Popular Mechanics gets the scoop, including a video of their test drive of the Aptera Typ-1 e (electric) which features a 120-mile-range -- and only 3 wheels. Approximate price: $26,900.

Per Aptera's FAQ, the "car" is actually classified as a motorcycle but:

Anything in the state of CA with three wheels does not require a motorcycle license and enclosed vehicles with three wheels do not require the use of a helmet. All this and you also get to drive in the HOV lanes!

Also noteworthy: a solar panel integrated into the roof. And perhaps even room for 3 (sort of):

Typ-1 will also have a provision for a child’s seat mounted in the center of the vehicle behind the two front seats.

On the other hand, singles take note:

Aptera’s three-wheeler attracted more attention than anything we’ve ever driven—anything. People will roll down their windows at every stoplight and want to know what this weirdly futuristic thing is. If you’re parked, they swarm the car. It’s really a lot of fun.

Joel Johnson of Boing Boing's bbgadgets grabs an informative quote:

Think the Typ-1 looks funny? Well its shape is designed for maximum aero efficiency—the coefficient of drag is an astounding 0.11. Aptera founder and CEO Steve Fambro says sticking your hand out the window of an average car driving 55 mph creates more drag than the Aptera’s entire body.

If you live in CA and have $500 for a deposit, you can reserve yours now.

In 165 seconds of (funny, clever) video, Lane Hartwell's (copyrighted) photo of blogger Owen Thomas flashed by in just under 1 second (at 1:25). Is that allowed under the "fair use" exception to copyright law? I think not; though in any case it's a gray area of law (read the comments too).

Either way, using a DMCA takedown notice to have YouTube and others remove the video was way over the top. That "punishment" far exceeded the uncertain "crime" and justifiably brought plenty of ridicule (and some support) across the blogosphere.

With the first chapter done, what next? Having made her point, I think Hartwell should have backed off gracefully and allowed the original video to be posted with a new set of credits. The incident still serves as a warning, and she could claim some high ground: "if they had asked permission in advance, I would have allowed it". Alas, those are my words not hers.

The Richter Scales posted a new video on YouTube, with a link to a long list of credits.

And Hartwell chose to shoot her profession in the foot.

I will be sending the band an invoice for their use of my image in the first version of the video.

Reality check: the Richter Scales are not raking in the dough:

in the week Version 1.0 was up, we sold only eight CDs of previously recorded music. That's one CD sold per 125,000 viewers of the video. If this rate holds, the "profits" from CD sales will equal the $355 we spent making the video when Version 1.1 gets its 3.5 millionth view. (Mommas, don't let your babies grow up to be a cappella singers.)

I think there are two issues that Hartwell and many other copyright holders don't understand.

First, copyright was never intended to allow absolute control. It's always been a balance between the creators and the public.

Second, the details of that balance change over time. With cheap digital cameras, "computers" of every shape and size (including the latest mobile phones), and this Internet thing, the supply of "content" (words, pictures, music, video) continues to explode. The value of a single photograph goes down.

Hartwell argues:

I continue to maintain that individuals must be fairly compensated for their work.

That's true to an extent, but "fairly compensated" doesn't mean "I can get paid the same way and amount that photographers used to get paid". Are newspapers "fairly compensated" for classified ads? Ask CraigsList.

In many industries, market power is moving from business to individuals. Guess what? As a professional photographer, Hartwell is on the "business" side here. Photography will only survive as a profession if it can adapt to a changing world.

Hint #1: instead of sending a takedown notice, bring your case to the court of public opinion. Thanks to the blogosphere, that reaches farther than ever before.

Hint #2: instead of dismissing everyone who disagrees, listen to them. Among other details: a snapshot of a person taken at a public event is a very poor place to draw a line in the sand.

Hint #3: once you figured out that the video wasn't a money-maker, post a sincere apology for overreacting (even if you stand by the basic principle). Words matter -- which is one reason photographers are upset when they don't get credit.

Hint #4: don't send an invoice. The likely reaction: "if professional photographers are so greedy, who needs them?"

Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb covers a new site that tracks Twitter:

On Tweeterboard you'll find not only a list of the top 100 most influential users on Twitter - you can also look up any of almost 2000 users and see who they are conversing with and get some idea how much influence they carry in the Twitter ecosystem.

From the site's about page:

Tweeterboard is a way of looking at who is influential on Twitter based on their conversations with other Twitter users. There are other services, like Twitterposter, that base influence on how many followers you have. Tweeterboard looks at who talks to you.

Looks like it might become popular among Twitter fans.

The post seems to have gotten plenty of attention anyway (617 diggs at the moment), but here's a better link-bait title: Last night I upgraded from Vista to Windows XP.

After covering performance, device support, reliability, gaming and multimedia, the conclusion is obvious:

Microsoft has really outdone themselves in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Vista was sub-optimal. From my testing, discussions with friends and colleagues, and a review of the material out there on the web there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that that upgrade to XP is well worth the money. Microsoft can really pat themselves on the back for a job well done, delivering an operating system which is much faster and far more reliable than its predecessor. Anyone who thinks there are problems in the Microsoft Windows team need only point to this fantastic release and scoff loudly.

Well done Microsoft!

Last week, a very clever video made the rounds of the tech blogosphere and beyond, becoming the #1 rated video on YouTube. Here comes another bubble* by the a cappella group Richter Scales. Earlier this week, it was taken down for unspecified copyright violations.

Yesterday Wired revealed the culprit: photographer Lane Hartwell. See also her post: Please don't steal my work.

First some sympathy: producer Matt Hempey clearly should have paid attention to the license of images that he grabbed from Flickr. (The site has a very clear Creative Commons search.) His music group sells a CD, so should understand copyright. Second, even if he fudged the copyright issue (or sincerely thought it was fair use), he should have included a list of credits. That step alone may have saved the day here.

But, though she is probably correct on the legal side, Hartwell's action strikes me as a mistake. I couldn't tell which photo in the video was hers, but it probably flashed by in a few seconds and almost certainly had no influence on the video's runaway popularity. When copyright owners reach too far to enforce their rights, they will lose in the court of public opinion.

On the third hand (!): her critics also go too far. As with many legal issues, the lines aren't clear -- as is obvious when panels of judges disagree, and higher courts overrule lower ones.

I'll give the last word to "gloom" who commented on Hartwell's post:

NB, for those who knee-jerk 'parody!parody!,' the image use here doesn't really fall into 'parody' fair-use as it's not a parody of the image in question.

On Monday, Lycos announced their 50 Top Search Terms list, covering Jan. 1 through Dec. 1, 2007. Unlike other lists that I've seen, it includes blogs. Here's the list plus some info. that we gather ("T100" = Technorati 100):

#		Blog	T100	Alexa		Primary category
1		i TMZ.com	13	1,028		Celebrity Gossip
2		i PerezHilton.com	14	773		Celebrity Gossip
3		i Kotaku	19	1,938		Games
4		i The Huffington Post	6	3,071		Liberal
5		i Pink Is The New Blog	-	12,098		Celebrity Gossip
6		i Engadget	2	721		Gadgets
7		i PostSecret	15	14,555		Life
8		i Daily Kos	12	4,830		Liberal
9		i Gizmodo	3	950		Gadgets
10		i Defamer	-	21,394		Celebrity Gossip

The earlier report has been confirmed by Blognation's founder, Sam Sethi:

I have announced internally that I am stepping down from blognation and that the company will be put up for auction

How does he address the public criticism? He ignores it. [See update below.] Instead, he puts most of the blame on Mike Arrington of TechCrunch -- but that looks an awful lot like "shoot the messenger" (plus "it's not my fault").

Yesterday I estimated* that Blognation's current traffic might yield $2,076 per month in advertising revenue. Factor in reasonable growth estimates plus the value of the domain name (if that's included), then subtract out actual and potential liabilities. The net: it's a tough call.

It's usually possible to structure a deal to purchase assets without liabilities. However, that would almost certainly be a huge mistake here. If a purchaser doesn't pay what is owed to writers (and perhaps developers), they will start off with a very poor reputation in the blogosphere.

(* Traffic is based on their published data; revenue is based on my CPM estimate.)

Update: After reading a few other reactions, I realized that I skimmed Sethi's post too quickly. Here's his defense for lying:

From that point on (yet with hindsight I deeply regret) I decided to keep up the pretense that blognation had closed funding to put Arrington off the scent and to prevent him publishing, in order to buy just enough time to raise new funding.

How lame.

Attention startups: a new angel investor is on the loose. And he has a blog: What is left?. VentureBeat has the details:

Chris Sacca, the head of special initiatives at Google who led Google’s efforts to open up the wireless spectrum to more competition, is leaving Google to invest in early-stage technology companies.
...
He’ll be leaving Google at the end of this month. He has forged relationships with Ev Williams, of Obvious (owner of messaging company Twitter) and Paul Graham (head of incubator company Y Combinator), though he hasn’t made any formal arrangements for co-investing.

Only 4 posts this year, but the archives go back to January 2004. More recently, you can follow him on Twitter.

The Blognation network is in turmoil, with controversial founder Sam Sethi accused of various misdeeds which seem to be documented in some detail. There's an unconfirmed report from Debi Jones (who is owed money by Blognation) that Sethi has stepped down. (In the comments, Jones says the information is from "a Skype chat with the rest of Blognation’s current and previous staff".)

What traffic and potential revenue is at stake?

Adding up the numbers (below) from Blognation's ad page yields 692,974 impressions (page views?) per month. At a modest $3 RPM (not great, but also not always achievable for general blogging) that's a potential $2,076 (US dollars) per month. (RPM = revenue per thousand impressions, e.g. one ad at $3 CPM, two at $1.50 each, etc.) Of course that's just a static analysis; the potential upside depends on growth.

I've included Alexa's estimate of where people go by subdomain. The Alexa toolbar is probably used more in the US than elsewhere, so the skew vs. Blognation's numbers isn't surprising.

		Alexa	Impressions	Clicks
	USA	12%	195,801	218
	Germany	16%	146,078	214
	Global	15%	138,132	351
	Company Index	7%	121,795	29
	United Kingdom	10%	39,274	34
	Belgium	5%	28,375	120
	Ireland		14,142	38
	Italy	2%	9,377	21
	Canada	8%
	Russia	5%
	China	3%
	France	3%
	India	3%
	Japan	3%
	Australia	1%
	Updates	1%
	Jobs	1%
	other	2%

Advertising money is moving online -- and away from TV. One small sign:

Fourth-ranked broadcaster NBC has quietly begun reimbursing advertisers an average of $500,000 each for failing to reach guaranteed ratings levels, the first time a network has taken such a step in years, media buyers said.

Networks usually offer make-goods -- free advertising slots -- in the event of such shortfalls. But NBC has none to give. ...

CBS, ABC and Fox also are doling out make-goods, primarily for the first quarter. They have blamed softness on a new ratings formula, but media agencies disagree. None of the networks would comment.

Update: Per Silicon Alley Insider:

• the original story is from Adweek
• the WSJ (subscription required) covered NBC's response

Here's a very cool hack from Johnny Chung Lee. Install some free software, mount a Wiimote (Nintendo Wii Remote Controller, $39.99 at Amazon.com) above your LCD screen and you can use a homemade light pen to control your computer. (Start at about 3:00 in the video below.)

The Wii console itself is not required; the hack just uses the LED sensors in the Bluetooth-based Wiimote.

Add a projector to the mix and you can turn any surface into a touchscreen! The video shows a whiteboard then a desk. Sweet.

Bonus: it supports up to 4 light pens. Downside: the software is Windows only. Upside: source code is included, so the Mac and Linux may not be far behind.

Hat tips: Hack a Day via Engadget.

America's Future Foundation is looking for:

the best conservative or libertarian college blogger. The purpose of the contest is to encourage original liberty-minded blogger journalism on college campuses and to identify young conservative and libertarian talent who wish to pursue careers as journalists and writers.

The contest is open to all graduate and undergraduate bloggers age 25 and younger. The winning blog will be awarded a cash prize of $10,000.

Application Deadline: December 31, 2007.

Of 7 judges, 4 are libertarian:

• Jonathan Adler of The Volokh Conspiracy and The Corner
• Radley Balko of The Agitator
• Megan McArdle ("Jane Galt") of Asymmetrical Information at TheAtlantic.com
• Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit

3 are conservative:

• Robert Bluey of The Heritage Foundation and RobertBluey.com
• Jonah Goldberg of The Corner on National Review Online
• Mary Katharine Ham (a video blogger) of TownHall.com

My take: wouldn't separate prizes for each category be better?

Have you seen other blogging scholarships or contests? Let us know.

Four weeks ago (minus a few hours), I was mingling at BlogWorld Expo's opening night party. Amidst the conversation (and food), I didn't pay much attention to what happened on stage. One thing I missed: Daniel Kovach presented the $10,000 CollegeScholarships.org award check to Kimberley Klein for her blog The Merits of the Case, One mom's journey through life, law school and breast cancer.

Each runner up received $1,000:

• Shelley Batts Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog
• Jess Kim MIT Admissions| Blog: Jess '10

7 additional finalists received $100 each:

• Grant Brisbee McCovey Chronicles :: A Giants Blog
• Matthew Burden BLACKFIVE
• Stephanie Collins Poorer Than You
• Karin Dalziel Musings of an LIS Student
• Shane Lavalette /JOURNAL
• Thomas Peters AmericanPapist: Not Your Average Catholic!
• Paul Stamatiou tech news/reviews/guides

10 more entrants were on the list of finalists:

• Travis Addington ?
• Samuel Arbesman The Biourbanist
• Randall Booth Over the Monster :: A Boston Red Sox Blog
• Chris Clark Wife Advice
• Sean Clark The Big Room (and the little things in it)
• Liz Funk The view from here
• Anders Ibsen Young People For Blog
• Kambiz Kamrani Anthropology.net
• Amanda Kern VCC Graphics Technology
• Kevin Lim theory.isthereason

When we set out to develop our site, we wanted a Web framework or "content management system" (CMS) that had lots of features "out of the box" while remaining infinitely flexible. Our scripting language of choice is Python. After reviewing several good Python frameworks, it was clear that Django fit best with our approach to Web development. (See their Design philosophies for details.)

One thing Django didn't include: a blogging app. (That's ok; this blog is only a small part of Blogcosm.) So, we wrote Blogmaker™, incorporating and/or modifying various off-the-shelf pieces as appropriate. It includes all of the blog features that are here at blog.blogcosm.com (but not the "reference" features elsewhere on our site). We just released it for free, under the open source BSD license.

At the moment, Blogmaker is aimed at a very specific audience: Python developers who are already using Django (or have been meaning to try it). We haven't included much in the way of documentation -- but at the very least it should be much faster to start with Blogmaker than develop something from scratch. (We also link to a few other starting points.)

By coincidence, James Bennett (whose comment_utils we include) recently addressed a question he hears often: Where is Django’s blog application? We agree with his conclusion: the right way to create a blogging solution in Django is with:

a collection of applications which, taken together, provide all the key functionality (while allowing a certain amount of mixing and matching in order to customize the finished product)

Blogmaker provides several useful pieces, and we chose a license that imposes very few restrictions on how those get used. We have additional features planned, and welcome contributions from others. Learn more.

Yesterday, Richard Jalichandra (Technorati's new CEO) introduced The (really) new Technorati.com:

it leverages the best of Technorati's definitive resources to offer an evolved, discovery-driven experience that is more powerful, more relevant, and more instant than ever before.
...
This release is momentous, but it's also multi-faceted, and to do the nuances justice I've asked a couple veteran team members to post some rationale and descriptions of the new features. We'll be listening for your feedback as we progress from this step forward, and we hope you enjoy the new discovery.

OK, let's turn to Peter Hirshberg, Discovery, News and Blogs:

We built Technorati on blog search .... But the incredible growth in user generated content means we need to go beyond the "search" paradigm and find a better way to highlight and present the best of what's happening now, and moreover what's gaining attention in topical areas of interest to our audience.

And Ian Kallen, Discover The Real Time Web:

today we're releasing discovery features that have been tooled up to bring you the Technorati Percolator. .... Our search application surfaces keyword, tag and link query results as they unfold. Our discovery features will tell you what's going on, not requiring that you know what to ask

So, what's the verdict around the blogosphere? In offering his own view, I think Fred Wilson (A VC) has the best summary right in his post's title: My Love Hate Relationship With Technorati.

But, don't take my word for it, all you have to do is search Technorati. Does that answer the question? We report, you decide.

I think that blogs create some of the most compelling content anywhere, so this quote got my attention:

The golden age of Internet acquisitions is upon us. Large media companies will be gorging on existing and promising content sites for years to come.

The context:

For News Corp. to buy a site like Beliefnet surely shows that News Corp. is only at the beginning of its Internet buying spree. This is bullish news for content sites on virtually any topic. The Internet has finally achieved what I had predicted in the mid-1990s: that the Internet would spawn an enormous wave of vertical content sites way beyond what print was ever able to accomplish. Internet [publishing] is an economic wonder. Regardless of the number of readers, costs do not increase very much. .... And now that the Internet is becoming part of every home and business worldwide the opportunities are greater and greater for vertical content sites to thrive (for both the consumer and the BtoB market).
...
If I had time, I think I would work as a media banker buying and selling Web sites.

BTW, who is this guy and why should we listen to him? He was one of the first successful internet entrepreneurs.

Alan M. Meckler is founder, Chairman and CEO of Jupitermedia, and was an executive at Mecklermedia Corporation from 1971 until it was acquired by Penton Media (a large publisher of trade magazines) in November 1998 for $274 Million. Mecklermedia ran industry-renowned events such as Internet World.

Jupitermedia includes Jupiterimages (with over 7.0 million images online), internet.com and EarthWeb.com for IT and business professionals; DevX.com for developers; Mediabistro.com and Graphics.com for media and creative professionals. JupiterOnlineMedia properties include more than 150 Web sites and over 150 e-mail newsletters that are viewed by over 20 million users and generate over 400 million page views monthly.

Worth noting: I thought the best coverage of the Beliefnet acquisition came from Paid Content with some additional history at alarm:clock.

There's a job opening at i Gawker ("daily Manhattan media news and gossip"): Managing Editor. It's a high-visibility gig:

Gawker.com receives more than 10m pageviews per month. Think of Gawker less as a blog than as a full-blown news site. The right candidate will oversee Gawker's evolution.

We're casting a wide net for candidates, beyond the clubby world of bloggers. Because Gawker is becoming a larger and more complex operation, and, frankly, a more traditional one.

It's no longer enough to take stories from the New York Times, and add a dash of snark. Gawker needs to break and develop more stories.

Speaking of snark, they actually link to a very critical Oct. 14 article in New York Magazine: Everybody Sucks; Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass. I've sort of avoided covering that article to date, but here's a relevant excerpt: (emphasis added)

... at the Gawker offices, where, beneath a veneer of self-deprecation, the core belief is that bloggers are cutting-edge journalists—the new "anti-media." No other form has lent itself so perfectly to capturing the current ethos of young New York, which is overwhelmingly tipped toward anger, envy, and resentment at those who control the culture and apartments. "New York is a city for the rich by the rich, and all of us work at the mercy of rich people and their projects," says Choire Sicha, Gawker's top editor (he currently employs a staff of five full-time writers). "If you work at any publication in this town, you work for a millionaire or billionaire. In some ways, that's functional, and it works as a feudal society.

Choire Sicha was Managing Editor when the article appeared; he and editor Emily Gould apparently gave their notice on Friday (per Peter Kafka of Silicon Alley Insider). Rachel Sklar (Eat The Press, The Huffington Post) pointed to a confirmation in a long, rambling Gawker post. Worth reading for those interested in the job:

In the Budget truck, I also had time to read most of Carla Blumenkranz's review, 'In Search of Gawker.' Carla went back into the Gawker archives to trace the site's evolution from Elizabeth Spiers' first post in 2002 to the decadent Gawker of today. ... the site's next editor Choire Sicha's appeal was that he was "almost impersonally sharp and cruel and correct."

That's appealing? Welcome to Gawker.

Update: Jakob Lodwick (co-founder of Connected Ventures, Vimeo, CollegeHumor, and Busted Tees; all bought by IAC/InterActiveCorp in August 2006) posted his view on Saturday:

Gawker's premise is "people are bad". It acts as if all humans are inherently awful. Any achievement is framed as an accident; a distraction from the achiever's underlying depravity. This worldview is directly at odds with our city's best and brightest. Nick, it won't be easy to recruit someone better than Emily and Choire; as the months march on, the pool of creative youngsters who are willing to turn themselves into professional assholes will shrink. If you would like to reverse Gawker's premise and turn it into something else entirely, we should talk. A publication that celebrates excellence instead of negating it could be a big hit in the near future.

Hat tip: Jason Calacanis who calls it "the most accurate description of Gawker Media I've ever read". (For those who don't track such things: Calacanis founded Weblogs Inc., a competitor to Gawker Media.)