Check out this 50 minute documentary on Google. This is not the typical fluffy piece we have seen on ABC or CBS with the worlds most popular search engine.

In this film the interviewers ask some very tough questions making several Google employees squirm in their chair a bit.

The documentary addresses how Google ranks pages with its algorithm. Google saying it is based on links (what a surprise).

But more interesting was a behind the scenes look at how Google is attempting to digitize thousands of books from the worlds greatest libraries.

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

This morning I came across Carson Workshops and it appears they recently had a two days Summit with some big name speakers such as Kevin Rose of Digg, Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress, Cal Henderson of Flickr and many more.

While poking around the site, I came across all their presentations in MP3 and PDF format. It was interesting hearing how Digg was started with a programmer from Elance who charged only $10 an hour, 20 hours of work for a total of $2,000 for the site development. (more…)

This morning I reported that complaints were filed to the FTC by the NCRC against Zillow for “misleading consumers” with their home estimates.

David G from Zillow responded to my blog post to clear things up! I felt David’s response deserved a post of its own. (To make sure it was a real Zillow employee I double checked the IP address and his comment did come from a Zillow network)

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Update: Zillow responds to ShandyKing to clear up name.

It was only just a matter of time before people started to officially complain about Zillow. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition has filed a 12 page complaint with the FTC.

According to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, an alliance of more than 600 community-based groups working to ensure equal access to credit services for underserved communities, Zillow knowingly provides inaccurate estimates in posting valuations on more than 67 million homes around the nation. CNN Money (more…)

My Austin buddy put me on notice, now you can put others on notice with this Stephen Colbert “On Notice Board” Generator.

Reported on CNN, John Beyer of UK TV watchdog Mediawatch said: "This is such bad taste and the makers of ‘South Park’ should review their decision to show it. Steve’s family are still grieving.

"South Park" maker Comedy Central defended the episode. A spokesperson for the company said: "It has offended people in the past and probably will again. Regular watchers would not be shocked."

I am a regular watcher and will admit I was taken back for only a second. Then I remembered I was watching South Park and that’s why I watch it, shock value.

Thanks to Hot Air for the short version of this video and the entertaining debate over it!

This is a must read! Chris Bowers of MyDD Direct Democracy has requested for readers of his site to copy a list he created of Republican politician’s names which link to sources of scandal and misdealing and have them post it all over the web!

What does this mean; the Democrat’s have gotten crafty! It’s a tactic Search Engine Marketers call Google Bombing. As has been done in the past against President Bush to appear number one in Google for the term Miserable Failure, many links were created by as many people as possible which linked to the White House using that term as part of Hyperlink (anchor text).

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Having a blog that ranks well with Google attracts you to all sorts of stuff. It’s like having a pulse on the blog spamming community.

Typically the type of crap people spam on this blog ranges from pharmaceuticals to mortgages, from ringtones to flowers and I can understand why people spam for these types of competitive products as there are many affiliate programs offering lucrative payouts but according to job_easy_money@yahoo.com | IP: 81.177.22.216 he tried to post this in my blog;

“You can find any belt buckles here!!! Belt Buckles,Western Belt Buckles,Custom Buckles”

Either I am missing out on the exploding and lucrative Western Belt Buckle Market or blog spamming as officialy jumped the shark.

For more blog spamming goodness, check out Todd’s last post.

What’s with the crush Scorsese has with Leonardo DiCaprio? I will get to that in a second.

This past weekend my wife and I saw Martin Scorsese’s new flick, The Departed and it was nothing more than brilliant.

The first thing I said to her when leaving the theater was, “this was Scorsese apologizing for making us watch Gangs of New York”. Now to be fair, the Aviator was a terrific movie but I love to watch movies like Goodfellas and Casino and I eagerly wait for these types of movies to be made.

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It seems lately the “in” thing for famous people is the adoption of babies from underdeveloped nations. Although I can get quite cynical when I see the likes of Brad, Angelina and Madonna surrounding themselves by dozens of malnourished children on television whose parents make less in year then it costs us to buy a movie theater ticket. I still say good for them that they actually adopt these children.

Madonna has made the news this past week for wanting to adopt a child from Malawi. What has made news and is mind boggling is that a human rights organization has objected to this adoption and has brought legal action against the Malawi government for their decision to grant Madonna the right to adopt the orphan! (more…)