There is no shortage of people willing to freely give their time to their favorite sites, and certainly, companies are quick to reap the benefits. Mindful of the legal pitfalls, executives are hiring consultants to show them new ways to involve volunteers online without incurring liability. [Dave Winer: Mind Bombs]

CIO Magazine

Chris Gulker in The Independent: The View from Silicon Valley — Bloggers come in from the cold

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. "It" was the seemingly everlasting tech bust of the year 2002. Try as we might to turn the tide, there seemed little we could do. So we all went over to Jing Jing, a Palo Alto eatery that is much favoured by geeks, to talk it over.

Instead of Marx and Engels, we have (Dave) Winer and ("Doc") Searls. Instead of barricades and demonstrations, we have Weblogs and P2P. Instead of Manchester (home to Engels and the new industries) we have the ad-hoc architecture of the net. We had PDAs and digital cameras: we estimated maybe a teraflop and a gigapixel of processing and picture storage. We had lots of good and very spicy Szechuan-style food and just a few bottles of cold Tsing Tao beer.

That was on December 16. Yesterday (the 22nd), Chris wrote about referrer vs. hits mechanics of Web logs. He should add link mechanics to that roster too.

[The Doc Searls Weblog]

With over 300 (and growing) items related to XML, a new online technical library is proving a big hit with tech surfers. The free resource - built and compiled by New York based tech firm Data Conversion Laboratory (DCL) - has had 3,000-4,000 visitors per week through its "doors" since going live in January this year. [PRWEB Jan 2, 2003] [PR Web]

Test your Hidden Bias. Tolerance.org has a set of Java-based tests designed to shed light on personal hidden biases w.r.t. race, gender, sexuality, and body image. Your results may surprise you. See also this New York Times article mentioning these tests and more rigorous studies. [MetaFilter]

Guide for Becoming a Modern Day Philosopher 12 essential techniques. [MetaFilter]

Internet.com: Interactive Marketing Hits the Comeback Trail

A short, optimistic year-in-review from Internet.com's Advertising Report, hitting the following topics:

• Publishers Gain, AOL Loses
  
• Search is King
  
• Spam, Pop-Ups Gain Unpopularity
  
• Ad Units: Bigger, Flashier is Better

[MarketingFix] ..