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Huffington Post considering donating blogger ad revenue to charity

What's the hottest way to save face in today's eco-conscious, Jolie-Pitt-and-Project-Red world? Donate to charity, of course.

The Huffington Post, the online news outlet founded in 2005 by pundit Arianna Huffington and AOL veteran Ken Lerer, has managed to tick some people off because the site doesn't pay its army of bloggers. Since then, the company has attempted to justify that stance as accusations of greed and poor ethics (and of course the term "sweatshop") have been thrown rather liberally around the blogosphere.

"Think about the bloggers as op-ed page writers," Huffington said … Read more

Huffington Post doesn't plan to pay its bloggers

In most industries refusing to pay your labor force is not only unethical, it would likely border on slavery and be illegal as well. Apparently in the world of blogging it's considered good business practice.

As reported today in TechCrunch, the Huffington Post has just secured an additional $5 million in funding, for a total of $10 million, to continue developing one of the top blog destinations on the Internet. While it's unknown how the Post plans to invest the money, the co-founder of the company has made it clear that the writers at the site won't be seeing a dime.

… Read more

New York Times to ax premium online content, rival says

Note: This story was updated at 6:00 a.m. PDT to include a correction from a New York Times representative regarding TimesSelect subscriber figures cited by the New York Post.

Citing anonymous sources, the New York Post has reported that rival Manhattan paper The New York Times is planning to do away with TimesSelect, the subscription-only content on its NYTimes.com Web site. According to the article by Holly M. Sanders, the main obstacle at the moment is reconfiguring the site's software.

A Times representative told CNET News.com that the company isn't releasing any statement beyond: &… Read more

Take note! A virtual sticky notes roundup

Like their real-world counterpart, a quickly jotted digital sticky note placed prominently on the desktop can be just the reminder or inspirational message you need. And it won't bulk up the landfill when you trash it.

Software sticky notes are simply movable widgets that contain text, and even the simplest possess some font, color, and formatting customization. Most of the apps I looked at let you add alarms, sounds, and hot key shortcuts. The more advanced programs are surprisingly powerful, adding sophisticated synchronizing features and management platforms to track notes and reduce desktop clutter.

Not all the sticky notes products are free (NoteZilla) , and not all the paid products are good (StickyNote). Here are six popular studs and duds you should take note of.… Read more

Crave turns 5,000: A retrospective

Yes, Crave looks all new-wave and fancy and youthful, but did you know it just turned 5,000? That's right.

On Friday, July 27, Crave celebrated its 5,000th post. With this monumental occasion, it gives us an opportunity to look back on the magic we've experienced since last October.

So here we go: the best and worst that Crave has to offer. We may even add new awesomeness and atrocities as our collective memory bank kicks in.

Crave's faves

Best convergence of Crave obsessions: Hello Kitty pirate cell phone charm Cravers Mike Yamamoto and Caroline McCarthy … Read more

OpenMFG transforms into xTuple, but misses the open-source train

OpenMFG just took one step forward, and two steps backward. First, the positive. The company, which provides ERP and CRM solutions for small to medium-sized enterprises, has rebranded itself as xTuple. It has also developed PostBooks, a QuickBooks competitor.

Good stuff. We need more software like this. What we don't need, however, is xTuple's flawed licensing scheme that feints at open source, but falls far short.

xTuple's license is a mess, on two primary accounts:… Read more

Feed your social network with Pageflakes Blizzard

Pageflakes has just updated their service this morning with a handful of new features. The company is calling this latest release "Blizzard." Users now get their own profile page and can link up with other Pageflakes users as friends. They can also browse through users by interest, based on items they've put together on their customized Pagecasts. The goal is to make the service feel like less of a solitary experience and make it easier to share user-created Pagecasts.

Also new is the option to completely customize a page. There are themes and simple color arrangements for users to pick from, and a tool to create your own. In the same vein, there are now media pages from third-party content providers and sponsors, nearly identical to what competitor Netvibes rolled out with their Universes feature in mid-April. Pageflakes is launching this feature with themed content pages from CNN, AOL, Rolling Stone, and the Washington Post, among others.

To help users find content to add to their pages, Pageflakes has also redone their widget gallery, which they call "flakes." There are about a quarter of a million widgets, which is about twice that of Netvibes.

The Blizzard release also opens up the door to users of Apple's Safari browser, who up until now have been unable to access the site. However, there's no news on whether an iPhone-friendly version of the start page service is in the works. To see more shots of the new features, click the read more link below.

Previous Pageflakes coverage: Pageflakes community gets traction Roundup: single page aggregators Pageflakes CEO wants to take on Yahoo Start here: Pageflakes meets the metagators

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Rob Curley is shaking up journalism, and doing it with open source

It's great to see Rob Curley just some of the attention he deserves. Rob, VP of Product Development at washingtonpost.com/Newsweek Interactive delivered a keynote at OSBC 2007 and made my day. Now Fast Company has a special feature on him.

In light of a dying newspaper industry...

...along comes Curley, unburdened by pieties about "how we've always done it." Unlike previous ink-stained generations, he and his mostly young charges practice journalism with software code, video, podcasts, audio, slide shows, blogs--whatever works. Multimedia storytelling comes as naturally to him as satire did to Mencken. Likewise, … Read more

Voicemail for the family, on the fridge

Let it be known that Crave is always looking out for your communication needs. Last week, you may recall, we offered up the "Memo Motion Sensor," which automatically plays a message to anyone who walks into your office at work. But as fond as we are of this idea, it's not the most practical for most households.

So to leave messages for your loved ones at home, we suggest something like the "Message Magnet," a simple but effective way to leave the equivalent of a 10-second voicemail for up to six individual recipients (or all … Read more