We've mentioned this media powerhouse previously in the context of the FeedBurner Ad Network announcement, but now we're working in concert with a host of IDG media properties. IDG is the world's leading technology media, research, and event company. They have partnered with FeedBurner to provide measurement, management and monetization of feeds for PC World, Computerworld, Macworld and the Web sites within the CXO media family including CIO and CSO. Read more about IDG in the press release. And, of course, if you are interested in learning how your publication can gain a competitive advantage in the new world of "subscribability," give us a shout.

去年十月份，我的好朋友Jack Gu奋不顾身的投身互联网，开始一心一意的抚养他的宝贝“菠萝网”。我非常佩服他的才华和勇气，大声疾呼：互联网，Jack来了！昨天，直到收到一封farewell才知道，George也决定追随他而去，决意和Jack共同养大菠萝网。我不由得更是佩服Jack，他的影响力和领导力都非比从前，赞一个，能够让这样厉害的George也“You jump, I jump”。:-)

我说George厉害绝对不是盖的。从他的farewell邮件就可以看出来。得到George许可后，今天独家把它贴出来。

Jack，George来了。

a website containing a list of BBC News Headlines, which are automatically classified as 'good', 'bad' or 'neutral'. a linguistic system categorizes news headlines as different 'moods' using keyword scoring from a vocabulary of 160 words & phrases, after which the ratings are visually represented through a simple color spectrum ranging from green to red. [latedecember.com]

Robert Bernell talking about his books

The name Timezone 8 is part of the key to his artistic philosophy, representing a firm belief in the importance of the contemporary, globalised nature of China and its art. For him, to attempt to define what is or isn’t Chinese art in narrow, contrived terms, is an exercise in futility.

"Contemporary, Qing dynasty, Muslim, Bai ethnicity – how can all of these identities fit neatly under one, catch-all definition? It’s just not possible…"

In some ways, Bernell himself is a man of many identities – businessman, collector, publisher, father, art pioneer. Over the last two decades in China, he’s certainly come a long way from home.

In a random telephone interruption to a meeting with his maths tutor as a student in Fort Worth, Texas, Bernell was stunned to discover his professor spoke fluent Mandarin. Bernell's sudden interest in the language, as yet unmatched in his maths classes, inspired his professor to help him gain a place on a language course at Taiwan Normal University for the following summer. In 1980, Bernell's passport, at that time containing only a registration for Mexico, was stamped in Taipei.

On returning to the US, he promptly changed his major to Chinese language and literature. In 1986, he returned to study at the John Hopkins Centre for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, where he met and married his wife, and began to pursue what would be a lifelong interest in Chinese art. Arriving at the tail end of the New Tide movement, Bernell's art history professors included Li Xiaoshan and Zhang Shaoxia, authors of the seminal Zhongguo Xiandai Huihua Shi which announced a belief in the death of Chinese painting.

Back in the US, Bernell gained his Masters in Chinese language and literature from Stanford in 1989, and in 1990 embarked on a ten year career in business that would take him from Burston Marsteller in Hong Kong, to beginning his own venture capital projects in Beijing. However, his love of Chinese art was never far from the surface, and in 1998 he finally had the time and the money to begin
Chinese-art.com, a bi-monthly e-zine which quickly became rated by at least one US-based art newspaper as one of the world’s top five Chinese art resources. The site was guest edited by a local critic, Leng Lin, with Bernell responsible for the site’s production and marketing.

The site’s first print adventure, the genesis for Timezone 8, was entitled Chinese art at the end of the Millenium, a collation of the site’s content, edited by John Clarke. Chinese art at the crossroads was soon to follow in 2001.

The success of both texts, published through a small, specially created publisher in Hong Kong gave Bernell the capital and the confidence to begin Timezone 8 in earnest. Its publishing schedule has since been aggressive, producing an impressive 22 titles since 2002, and including the work of luminaries such as Cai Guo Qiang and Wang Guangyi. Recent collaborative projects with art publishing giants such as Steidl, and a distribution network spanning London, New York, Amsterdam and Hong Kong have assured Timezone 8’s place among the most important publishers of illustrated Chinese art books in the world.

"In 2001, I was in the bookstore of the Tate Modern in London. At that time, from 3000 titles, there were only 2 on contemporary Chinese art, and both were on artists living abroad. Now I believe we’re reaching something like parity, especially compared with China’s importance in economic and political terms," says Bernell.

Bernell is excited by the energy he finds in the work of contemporary 'timezone 8' artists, but believes strongly in the need for Beijing to be seen as on a par with other international art cities. "Beijing is a global city, and needs to be able to take part in the global discourse. There are artists here with strong messages, and they need to be able to communicate those messages in a viable way." By introducing worldwide audiences to Chinese art, Timezone 8 is helping to achieve just that.

Recent government protection for the Dashanzi district, and funding for the Biennale, according to Bernell, sends signals about a changing appreciation within China of the importance of the country’s home grown talent. Similarly, he refutes the idea the Chinese artists work under any more restrictions than elsewhere.

"If it’s a question of freedom – then whose freedom? The rules and restrictions are no more arbitrary here than they are anywhere else", he argues, giving the recent ‘Sensation’ exhibition, closed in Italy and New York, as examples of curtailed expression in other parts of the world. He speaks enthusiastically of the way Chinese contemporary artists are embracing and reacting to the incessant change they see around them. But, I ask him, is anything lost?

"People here are concerned with living in the present. History and tradition are cultural constructs. I get a thrill out of a nice hutong, but lots of Chinese people don’t. Artists here working in response to change have a value that transcends the locale."

- Browse or buy books at Timezone 8. If you are in Beijing, you can visit Timezone 8's bookstore in 798 Dashanzi Art Factory.

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HBO: The Sopranos: Behind the Scenes: Sopranos Maps 影集和地圖的完美結合。 (tags: maps hbo)

网络2.0 on Flickr - Photo Sharing! 網絡2.0的真實面貌。 (tags: photo flickr web2.0)

Taiwan.CNET.com : 企業應用 : IT技術 : 混搭程式造就地圖革命 拜「混搭程式」（mashup，結合多種來源內容的程式）之賜，數位地圖快速崛起，功能也是五花八門，從購物、路況報導、網路交友乃至社群打造等，無一不可。所有資訊都是即時，標示的位置也是絲毫不差。

網路繪圖已發展到會寫下歷史一頁的重要階段，不但結合不同的技術與社群，也徹底改寫網路的根本用途，同時也重新定義文化對地圖的看法。地圖軟體提供了最清楚不過的商業應用層面，讓跟著互連技術一起長大的世代趨之若騖。 (tags: maps web2.0 mashup)

Taiwan.CNET.com : 企業應用 : 主題中心 : 地圖結合資料 提供全新網路服務 Yahoo、Google、Microsoft陸續進軍智慧型地圖，期望語意式廣告（contextual advertisements）結合標出商家地點的地圖，帶動網際網路邁向新紀元，到時Google等希望可以脫穎而出，成為業界的佼佼者。用戶只要進行搜尋，這類語意式廣告就可崁入地圖裡或和地圖並陳。

雖然三家公司尚未公佈將來要如何靠智慧型地圖獲利，不過可能的模式之一是將程式開發工具授權出去後，利用智慧型地圖達到廣告目的的商家將與提供智慧型地圖的公司拆帳。

搜尋引擎廣告公司Fathom Online的執行長Chris Churchill說：「這塊市場潛藏數十億美元的商機。智慧型地圖採支援廣告的方式，是許多人的心血結晶。」 (tags: google microsoft yahoo maps web2.0)

蜂の筆記: Feedsky 與無名小站合作? 從未完成-Incomplete看到，無名的feed真的有託管嗎？而，為什麼會選擇Feedsky呢，Feedburner是RSS大本營，如果在考慮到GFW，Feedburner會是更好的選擇吧。

而無名也沒發佈這個消息，至少目前我沒看到相關的文章，使用者似乎有權利知道這件事。 (tags: feedburner feedsky 無名小站)

企业地标 企业地标就是可以将企业的办公地点、销售网点、售后服务中心、连锁店等分支机构的实际地理位置标注在地图上，在地图的指定位置可以添加企业业务介绍及到达企业的公交路线描述等文本信息，然后将根据企业位置生成的URL链接嵌入到企业自己的网站中并可以在电子文档、电子邮件中使用。当用户点击企业网站中的相关链接或电子文档及电子邮件的链接时，被点击目标就会在地图窗口正中央显示，从而使您的用户可以清晰的知道你的位置。 (tags: maps POI)

Google Maps Mania: More Google Maps Creation [...]

a slightly cluttered but interesting treemap data visualization of the 2006 base players baseball salaries (in $ million). [comcast.net]

The Virtual Earth team is pleased to launch a preview of a new feature we have been working on – interactive Street-side browsing. You can try it out at http://preview.local.live.com Street-side imagery allows you to drive around a city looking at the world around you as if you were in a car. But unlike the real world, you can stop your car anywhere you like and rotate your view around 360degrees. Currently we have street-side imagery for San Francisco and Seattle online, and we are planning to have many more cities added when we formally integrate this feature into Windows Live Local this summer.

One of the most interesting features is to put you in ‘Street’ view map style. In this mode, all of the street-side images are pasted flat on the map to give you a very unique overview of an area. It takes some getting used to, but once you adjust to it you’ll find it provides a very compelling companion view for our Hybrid maps. Street view helps you orient yourself quickly in an area, while the street side views then show more detail presented as you would see it in the real-world.

This technology preview is just that – a means for us to get a feature we are working on in your hands to play with and provide feedback on, before it is ready for prime time integration into the Windows Live Local site. That’s why we chose to put this up in the Live local technology preview site. There are a number of User Interface challenges with any new navigation model and getting input from users is critical to refining the UI interactions before launch. The Virtual Earth team is proud to be the first application featured at Live Labs, allowing us to get this proof of concept out quickly – We went from concept to launch in just a few short weeks, thanks largely to the dedication of our engineering team and cooperation with the Live Labs organization. Live Labs is a partnership between MSN and Microsoft Research headed by Gary Flake whose mission is to help fast-track technology from research to user’s hands, so it was a natural fit to partner with them to get this inaugural application out Via Live Labs.

Try the application out and let us know what you think. How could navigation be improved? What cities would you like to have added? Is it easy to stay oriented or do you ‘get lost’ in the imagery? How could Navigation be improved?

“From Concept to launch in a few short weeks”. As crazy as that sounds, its true. Jay Nanduri , Brad Snow, Chandu Thota, Eyal Ofek, Rick Welsh and myself, along with immeasurable support from the rest of the Virtual Earth team and our Ops crew put in some late night dev sessions to get this out. Channel 9 came over to talk to us about the process and application, so be sure to watch the video to get the word firsthand.

Sean Rowe
Program Manager, Virtual Earth

 Update: There are some tips and screenshots over on the VE blog. More coming soon!