Tim Berners-Lee on the issue of Net Neutrality: "When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyone's permission. The new application rolled out over the existing Internet without modifying it. I tried then, and many people still work very hard still, to make the Web technology, in turn, a universal, neutral, platform. It must not discriminate against particular hardware, software, underlying network, language, culture, disability, or against particular types of data..."

The beauty of it, he explains: "Anyone can build a new application on the Web, without asking me, or Vint Cerf, or their ISP, or their cable company, or their operating system provider, or their government, or their hardware vendor.

"It is of the utmost importance that, if I connect to the Internet, and you connect to the Internet, that we can then run any Internet application we want, without discrimination as to who we are or what we are doing. We pay for connection to the Net as though it were a cloud which magically delivers our packets. We may pay for a higher or a lower quality of service. We may pay for a service which has the characteristics of being good for video, or quality audio. But we each pay to connect to the Net, but no one can pay for exclusive access to me. "

Terry Heaton reports on the decision made by news director Peggy Phillip , "the first local television executive ever to blog," to shut down her blog due to an anonymous attack blog aimed at her and her colleagues: "The site not only went after Peggy; they also apparently applied their name-calling to Howard Meagle, General Manager of WMC-TV. "He's a good guy," Peggy told me, "and didn't deserve to be called fat and stupid. That and combined with the bloggers desire to do a letter-writing campaign to Raycom made it clear to me that it was becoming a distraction that could influence work in the newsroom" . . .

And so extortion has won a victory, and the blogosphere has lost a pioneering voice. Peggy is brusque and competitive and has made her share of enemies, but nobody deserves the kind of personal attacks this site apparently distributed."

Jay Rosen gives a thorough analysis of press reactions to Vice President Dick Cheney's decision to delay notification about his hunting accident : "Cheney has long held the view that the powers of the presidency were dangerously eroded in the 1970s and 80s. The executive “lost” prerogatives it needed to gain back for the global struggle with Islamic terror. “Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam both during the 70’s served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area,” he said in December.

Some of that space was lost to the news media, and its demand to be informed about all aspects of the presidency, plus its sense of entitlement to the star interlocutor’s role. Cheney opposes all that, whereas (Marlin)Fitzwater accepted most of it. That’s why Fitz is appalled and Cheney is rather pleased with himself."

Paul Conley on the importance of building community in B2B publishing: "Smart tradeshow executives know that a tradeshow is only a place. The lure is the community that gathers in it. And success comes from creating a show that fosters community. Those of us in B2B publishing would be wise to follow that lead. Sure, some of our articles are great. And yes, some of our product reviews are really interesting. But if you want readers to feel as if they belong, then you must let them build the community themselves. "