It’s Friday and that means just a short stuff from me. I’ve got some exciting stuff planned moving forward, and I’m looking forward to what everyone thinks.

Blackberry addicts give sigh of relief (for now!) (Slashdot)

Yahoo sets guidelines on buying competitor’s keywords (AdJab)

Best of Web 2.0 (Digg)

Are full film downloads headed this way for iTunes? (Digg)

Yet another bookmarking site (Micro Persuasion)

It’s like someone heard me asking: Kottke stops taking micropayments (CNET)

I spent some time this morning playing around with Google’s new Page Creator service. The interface is easy to use, the designs are pretty, and there’s some great options that you can play around with in terms of layout. But…I’m wondering who the target audience is for this feature, and I’m coming up stumped. Essentially, its a fancy version of what Geocities used to have (albeit via Ajax) and people on Slashdot are likening it to FrontPage. It’s designed for someone with no webpage-making experience to create a webpage - which seems very old school. I guess if all you want is a few webpages with no bells or whistles - for example, just to put up information about your softball team or a school project - Page Creator might be the way to go, but I feel like the day of making your personal homepage to be long past. Am I missing something?

TV Catches the Web Video Bug (CNET)

That’s it, I’m moving to Kansas - fun article about the town that is in “the middle” - according to Google Maps (Wired)

..and finally, because its late and this caught my eye: Paper Roll Chair for kids. Drawing - The oldest media there is (Gizmodo)

The comment/debate that Jeff and I had this afternoon regarding podcasts and subscriptions was both interesting AND fun - he thinks that donations will work, while I don’t. Don’t get me wrong - and I hope no one did - I really would rather see sponsorships for those looking to get paid for content than subscription models. Its just that I see donations as…not the most reliable source of income if you’re actually looking to get paid for something - and many people are.

However, Jeff did spur me to look into what the current “donation,” merchandise and sponsorship landscape is like for user generated content - if you’re a podcaster, blogger or videoblogger and you want to talk to me about it, by all means get in touch! I’ll be writing something later next week about what I find.

Newspaper to Test Electronic Paper (kind of) (Make)

In-Game Ads may cost more than a 30 second spot (AdJab)

And…Happy Birthday, Legend of Zelda! (Relive all the games I never was able to beat at 1Up.com)

One of the most popular podcasts around, the Ricky Gervais show, just annouced that the “second season” will be available - for a price. The first “season” of the show - 12 episodes - was sponsored by the Gaurdian UK, and I had been wondering if they were going to re-up the show once the 12 episodes were done. However, it turns out that the show will be going over to Audible for $7 a month. The original article (available on bit-tech) notes that this may answer the question “will people pay for radio shows on the net?”. I sincerely hope that this won’t provide the definitive answer - while I think its a great experiment and is worthy of examination, I would hope that a number of different types of podcasts either try something like this or something along the lines of sponsorship, to see which one works. Personally, I doubt I’ll be subscribing, despite Gervais’ show being in my podcatcher client - I don’t listen to it enough to make the move to pay for play. However, there are podcasts I get that I would pay for - ones like Inside the Net or Slice of Sci Fi - that either provide me with information I won’t find anywhere else, or entertainment that I can’t get anwhere else.

I’m interested in hearing what you, the reader, would consider in terms of a pay for play podcast. Are there any that you can’t live without? Or are there some that you consider so useful you would pay for them? Or, like me, would you rather see a little sponsorship rather than have to pay for the content yourself?

It’s like they read our minds - MySpace appoints Safety Czar (Slashdot)

Guinness Starts a Blog - just in time for Friday!(Guinness Blog via Micropersuasion)

Does Web 2.0 exist? (Wired)

Finally, have a great three day weekend!

Web Surfers - Going online for the heck of it? I know I’m guilty of that sometimes (Wired)

Online, Free, Ad Supported book….from Harper Colins is an interesting idea, but I like podiobooks better (Go it Alone)

Thinking of buying that fully loaded iPod on eBay? Think again! (MTV)

MySpace, the social networking site/massive network, just annouced that they would be kicking off a cell service, which would let users post, read, etc to their MySpace accounts for free. This is a great step for web/mobile convergence - just the MySpace brand is enough to make these guys fly off shelves - there’s also the troubling flipside of the recent press sites like MySpace and Facebook are getting regarding online safety and their teen users. On one hand, MySpace moving to mobile is a timely move - targeting a HUGE memberbase that is already comfortable with new technology and gadgets and much more likely to be interested in communicating via mobile tech. On the other hand, I’ll be very interested to see how the very important issues of safety and use are taken from a “sedentary” web site and imported into a mobile technology - one that isn’t always easy to monitor.

Just the wildly speculative facts today:

Websurfing on Nintendo DS! (Slashdot)

CD Ripping = Not fair use (BoingBoing)

Flickr: 100 Million Photos (Flickr via Boing Boing)

Computer Addiction? Or just life? (Digg)