While the dot com era seemed to herald the rise of lowercase letters beginning names (ebay, iPod, uBid, etc.) the word Internet was an annomoly. But that's now changed. According to Wired, we no longer need to capitalize the 'i' in 'internet'. Or the 'n' in net. Or the 'w' in 'web.'

[I]n the case of internet, web and net, a change in our house style was necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television.

Throughout the years, I've been one of those rare people who actually knew the proper capitalization and and tried as much as possible to abide by it. I remeber a former colleague sending out an email with the official style guide for all those new "new economy" terms. Off all the hundreds of email sna memos, that's one that stuck. And now I'll probably forget all the time about the lower-case i's. Maybe Jeneane needs to send out another memo...

This morning, I was reading the Chicago Trib online when an article title jumps out at me: Blogs flex muscle in `viral marketing'. I'm always interested in how the real media covers "new" things like blogs? Because they're usually either years behind the curve or base entirely.

Interestingly, however, my old boss from my Atlanta days at eKetchum days was one of the quoted "experts" in the article. Now I'm wondering if he even blogs. Guess I'll have to go hunt...

UPDATE: He does, at www.GumpRants.com.

At the end of the article, it lists some Chicago blogs, including Chicagoist!

So my old boss and my new blog in the same article...

As I mentioned in my previous entry, Anthony, Curtiss, Kenny, Ray and I finally got around to taking our email threads onto the web to keep our inboxes cleaner and to possibly draw a bit of an audience for our ramblings. The new site is now up and running. So without further delay, check out MonkeySpan!

Well since Anthony mentioned it today on his site, I thought I might as well give a little preview as well. The beta version of our group blog that was running here on my webspace got hosed yesterday by a corrupted database. We decided it was time to give the thing a proper name and a home of her own. We've registered the name, set up the web host, and we're just waiting for the name to propogate before holding our grand opening.

Check back here for the link to our new blog.

Ever since I left Ketchum and moved from Atlanta to Chicago, I have remained in close contact by email with my fellow web designers and our buddies in IT. After flooding our email inboxes with our banter, we finally decided it was about time to move these discussion to a blog, both to cut down on the flood of email and to share our ideas with a larger audience--should anyone find what we say of interest. Anyway, while still in the beta phases, here's our new blog.

UPDATE 2:
Mike Davidson has taken comments form the S vs. N blog into consideration and redesigned/rewritten the browser upgrade page that was the source of much criticism. I love the way weblogs create an instant community available for peer review and I love even more when companies admit they are not perfect, listen to suggestions and enhance their product as a result. Cluetrain at work!

UPDATE:
Mike Davidson, an art director at ESPN.com, is among those to post a comment in response to Signal vs. Noise's post.

Other sites have weighed in about the ESPN redesign, as well. Some share my views, others don't:

• Zeldman


• Signal vs. Noise - 37 Signals


• DesignFlea


• AltText

While I expressed my displeasure with ESPN's new homepage the other day, I will commend them for building a site that conforms to web standards, as Jeffrey Zeldman points out.

ESPN launched a redesigned homepage that just blows my mind how poorly executed it is. They actually have constant techno music playing for no reason!!!

Theybill the redesign as "part TV, part Internet, all good!" If I wanted part TV and part Internet, I'd have signed up for WebTV.

The site just has too much going, too many colors, eats too much bandwidth, it's all that people thought was cool in 2000 but that in reality made the internet detrimentally dificult to use. With all of the information that a sports site like ESPN needs to present, the efort needs to be on usability and information architecture, so that info is displayed in a manner people can quickly access and easily understand. They don't need to be trying to blow people away with wiz bang motion graphics and music!

Google Buys Pyra, creator of Blogger, according to this SiliconValley.com article.

Wonder what this fortells for the future of blogging...

SBC supposedly owns a patent for web browsing and hyperlinks, and as this letter from SBC legal to museumtour.com contends.

Among the accusations are that, "the user interface of website www.museumtour.com includes a selector section that includes selector for navigating through the website document. The selectors remail in the selector section regardless of the document portion displayed in the document frame."

So basically, SBC is claiming that by having tabs for navigation, which always remain visible while on the site, museumtour.com is in violation of its patent.

To gain complaiance, companies can pay royalties based on a revenue schedule inclued in the letter.

Now why didn't they go after the big guys, like AOL, MSN, etc. instead of some little site? Is every personal site going to get a letter from SBC?

Anthony posted the list of search terms that people have searched for and been taken to his site. So I decided to check mine, and thankfully I'm not attracting the same deviant low-lifes that Anthony is.

Most common searches:
1 chicago funiture
2 funny tv commericals
3 nfl blackout rule
4 funny funiture
5 funny jimmy carter quote
6 ikea comforter
7 jetblue branding
8 jetblue design
9 short entertainment funiture

I'm always hated AOL use of spamming tactics in the real world to try and boost membership. So I love this idea! These guys want to collect 1,000,000 AOL CDs to deliver to the door of AOL's headquarters. Right now they're approaching 65,000, which means they've probably been collecting for a day or two.

What sweet revenge. I hate the incredible quantities of CDs I get in the mail from AOL, in DVD cases, in metal Altoid-like tins, shrink wrapped to my Sports Illustrated, in my sunday paper... and I love how the boxes have "1000 Free Hours" printed on them and then they add a sticker about a Bonus 25 hours, like I'm really going to take the plunge now that I can stay on 24/7 for the 45 day trial instead of only 23.5 hours a day.

And those stupid TV commericals... but that's another AOL rant.

How to build a fly-powered model airplane. I wonder if this really works! (via In My Experience)

Some Friday Racing Fun! Build your own Slot Car track and race your car! They even jump off the track just like the real ones!