Google Finally Walks…Get the Camera!

I've eaten a lot of crow in my day…but for the first time, I am going to announce it online.  I have been completely overly critical of Google Labs.  For many months, I have lamented at Google Labs' lame attempts to create useless products that are all flash and no function. ...

Semi-live from the Personal Democracy Forum

Several members of The Bivings Group team are present at the 2008 Personal Democracy Forum, which aims to prove that technology is changing the way that we do politics.  Currently, I am sitting in a forum titled "Clickocracy" which hosts four journalistically inclined panelists: Jose Antonio Vargas, Ben Smith, Ana Marie Cox,...

Are Personal Blogs Appropriate for Professionals?

Simon Owens of Bloggasm, a blog that focuses on online media and journalism, recently conducted a very intriguing ‘mini-study' centered about the idea of personal blogging done by reporters, journalists, and other professionals.

He was inspired by the recent firings of two prominent writers, both of whom were fired due to participation in personal blogging. ...

Using Tweets and ImpactWatch Tools to Predict American Idol

Once again, the Internet is abuzz with predictions and theories about who is going to win American Idol.  In the early days of the competition (back when Kelly Clarkson was still a nobody singing karaoke and we only hypothesized that we hated the British without actually knowing it through Simon Cowell),...

Taking a look at Disqus

The Bivings Report is built in WordPress, which comes with a robust commenting system out of the box. Due to this, I’ve very rarely looked at third party commenting systems like Haloscan. I haven’t really had a comment problem so there was no need to experiment with these third party tools....