Fresh from insulting people's intelligence in France, Chavez arrived in the same mood to receive Khatami, calling his visit a 'blessing' for Venezuelans. Well, not this Venezuelan blogger who can hardly see how a theocracy ruling a country where it forces women to wear veils and limits all sorts of Human Rights can be a blessing anywhere. But it seems that in the Chavez new world order, enmity toward the US is the high mark of civilization. Indeed, Iran's Khatami, a failure in his promise of moderate liberation at home, eventually caving in to the conservative Mullah, is certainly not going to criticize the repression being installed in Venezuela where the press is getting its tchador as bloggers wonder if their fate will be like the Irani bloggers."