According to his resume, Cei, 43, is a software developer and network manager who, in his spare time, is developing an open source portal he calls “The Open Source Zone.�

The premise of the site is to monitor news about Google, post links and a brief description of a new story about the company and then take a poll of readers asking “after reading this news item how do you describe Google?� Respondents can check boxes from 0 to 100% evil.

It’s unclear how popular, Is Google Evil or Not, will become, but I bet there is someone at Google monitoring the site and others like it. The site shows up in various search results on Google, so the company is not making any effort to block it.

Google is doing well so far. As of this blog entry, based on 137 votes, it is only17% evil.

There’s also a webcast.

The author of “Fire Someone Today,� started a reading program where employees were given the opportunity to get paid to read business books. They were paid 15 cents per page and required to write a book report and send it to other employees via the office e-mail list. The most an employee could earn in a year was $175.

The whole thing struck me and my wife as troubling at first. But I didn’t realize how many varying opinions there were on the program. Some folks saw this as a way to reward employees for self improvement and acquiring a better understanding of their business environment.

Read his blog post yourself. He said an anonymous poll he conducted shows that most employees liked the program.

“Participants were evenly split on their primary motivation — learning or cash — but 96% said they read books they would not otherwise have read, and 100% said that what they learned was applicable to their job or personal life.â€?

Go figure. Now how many of those folks do you think cheated?

First the numbers he presents are pretty damning:

“Four-fifths of Americans once read newspapers; today, apparently fewer than half do. Among adults, in the decade 1990-2000, daily readership fell from 52.6 percent to 37.5 percent. From 1999 to 2004, according to the Newspaper Association of America, general circulation dropped by another 1.3 million.�

Then the commentary:

“… if I had to prophesy, my guess would be that newspapers will hobble along, getting ever more desperate and ever more vulgar. More of them will attempt the complicated mental acrobatic of further dumbing down while straining to keep up, relentlessly exerting themselves to sustain the mighty cataract of inessential information that threatens to drown us all.�

Ouch.

But the piece makes sweeping characterizations of reporters, calling the current crop coming from schools where “the reigning politics are liberal, and along with their degrees, and their sense of enlightened virtue, they emerge with locked-in political views.â€? This is simply not true. I knew many reporters with conservative and even Libertarian views and this didn’t appear to affect their reporting.

It also assumes that “much of contemporary journalism functions through leaks.� I wish there was a town or city beat reporter out there who could bring this guy on their rounds. Stop at city hall. Ruminate through deeds, schematic drawings and other heady documents for news. To finish out the day, they could bring him to the police station to get the police blotter. And I’d hope that once the reporter sat down to write a story something blares over the police scanner, further extending the 50+ hour day.

Nevertheless you can’t dispute the numbers. Something’s got to change.

Special thanks to the Thoughts on Paper Blog for Epstein’s alternative viewpoint.

“Newspapers are still relevant, indeed even resilient,� he wrote. “Online news outlets are mature enough to be called distinct and separate businesses.�

I agree that newspapers are still relevant. That’s not in question. When newspapers go under, we’ll all go under. A healthy dose of local news will always be needed and perhaps the most important part are the checks that local newspapers put on our local officials. Our towns and cities can’t go unchecked by the prying eyes of journalists. They do the work, asking the questions, that most of us don’t have time to ask.

What is in question are the newspaper delivery methods being used, which are becoming irrelevant. Are people reading less than they did? I believe they aren’t. In fact, I bet people are reading more and getting more information than they ever had before.

The Christian Science Monitor did a nice feature story on how the Web is changing reading habits. That change is forcing researchers to look at ways to use technology to make reading itself more efficient.

More efficient readers getting a greater amount of information from a greater number of sources means the public is better informed than it ever was before.

Newspapers clearly are in a state of transition, but I suspect new delivery methods, like the digital paper on the right, are being developed and could become affordable so that newspapers remain relevant for years to come.

Apple won’t let its customers use Firefox to read RSS feeds. Instead it forces the user to read feeds in the Safari browser. Isn’t this a bit Microsoft like? No, wait, even Microsoft doesn’t do this anymore.

“Engadget quoted Jobs as saying they were using “industry standardâ€? RSS. Even if we used terminology like that (we don’t, there’s no standards body for RSS) one company can’t on its own say it’s standard, esp when it has so many mistakes in it. It’s a fairly damaging lie. Yeah, companies lie, I know — but then sometimes bloggers have to say they’re lying,” Winer said.

I’m not sure why Cubans are synonymous with “foul-mouthed,â€? or Bolivians have “a lack of understanding punctuality.â€? It’s not on the map, but apparently the Polish are known for their great pickles.

Next, you’ve got to install the device in your car. The issues here are endless. I’ve seen Web forums talk about everything from how to install an extra fuse in the fuse box to the most cosmetically pleasing way to run a cable from the tuner to the cigarette lighter. Believe me, if you’ve got a clunky box on your dash board, nothing is going to look cosmetically pleasing in your car. On top of all this, many units come with only a home or auto dock. This is the device needed to power the unit and pull in a satellite signal. Want to use the tuner in your home? You’ll have to buy a home dock. Let’s not talk about the issues there. Then you’ve got to pay $13 a month for service.

Satellite radio came to a head this week when Howard Stern made his debut on Sirius. In the weeks and months leading up to the debut many ran to the store or ordered a Sirius satellite tuner online to listen to the broadcast. Others have waited. New units unveiled at the Consumer and Electronic Show last week in Las Vegas are expected to trump the current models. We’ll have to wait and see.

CNET recently produced a special section, explaining the challenges and the pitfalls of satellite radio. It also does a fine job helping a person choose between both services. Handy reviews of mobile and home tuners are also available.

While both services offer more than a hundred channels, sound quality has been an issue for many tuners. The mobile tuners have lower sound quality than many mp3 players. If the tuner is transmitting the satellite signal to a blank station on your FM radio, it has been reported that sound quality also diminishes. I have listened to a friend’s Sirius unit and sound quality on a talk radio channel was AM quality at best. Music quality sounded as if it was a streaming audio file on the Internet.

I’ve been a fan of satellite television. Why? It offered a professional alternative to cable television with better picture quality and more options and services at a comparable price. Satellite radio offers more choice, including Howard Stern and others, but what it is lacking is professional quality.

Until automobile manufacturers install XM and Sirius ready tuner decks in vehicles as a standard option, there will be people playing with wires, cigarette lighters and fuse boxes. Many are happy to do this, drawn by the lure of Howard Stern and other stars, but the price and hassle just don’t meet the quality at this time.

Now, I’ve said that widgets can clutter a desktop rather quickly, but clearly they have a purpose in that they can sit in the background and allow a casual user to glance at sports scores or quickly conduct a Google search without opening a Web browser. It will be interesting to see how much of Windows Vista builds in widget support.

Google Blogoscoped recently posted these close up screenshots of one study participant’s participation. Microsoft intends to use the information it gathers to design a more efficient desktop that can be organized based on association  “As the amount of information increases, finding items becomes more frustrating. Our goal is to have automatic, dynamic grouping by association replace folders as the primary means of organizing,� according to Microsoft. The photo sharing, blogging and instant messaging site is open only to study participants until the trial is over, according to Microsoft.

Screenshots of the site provided by Microsoft show a graphical view of how people interact in a social web. There are a number of other aspects of the project explained at the Microsoft site. Research also includes desktop and mobile application integration and a look at how collaboration and planning tools are used, or not used, on a daily basis. When the trial is over and the site is made live, new users should be able to sign up and create a page at myWallop.com.

As GoogleMapsMania explains, “in most cases these IP cameras are situated on college campuses, parking lots or in hallways of buildings so business owners or security companies can monitor them remotely by logging on to them over the Internet and taking a look at what is happening.�

These folks ended up putting the cameras online without any security limitations. Look for many of these cameras to go offline in the near future.

Now, a fair question to ask is, does the public have a right to access these cameras? If they are in a public location, I believe they do. If the public can be monitored, then why does it not have access to the cameras that is monitoring it?

I know someone who is involved editorially with Yahoo! News and from what I understand, unlike Google news, there are a number human beings involved in the process. It will be interesting to see whether humans can beat Google’s computer algorithms in creating a useful, creative and efficient news page. Is news gathering for users strictly confined to searches or do users want a news page landing to scan the top stories before conducting a search for news they want?

Wikipedia has a very nice overview of the examples of ethical dilemmas reporters face when balancing national security and the public’s right to know.

Will new PC sales in 2006 sway the success or failure of the Windows Vista launch? Or, Will the Windows Vista launch spur a booming PC market?

Microsoft chairman and co-founder Bill Gates unveiled Windows Vista at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last night. While the minimum system requirements will not be fully known until later this year, most PC users will be considering whether to purchase a scaled down version of the product with many of the bells and whistles turned off.

If Vista’s success does hinge on PC sales there could be doom in store for Microsoft this year. Slower global economic growth and fewer replacements will slow PC sales in 2006, according to new data from IDC. The big boom will be with low cost and portable computers, according to IDC, which still lack the requirements needed to fully run Vista.

While Microsoft boasts of its security enhancements, vastly improved search functionality and rich graphical user interface, many of these enhancements call for the latest video graphics cards, more memory and faster CPU speeds. Vista’s AERO Glass look, which will likely be the biggest eye candy for Windows users to consider upgrading, requires an advanced graphics card to run.

So far Microsoft says that any mid-range and better processor shipping from Intel or AMD is a good fit for basic functionality in Windows Vista. But it adds that lower end processors won’t provide the optimal experience for most users and definitely won’t provide the best experience for high-end gaming or video editing.

Microsoft also acknowledges that 512 MB will be the minimum amount of memory to run Vista and recommends that users add 1 GB, a recommendation, which translates: ‘To avoid sluggish performance many users should add 1 GB of memory.’ Many PCs that are five years old or older won’t allow users to add more than 512 MB of memory. Storage requirements will also increase, as most PC users will want to download and store more media.

A “DVD drive that is capable of both reading and writing DVDs will be an important element of a Windows Vista PC,� according to Microsoft MVP, Charlie Russel. While more PC users are using DVD drives, many customers still have CD drives with CD writing capabilities.

This column by Russel lays out some of the requirements for Vista and should give most Windows users an idea of whether or not they’ll need to make a new PC investment before investigating Vista.

The BBC is reporting that a record number of text messages were sent in the UK on New Years Eve. A total of 165 million text messages were sent. That’s a lot of thumb pressing if you believe the news. The information came from the Mobile Data Association, a group of telecom companies that I suspect want subscribers to include text messaging in their subscriptions.

In nearby Denmark, National telecom TDC released figures showing that 12 million text messages were sent between 10 a.m., Dec. 31 and 10 a.m. on January 1, which made the news in the Copenhagen Post. They got into the action in Thailand too, where The Nation reported that text messaging during “the New Year festival period” surged to new heights with 59 million SMS messages sent this year, up from about 40 million during the same period last year. The figures were released from mobile-phone operator Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS).

I suspect that later this month we’ll start seeing the 2005 wrap up stories saying that a record number of text messages were sent last year. I still can’t find any U.S.-based figures.

TechnologyReview.com has a good story describing the site and comparing it to Real Networks Rhapsody.com service.

The blog was organized by Sandeep Junnarkar, a freelance journalist who decided to report on how a new patent law in India affected the lives of HIV-positive patients and their families when trying to get and pay for medical care. Junnarkar and his colleague Srinivas Kuruganti, a photographer, took portraits and interviewed on video more than two dozen men, women and children in India.

The resulting blog is a professional account of the struggles being faced by HIV-positive patients and their families complete with ways the public can respond with contributions. It’s a testament to how solid journalism and reporting skills can overcome the current limits of the Internet blog.

In his column in USC Annenberg’s Online Journalism Review, Junnarkar discusses the difficulties of starting a journalism blog, getting funding and building a readership for his project. Perhaps the most important part of beginning his project was putting legitimacy behind it in the form of an official proposal and a summary of his prior work with the New York Times, CNET and as a visiting professor at the Indiana University School of Journalism. Word of mouth among family and friends helped Junnarkar get the ball rolling, but a post about the project at Instapundit.com led to an interview with a BBC program resulting in a surge of project donations. Search engine optimization also played a role, however Junnarkar admits that his blog isn’t fully optimized.

Microsoft is now in the hot seat for pulling the plug on a controversial Chinese blog hosted on its MSN Spaces portal. Rebecca Mackinnon, a research fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, points out Microsoft’s decision to pull plug on Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti’s “edgy� blog.  Anti is known for quitting his job at the Beijing Daily News after the top editors were fired for increasingly daring investigative coverage, according to Mackinnon. You can find her full blog entry with updates here.

It’s unclear whether Microsoft will reverse its course, but what is crystal clear is that we’re walking into increasingly gray area as the number and scope of blogs continue to rise. How will blog hosting domains such as MSN Spaces oversee its plethora of blogs? What ethical guidelines exist when determining if a blogger is being irresponsible? As we watch blogging networks continue to evolve, I hope a discussion ensues on these issues. Do bloggers really have freedom of speech on private networks? Even if you have your own domain name and servers, you probably are still bound somewhat by your Internet service provider.

The BBC points to companies such as Scoopt and Spy Media that are becoming intermediaries for citizen journalists to negotiate rights to their content. Other sites are also giving community journalism a bigger sounding board, including Wiki News and Pajamas Media, which are attempting to bridge the differences between traditional news outfits and the type of reporting found on blogs.

The New York Times points out that blogs are forcing “journalists to respond in a variety of ways, including becoming more open about their methods and techniques and perhaps more conscious of how they filter information.� This is a good result of the blogging revolution and bloggers should be proud of this feat.

What remains to be seen is how different blogs will be parsed out and whether corporate blogs can be appropriately discerned from independent blogs. A discussion is already brewing about how major corporations could use blogs to build a community around products as many software vendors are already doing. Not only does it build a community atmosphere, but it opens a dialogue with users to improve communication and more efficiently create new products and features.

Dan Gillmor, a former columnist for the San Jose Mercury News will be heading the Center for Citizen Media starting in 2006. Hopefully the organization will open up a discussion about blogging ethics, whether search engines are structuring blog search results efficiently, and how the vast swarm of blogs can be appropriately structured into networks. Creating blog networks is one way to add structure and some permanence to the current blog chaos.

As we see blog networks and associations crop up, it is unclear what guidelines will be established to make them viable long into the future. AOL purchased Weblogs Inc. for $25 million this year. The company attempted to put together the strongest blogs on the Internet. What AOL will do with the sites remains unclear. AOL has given full editorial control and independence to Weblogs Inc., but it will integrate the blogs into its AOL.com portal by linking to the best entries. (What constitutes the best entry? And who chooses this?) Other blog network sites are forming, including 9rules, which pulls together blogs on myriad topics based on content and layout.

The state of journalism managed to shine through the predicaments that resulted in increased criticism of the news media in 2005. Dan Rather was ousted from his CBS anchor position for a sloppy news report, reporter Judith Miller was jailed for contempt, which further eroded the stature of the New York Times and Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward was put on the hot seat for discussing the Valerie Plame case as if he had no involvement in the matter.

Yet, for all the criticism of the news media, coverage of the war in Iraq and the skirmishes in Afghanistan continued to shine in 2005. Reporters continued to risk their lives in these war zones to tell the whole story of the problems in the region. Reporters also helped show the problems here at home. When the federal government was slow to respond to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the public was able to watch the horrors unfold on television. Despite all their solid coverage of Hurricane Katrina, cable news networks continued to sink to new lows in 2005 with continued coverage of glamorous court cases, celebrity gossip, missing persons, car chases, explosions, fires, and other ‘big splash’ events to gain television ratings.

2005 Highlights:

Satellite Radio: Sirius and XM radio added millions of listeners to their subscription-based model in 2005. It’s still not clear how Satellite radio will alter news coverage or change traditional radio as we know it.

Blogs: For all the biased blogs out there, there are bloggers who try to stick to the middle. Readers are becoming more savvy at finding unbiased news coverage and turning to a number of blogs for insightful analysis. It’s fair to say that the blogs also push the traditional media to improve its reporting.

Peter Jennings: Died this year after battling lung cancer.

Ted Koppel: The host of ABC’s Nightline stepped down.

Dan Rather: Left the anchor chair.

Iraq: Reporters continue to risk their lives to cover this war.

Valerie Plame: Shined the light on how government officials sometimes mingle too closely with our nation’s top reporters

Watergate: Mark Felt let out his secret, telling the public he is the famous “Deep Throat.�

Bob Woodward: Continues to deal with criticism over his role in the Plame case while commenting as if he was not involved.

Hurricane Katrina: Reporters covered the government’s slow response and the resulting chaos in the days and weeks that followed.

The Internet’s shortcomings have resulted in plunging security and a decreased ability to accommodate new technologies, according to David D. Clark, who served as the Internet’s chief protocol architect from 1981-1989. A researcher at MIT, today Clark believes it is time to rework the Internet’s architecture to bring some structure to the chaos that is resulting from the proliferation of online applications.

And many researchers agree.

With funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers are working on Clark’s vision. In a five- to seven-year plan, at a cost of $200-300 million, they are developing a set of new Internet architectures that provide security, accommodate new technologies, and are easier to manage.

Clark envisions an Internet where humans can no longer always log on anonymously. Every device, from cell phones to desktop computers must be authenticated to connect to the network securely. Another goal is to build standards that make Internet service providers develop traffic routing agreements.

“We were all gripped in silence, surrounded by the white noise from the engines that eerily engulfed the plane into a surreal atmosphere. And as the oxygen masks deployed from the ceiling in a familiar, video-esque manner, we all grasped them in fear – trying to figure out how to breathe through the flimsy pieces of plastic. Parents were the most confused – as the masks were too large for their babies’ faces and were not easy to put on in such a panicked situation. The next few minutes passed like seconds – the plane started diving down to a lower level … and fast,â€? wrote Jeremy Hermanns, who calls himself a search engine specialist.

This kind of writing/reporting is representative of the future of the Internet, where millions of bloggers cover issues ranging from politics to wine and other niche areas. The key is trying to parse out the online journals or diaries to place them in a different category. Unfortunately, I don’t see this being done yet in a very efficient way. Today, blogs are snowballed together and perhaps for a reason – many blogs offer a mixture of personal diary type writing with an occasional report or eye-catching story thrown in. I’m not sure there’s a real answer here, other than better search tools and more efficient organization of blog search results. The parsing would also have to include corporate blogs, fan club blogs, and others to discern authoritative blogs from the rest. Who will have this responsibility? This is not an easy question.

- Indexing more of AOL’s content. Our goal is to organize all of the world’s information. When we say “all the world’s information,” this includes AOL’s.

The second point is the most important point. Having access to AOL’s content gives Google a leg up on the competition in terms of video and audio media – an area that is a huge growth point in the search industry.

My wife, Charna, who is the editor of Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s alumni magazine, WPI Transformations, interviewed the creator of the virtual orchestra, Frederick Bianchi. Bianchi, a music professor at WPI, says the technology can be hard to swallow among musicians. He said his “Sinfonia� is not putting them all out on the street.

“Technology has always been a problem in society—especially when it displaces workers,� Bianchi told the magazine. “To make matters worse, this is one of the first instances of technology threatening a highly skilled labor pool.� He explained that Sinfonia has been used exclusively to complement and enhance, rather than replace, live musicians. “And the outcome has been a positive one for the industry.�

The Sinfonia has been used in more than 15,000 performances worldwide, including the National Broadway tours of Jekyll & Hyde, Evita, Phantom of the Opera, Annie, Ragtime, Titanic, Miss Saigon, The Music Man, Cinderella, Seussical, Oklahoma, and Les Miserables, and the world tour of Porgy & Bess.

As the news account suggests, there has been an increased sense that the government has been overstepping its bounds in order to stop future acts of terrorism and the college student’s account fed into that atmosphere.

I hate being fooled, especially when it comes to important issues.

Oh, and what happened to Microsoft’s philosophy, Robert? Can anyone say “Yaaaaaaahoooo!”

A plethora of advertising, high prices for services that could be found for free online, and a bombarding of spam are just a few of the issues that had me running – no, sprinting – away from AOL years ago.

AOL may have missed the opportunity to shift its whole operation to the Web and create a community of users dedicated to making the Internet experience as easy as possible. Instead, it stuck to its own sloppy Web browser and its own system of billboard style content centers that kept the user trapped in the AOL environment.

Now Google is taking a 5% stake in AOL. My first thought is that this could mean the end of unobtrusive advertising on Google. According to news reports, the deal includes the prospect of adding more graphical ads throughout the Google network. But so far, Google will not change its advertising strategy. Instead, the partnership bolsters AOL’s sales opportunities by allowing AOL staff the ability to have a stake in Google ads. In return it gives Google a chance to reach the group of AOL users that have stuck with AOL.

But perhaps the biggest part of the deal, which will benefit Google the most, is the opportunity to collaborate its fledgling IM client with AOL Instant Messenger. AOL’s IM client is the granddaddy of IM clients and can be used without paying a subscription for AOL services. This could open the Google IM to a fresh set of advertising, video, and other services. It could also help Google flesh out its VOIP service with AOL.

Video on demand is also a feature that Google is considering through this deal. Google is working out its video search function and needs access to more and more media. AOL is owned by Time Warner – one of the biggest owners of video programming. Microsoft’s Bill Gates has talked about the future of the Internet being based on video and other media. Ipods and other media devices that can play video and music files are no doubt springing up under a plethora of Christmas trees this year.

Look for 2006 to be a big year for advancements in online media via portable devices. That’s where Google sees the big payoff.

FBI agents connected to the Department of Homeland Security were soon at his doorstep.

“I shudder to think of all the students I’ve had monitoring al-Qaeda Web sites, what the government must think of that,” said Prof. Brian Glyn Williams of Dartmouth. “Mao Zedong is completely harmless.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for security and catching the bad guys, but just how many liberties are we willing to give up for the sake of security?

The debate is raging over whether President Bush was right in authorizing wiretapping of at least 30 individuals, allowing DHS or the FBI to skip having to prove a need in a court of law. There’s no doubt we’ll be revisiting this issue at this blog in the future.

My wife and I will be looking for a home in the next six months. So far, I’ve used Windows Live Local to get a “birds eye view� of the houses on the market and their immediate neighborhood. I’ve crossed out many homes based on the overhead view in Windows Live Local – a waste transfer station nearby, crossed off, a highway just a few hundred feet away, crossed off, a gas station next door, see ya!

Here is a view of the Statue of Liberty.

Fenway Park

Yankee Stadium

I’m an occasional viewer of Dobbs’ CNN program Lou Dobbs Tonight, which airs at 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.

While Dobbs tends to lean a little left and right of center, interjecting his opinions during segments, his show does a good job keeping checks on various issues, including illegal immigration, corporate corruption, and the offshore outsourcing trend, to name a few. His book Exporting America is a good quick read on the subject of offshore outsourcing.

If you missed the interview in 2004, Coleman, 38, was extremely aggressive — the way a good reporter should be — doggedly coming back to get the President to answer questions with new material and not the typical sound bites we often hear from the White House about the Iraq war. In the end, she interrupted the President eight times (yes, someone from the WH counted) and was relentless in getting specific answers about the missing “weapons of mass destruction,â€? the rising death toll of U.S. soldiers, and the growing anti-American sentiment in Ireland on the eve of an official visit from Washington. A transcript of the interview is also available.

You know you’ve done a good job, when a WH aide calls you on your cell phone to reprimand you.

“You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it,� she began.

It’s the interview of a lifetime. I think almost every reporter would feel those butterflies flapping their wings (more like hummingbirds) in their stomach. In the excerpt, Coleman lays out the interview in great detail.

After the interview, which had the President disturbed and his WH aides gasping, Coleman described her feelings.

I felt like a delinquent child who had been reprimanded by a stern, unwavering father. My face must have been the same color as my suit. Yet I also knew that we had discussed some important issues — probably more candidly than I had heard from President Bush in some time.

In my haste to leave I almost forgot the tapes and had to be reminded by the film crew to take them. I and my assistants bolted out to the street. We ran, high heels and all, across Lafayette Park. Running through rush-hour traffic, I thought that this had to be about as crazy as a journalist’s job gets.

Now, if only we could get more American journalists to be as aggressive and ask the tough questions. I suspect the WH has a firm grip on which reporters get interviews with the President, and I’m sure they’re the reporters that the President or the WH believes he can handle.

Cheers to Coleman.

I recently got a mailing from the Netherland-America Foundation asking me for a $100 donation to become a “Friend.” Always suspicious of these groups, I found an interesting Web site that could help determine how well a charity does its business. Is the CEO getting paid too much? How much money goes to administrative expenses?

These questions can be answered by the folks at Charity Navigator, an interesting site that makes it easy to check on an organization you’re thinking of sending your hard earned cash.

Oh, yes, the Netherland-America Foundation was rated about average, according to the site, which provides ratings based on the organization’s recent IRS filings. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my Dutch, Italian, and Irish heritage, but I’m not sure I’m ready to dole out $100 to an organization I have barely heard of.

• It ranks only as the 12th-biggest day historically, according to market researcher comScore Networks. It’s not even the first big day of the season. – Business Week
• Most e-tailers say the season’s top spending day comes much later, between around Dec. 5 and Dec. 15. – Business Week

Who will suffer? We’ll have to wait and see if local politics and government affairs continue to be covered. Is there a community of bloggers out there devoted to local news? Will local newspapers continue to serve a purpose? I suppose they will in the end. Most local businesses don’t have a need for global advertisements.

The reality is, I’m not sure who is in control of this change – this evolution.