Way cool tool: Creative Commons has unveiled an updated beta version of its search engine, which scours the web for text, images, audio, and video free to re-use on certain terms.

Quote from press release:

“The Creative Commons search engine helps companies, educators, and artists find content they can re-use without having to call a lawyer, and it offers authors and artists who want to share their work a competitive advantage toward having their work discovered online,” said Neeru Paharia, assistant director of Creative Commons and the search engine’s product manager. For example, a documentary filmmaker could use the Creative Commons engine to search for “images of the Eiffel Tower free for noncommercial use,” and incorporate any or all of the many photographs indexed. A DJ seeking songs free to remix or mash-up could browse listings of MP3s by their legal terms. An entrepreneur seeking illustrations for her slideshow presentation could reduce costs and liability by using a Creative Commons image-specific search. An educator building course materials could include texts and videos found by the engine. What distinguishes the Creative Commons engine from other search services is that all of the above are possible without the hassle of rights-clearance, licensing requests, or royalty payments.

The search engine was developed with the help of Nutch.org, an open-source search developer and is included in Firefox 1.0.

(via: ResourceShelf)

Picture this, no wait, don’t: Today Doc Searls says he was photographed blogging in a, well, rather interesting pose. A couple of days ago, Jeff Jarvis explained a similar photo session: “‘Go ahead, blog,’ they say, as, oh, I don’t know, we’re going to take off our clothes and end up in our PJs cackling madly.”

Hey, I love you guys, but this imagery is making me queasy.

Update: Doc clarifies in the comments to this post that he actually wasn’t photographed in the pose he mentions (thank god), but rather, by the pool with the Pacific in the background — a setting he says he rarely blogs in but, no doubt, will look better in a photo than either of the other alternatives he jokingly (although I missed the joke, first time ’round) suggests were other options.

Custom publishing update - controversy department: For three years on this weblog, I have repeatedly marveled at the skills of Abercrombie & Fitch marketers to produce controversial custom publishing projects seemingly designed to generate publicity by creating protests from church groups. So it is only fitting that I blog this Editor & Publisher report on the backlash to a custom publishing project developed by the kind of church group that usually protests anything coming from A-F. Both Sides Magazine was distributed as a paid insert in 200,000 zoned issues of Sunday’s Washington Post (but not the metro edition). The magazine which, according to E&P, espsouses “a strong argument against gay marriage,” is described on its website as “an outreach ministry of Grace Christian Church” of Woodbridge, Va. According to E&P, it has generated “more than 1,000 e-mails and phone calls, according to Ombudsman Michel Getler, who said most of the comments opposed the publication as offensive.”

Quote:

“They were overwhelmingly negative about the Post distributing this thing,” Getler told E&P, noting that many of the responses were from outside the Post circulation area, indicating a formal campaign against the publication may have begun. “People were upset and they let the paper know.”…Although the publication was clearly marked as advertising in several locations, and carried a note on the second page stating it “is not a product of the Washington Post,” newspaper officials said it drew an angry reaction from many readers. “It is not something everyone agreed with,” said Publisher Boisfeuillet Jones Jr., who said the advertisers had a right to pay for placement of their viewpoint. “I’m not going to say I agree with it, but it is a case where we went through the vetting process.

It appears all sides are learning how to play this controvery marketing custom publishing game.

Marths says, “Hi”: Martha Stewart has posted (well, her people have) a Thanksgiving message on MarthaTalks.com.

Quote:

…I am safe, fit and healthy, and I am pleased to report that, contrary to rumors you might have heard, my daily interactions with the staff and fellow inmates here at Alderson are marked by fair treatment and mutual respect.

Translation: “Help!!!”

(Via: CNN.com)

Custom publishing update: The anonymous vaporzine scout has outdone himself: a vaporzine and and a custom magazine find, both in one day. He just sent me a link to a Communication Arts feature on the Virgin Atlantic “mini-magazine” called, ugh, Jetrosexual.

Quote:

This small, perfect-bound, coffee-table-style, mini magazine provides a glimpse into the lifestyle of the jet setter. The result of a collaboration between Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky and New York studio Graham Clifford Design, this small format lifestyle book was created to identify and reflect a new genre of air travelers—the entrepreneurs, artists and musicians who move through time zones spreading culture and commerce wherever they go.

This sounds similar to a jethrorexual, except we only move through Southwest waiting areas and instead of spreading culture, we spread the flu. And we don’t have a trendy mini-magazine yet.

Chump change: I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy it when two whacky rich guys start trash-talking each other..

Quote by Mark Cuban (my favorite billionaire blogger until Steve Jobs starts one) regarding the wannabe-billionaire, Donald Trump:

Donald, leave it to you to file bankruptcy and rather than apologizing to shareholders that were wiped out, brag about it being a positive step forward for the company. It is what it is huh Donald ? On TV, viewers do find you entertaining. Its hard to comprehend of anyone being as self important and delusional about themselves as you are Donald.  That can be fun to watch at times. But it does get old. But you already know that from your TV ratings dont you ? How does it feel to know that in future years when the question is asked , “Which show was the anchor  when NBC’s Must See Thursday Night slipped from its perch for the first time in decades ?”, the answer will be Trump’s show ?

The Donald, you may recall, chided Cuban when his reality show was cancelled.

Long shot? The anonymous vaporzine scout is gloating over scooping me on news about the upcoming launch of All In Magazine that appeared in Paul Colford’s column (although, I note that the rexblog beat Colford by several weeks on that item (scroll down) regarding Wired Test). Here are some classic start-up quotes from the founder of All In:

“We expect to be the fastest-growing magazine in 2005,” he told the Daily News yesterday, saying he’ll guarantee advertisers a circulation of 150,000 by February. “We believe we’ll reach more than 500,000 copies next year, in terms of acquiring new subscriptions,” he added. ( Bhu) Srinivasan is counting on the surge in poker-playing shows on TV, starting with the Bravo channel’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown,” to help boost interest in his mag.

If any of this post rings a bell with longtime rexblog readers (now there’s an oxymoron for you: longtime rexblog readers), it’s because one of the classic vaporzines (besides Radar) I have blogged for years is the long-ago announced gambling concept magazine called (and I’d like to thank them for leaving a memorial website) JAQK.

Close relatives: Via Steve Rubel (who apparently is now indexed by Google News via Webpronews.com — ok, right as I was about to post this, Steve explains what’s happening), I learned about a new feature of findory.com that, if I’m understanding it correctly, helps the user discover related blogs and articles to the blog searched. (I’m not doing justice to what the service is, but it will become apparent, when you visit it.) Steve has discovered that on findory.com, his blog and this blog are closely related. Someone much smarter than I can speculate what algorithm causes that to happen. Whatever it is, it makes perfect sense to me as we discovered each other through our blogs and have since become friends and even got together for lunch recently when I was in New York.

Upon reflection, however, I think that Steve and I are cloely related our the deep fascination we share for understanding incredibly geeky and subtle things we believe can transform the way conversations (primarily in the realm of business communications) begin, continue and transform.