jimmy wales

Chris Dodd and the MPAA have been pretty harsh on folks who protested online last week, arguing that the protesters were "corporate pawns" and that the blackouts were an "abuse of power." It appears that Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales feels otherwise.

As a tech blogger with a reasonably large audience, I am fairly inundated with pitches from PR people on a daily basis.

Almost all of these pitches are mistargeted and not at all well thought out. They are about things we obviously would never cover, and many are clearly mass mailings (my favorites are the ones who address me by the name of other tech bloggers -- you'd be amazed how many times I've been called Om).

It's pretty rare that we ever get a "story" from a PR person.

While there have been some previous discussions about whether or not Wikipedia would black out its site to protest SOPA/PIPA -- and the community's consensus was to do so -- it appeared that they had agreed that the trigger for a black out would be on the passing of the bill.

That's a little late.

Later this week, the Senate’s House Judiciary Committee will vote on the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA).

Supporters of the bill say it’s needed to safeguard the interests of rightsholders who claim their businesses are threatened by online piracy.

Those opposing are worried that the unprecedented censorship tools it introduces will take out many websites on baseless or faulty claims of copyright infringement.

The Wikipedia model – one of open collaboration by the entire world – has been under fire since it was recently revealed that the

Wikipedia is one of the most prominent cases for world collaboration and social media in action.

The New York Times has a fascinating story about the kidnapping of one of its reporters, Pulitzer prize winner David Rohde.

He, along with his interpreter and driver, has been kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan on Nov. 10., and for 7 months – until Rohde managed to escape – the NYT kept the news from breaking out to increase his chance of survival.