Wednesday, December 8, 2004 at 8:50AM Here's one recent HighBeam article in results for search "snow monkeys".
source: OLIVIER MORIN, Agence France Presse, November 10, 2004.
via: 
HighBeam Research
All together now: "Awww!"
Tuesday, December 7, 2004 at 9:15PM A clarification for Staci Kramer at PaidContent: there's no "pay-for-play" involved in the HighBeam/Chief Blogging Officer thing except for the Chief himself. Near as I can tell, his initial band of "Partners in Crime" are friends, psychotherapists, and/or ne'er-do-wells Locke hopes will use the HighBeam search and database to inform their posts. It's happily optional and sadly unpaid. Seeing as how most Bag and Baggage posts aren't exactly what you'd call thoroughly researched, I haven't really banged on the thing yet. It's got a really impressive roster of publications though, and the idea is you can't generally access this stuff unless you shell out subscription or HighBeam search fees. From time to time I have occasion to cite a reliable source or two, and I can see it coming in handy then. The idea is, if I link to something I find in HighBeam, you get to read it — for a short time anyway, the links expire in like a week. Thereafter the links result in a précis of the article and (HighBeam hopes I guess) the thought that you might plunk down hard cash in order to find more such information.
HighBeam is not the first to give bloggers enhanced access in an effort to lure subscribers, though I think it's the first to do it so publicly. The New Republic has been sending me regular emails since last June with the same basic idea. Their email explains,
As you probably know, about half of our daily articles are accessible only to subscribers. These emails will include pass-through links to some of our subscriber-only content. We encourage you to forward these links to friends and colleagues you think would be interested in reading them--and, if you are a blogger, to use these pass-through links if you write about any of our pieces. Your readers will get the benefit of reading some of our subscriber-only material; and we will get the benefit of interesting your readers in TNR Online.
I haven't rigorously tested this, but I think the TNR pass-through links do not expire, so that's nice. This strategy strikes me as good and (one hopes) effective marketing — something Chris Locke knows a thing or two about — that's doubly smart because the blogger conduits (tragically) aren't being paid. They and their readers are being given a little greater access to content that's otherwise invisible online in order that the publishers can fish for subscribers in what has got to be a well-stocked pool. The Wall Street Journal should do this. Thanks Kevin for the heads up on Staci's post. (You people are determined to keep me from needing an aggregator, it's kind of beautiful. =D)
[Update:] See John Battelle, From Pull to Point: How to Save The Economist and The Journal from Irrelevance:
It's a massive opportunity to convert: the reader has come to your site on the recommendation of a trusted source (the blog he or she is reading). It's pretty certain that if you make that page inviting, and use it as an opportunity to sell the reader on the value of the rest of your site, that that reader will eventually feel like the Journal is worthy of his or her support.
Other odds and ends —
More sage advice than you can shake a Douglas Fir at: Kevin also points to Tony Pierce's new book, How To Blog, and J. Craig Williams writes in like vein for lawyers. [Via Evan Schaeffer]
I miss Santa's blog.
iPodResQ will revive your old, dead iPod for a reasonable fee, and everybody needs another several gigs worth of portable hard drive.
This police auction site has a great URI.
Adam Curry's PodSquad outline. A Rollup Podcast Aggregator. Steve Gillmor's ZDNet blog has an actual address — yay! More ZDNet blogs.
Cheryl Stephens writes Privity, "on achieving balance and meaning in the legal life," and Effortlessly Perfect, on "women's challenges in law." (In my case it's more like Inelegantly Falling To Pieces, but I can dream I suppose.)
Tuesday, December 7, 2004 at 1:34PM Joe Hodnicki, Web producer of the Law Professor Blogs network, emails that "The Law Professor Blogs network just surpassed 1-million page views!" Not bad at all, considering their first blogger began posting in April, '04. (!) (Why do I suspect I'd be alot more — even more? — full of myself if I were using Joe's site stats tool?) I love that more and more law professors are trying out and liking weblogs. If I were a law student, I'd be even more thrilled.
[Update:] So much for that, turns out I am using Joe's site stats tool. Joe explains their TaxProf Blog and Sentencing Law & Policy have received most of this traffic, with outlets like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times contributing to the flow. Related/unrelated: just stumbled on New York Law School's Blogs for Law Faculty page.
Monday, December 6, 2004 at 9:28PM I couldn't agree more with what Doc Searls has to say about Judge Posner and Professor Becker firing up a weblog:
I don't know about the rest of ya'll, but I think this blog is auspicious in the Xtreme. The world depresses me less, just knowing it's there.
While most of us were marveling at how this was too good to be true, Kieran Healy was marveling at how this was too good to be true. From Posner and Becker Comedy Gold: "All in all, I look forward to future entries, which may provide further clues as to who the deadpan genius behind this blog really is." [Via Howard Bashman] I guess on the Internet, nobody knows you're a Nobel Laureate. At least thanks to the Article III Groupie we've gotten to the bottom of the name order issue — not to mention becoming acquainted with the not immediately apparent similarities between Judge Posner and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
Monday, December 6, 2004 at 4:02PM While it's not hard to imagine how iPodder might help Apple sell iPods (which it's not having much trouble with on its own), I'm living proof of the fact it will also be responsible for sales of a slightly more mundane but nearly as pricey product: the Panther OS. (iPodder doesn't seem to run on Jaguar.) Some observations:
