links for 2007-05-17

Jason Kottke makes a strong case that Technorati is heading in the wrong direction. That’s it. I’ve had it. No more Technorati. I’ve used the site for, what, a couple of years now to keep track of what people were saying about posts on kottke.org and searching blogs for keywords or current events. During that…

My favorite restaurant in Washington, DC suffered a serious fire early yesterday morning while the place was empty. Check out the pictures from Tim Carman at the Washington City Paper to get a feel for the damage at Todd Gray’s Equinox. It certainly wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but there is clearly…

Cough-drop maker Ricola has come up with a creative way to market its product — the Mystery Cougher contest.  I heard it on the radio on the way in to work and checked it out online.  The gist is that if you offer a Ricola to someone coughing in public and that turns out to…

Townhall.com is spinning off from The Heritage Foundation to become a separate entity and is shedding its 501(c)3 tax status in the process.  This represents a major development as it will no longer be constrained by IRS rules to avoid political activism.  It has the potential to become a powerful conservative grassroots activation tool.  (As…

Online Media Daily reports: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said that its aggressive online viral campaign targeting trendy teen apparel retailer Wet Seal has led the company to agree not to carry fur this fall. PETA’s initiative, which leveraged the membership of social networking site MySpace, illustrates marketers’ newfound respect for online opinion,…

I’m going to start adding a digest of links to interesting articles and blog posts.  These are things that don’t rise to the level of a full individual post, but which many of you may find interesting and informative nonetheless.  Without further ado, here’s the first installment: Outsell Now: A $358 Billion Information Industry by…