Resignation at CNN Shows the Growing Influence of Blogs

With the resignation Friday of a top news executive from CNN, bloggers have laid claim to a prominent media career for the second time in five months.

//If only this worked for politicians

Foot in the mouth

Welcome to Google. Now shut up. <!– D(["mb","he\'s now free to explore other opportunities. In January, Jen simultaneously signed on at Google and began blogging his experiences and impressions on a site called Ninetyninezeros (one zero short of googol). A week later, the blog disappeared, only to return a few days later in edited form, with Jen\'s explanation that he was trying to respond to some concerns of his employer. Make that trying and failing. Word gradually emerged in the tight community of Google watchers that Jen was frogmarched off the campus in late January. And if a memo has gone \'round reminding employees that blogs may build the company but kill a career, no word has leaked out.\r\nNovel concept in online music: You buy it, you own it.\r\nMichael Robertson, CEO of the desktop Linux firm Linspire and founder of the pioneering, but ill-starred, music download Web site MP3.com, re-entered the digital music business this morning with MP3Tunes.com. Offering $.88 downloads, free of any sort of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and compatible with any device that can play MP3 files (including iTunes and the iPod), MP3Tunes makes a compelling business case in a DRM-based online music world, although it will no doubt suffer a bit for its lack of major-label artists. But that doesn\'t seem to faze Robertson, who seems confident he\'s got a sound model. "All new trends in music start with emerging artists and progressive-thinking labels who are most willing to try new approaches, which is where MP3tunes is focusing initially," ",1] ); //–>In a lot of ways, Google is a model of a progressive company, projecting a sense of fun, creativity and higher purpose. But on the subject of what its employees can say publicly, it’s a strict constructionist. When it comes to talking about the inner workings of the company, there’s one rule: Don’t do it. That’s the rule newbie Googler Mark Jen apparently broke, and as a result, he’s now free to explore other opportunities. In January, Jen simultaneously signed on at Google and began blogging his experiences and impressions on a site called Ninetyninezeros (one zero short of googol). A week later, the blog disappeared, only to return a few days later in edited form, with Jen’s explanation that he was trying to respond to some concerns of his employer. Make that trying and failing. Word gradually emerged in the tight community of Google watchers that Jen was frogmarched off the campus in late January. And if a memo has gone ’round reminding employees that blogs may build the company but kill a career, no word has leaked out.

//siliconvalley.com