links for 2005-10-04

SiliconBeat: Digg gets $2.8 Mil Funding another “public as the news editor” site (tags: Aggregation VC) e-fluentials – Advocacy Drives Growth “finding a link between word of mouth recommendations and sales performance” (tags: WordOfMouth MarketResearch) LookSmart Expands Vertical Search 131 new verticals added (tags: VerticalSearch)

Google has launched an app called Sidebar that sits on your desktop and monitors news, email, weather and other things. It self customizes based on what you browse. I just installed it to test it out and will let you know what I find. [via TechCrunch]

Jason Calacanis takes a look at what the recent changes in the search/portal area mean — and how he sees things going in the future. Another day, another series of amazing changes in our industry. Today Microsoft got into Google’s Adsense business, Yahoo finally admmitted they are in the content business, and Google is getting…

MIT Technology Review notes how active the big TV players are in trying to crack the mobile market. the networks themselves are looking at ways to create their own mobile content for sale to cell-phone subscribers. ABC, for example, has an entire division devoted to mobile content.

There’s something enjoyable about pulling out a new year’s calendar — even if we now don’t grab an actual calendar but simply see the date flip over to a new year on the computer screen. Even though dates have no magical powers, it always feels a bit like a clean slate every January 1. That’s…