One giant leap for AOLelevision: (From the WashingtonPost.com) “AOL and Warner Bros. are planning to put thousands of episodes of once-popular television shows like “Welcome Back Kotter” and “Chico and the Man” on AOL.com, where high-speed Internet users can view them for free…The companies, both part of media giant Time Warner Inc., will profit by sharing revenue from advertising, including banner ads and four 15-second streaming video ads per 30-minute episode.”
The service will be called In2TV and will launch with interactive games and six channels.

Quote:

“We have 4,800 episodes available during the first year.” … Two additional channels are in the works, he said, adding that computer users would have immediate access to new puzzles, trivia games and ways to interact with the programming itself.

Observation: Don’t think I’ll be spending much time watching old episodes of Maverick, however, I think this is a rather can’t-miss idea. Isn’t this the type of “synergy” that was supposed to come from the merger of Time and AOL?

Update: The WSJ’s version of the story (free).

Warning - another Google mash-up map addiction: For walkers,
bikers and joggers and others who like to inflate how far you’ve
walked, biked and jogged, at least you can get some idea of how much
you’ve inflated the distance (without wasting fossil fuel to measure
it), thanks to some clever folks who came up with a Google mash-up map
thing called  gmap-pedometer. Also, they have a forum where folks can post links
to routes they’ve mapped out. (If someone in Chicago would like to post
their favorite 4-mile route in downtown, I would find that especially
helpful over the next few days.)

(Thanks for the pointer, Shannon)

The Tennessean & Bblogging: While other Nashville media (notably the ABC affiliate, WKRN, and the alternative weekly, Scene) embraced blogs and bloggers early-on, the city’s daily newspaper has been notably late to the party, at times appearing to go out of their way to pretend blogs didn’t exist.

And now, the paper is appropriating the “title” of weblog to describe what this reporter’s diary is. (Although, as you can see in this promo on the Tennessean.com’s front page, they’ve decided it should be spelled, WebBLOG. Also, it’s now Nov. 13, and it hasn’t been updated since Nov. 10 — and this is a temporary webBLOG for a series of events that lasts only a week.)

While I have been an advocate of not setting “rules” for what is and is not a blog — mainly regarding writing style and format, I do adhere to an unwritten rex-test that goes something like this: “I know a blog when I see one.” And, according to the rex-test, what the Tennessean is doing is not a blog.

For instance, if it were a blog, it would allow me to add a comment to each post saying how ridiculouos I think it is that the CMA is holding its annual awards show in New York City. It would also allow me to link to a specific post (note to Tennessean: if you ever do this, call it a “permalink,” not a permaLINK.)

With all the impressive (even inspiring) examples of newspapers using weblogs to do serious reporting, it is rather strange for the Tennessean to feel the need to place the title “webBLOG” on a lame feature that’s not even a weblog.