Also: Yahoo adds lyrics | Blogland swears too much | How to plug your book
Yahoo, HuffPo and Slate are partnering to conduct two 90-minute online debates as part of the US Presidential election campaign. We always hesitate to say "the first" of anything, but this is, we are led to believe, the first online debate of Presidential candidates in real time.
The debate will be moderated by Charlie Rose of PBS. HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington said the idea is to reach people who aren't engaged in the political process, and she first raised the idea at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier in January, noting that candidates are doing more advertising, promotion and fundraising through the web. Invites have been sent out to both parties, and Yahoo will be sending crews round to film whoever is chosen.
Rose will forward questions sent in by viewers during the debate, and the footage on Slate, Yahoo and HuffPo will have various interactive and discussion elements around it. Huffington has also said questions will be solicited through Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. (Hollywood Reporter)
Yahoo expands music section
Yahoo is adding song lyrics to its Jack of all trades portal. The music section will now feature copyright-approved lyrics to 400,000 songs as a free service as part of what will be the largest legal lyric collection online. Once upon a time, you had to wait for Smash Hits to come out and hope your pop song of choice would be included. Not so, anymore. thankfully. (AP)
Blogland: We swear far too much
Brilliant - another blog scare story. Something called the "Scansafe Monthly Global Threat Report" - published by someone, I imagine, with an interest in filtering and tidying the internet - reckons that as much as 80% of blogs contain "offensive" content or host malware. It would seem that a site doesn't need to do very much to make this blacklist: the inclusion of one expletive is enough, so that's Organ Grinder doomed for starters. In fact I'm amazed that anyone didn't make the list. A ScanSafe rep said there were as many blogs with the word "fuck" as there were with the word "China". (PCWorld.com)
Gratuitous link of the day
Simple, and quite brilliant piece of "natural" marketing. I love the way the daylight fades. Great stuff. noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com.
