links for 2008-11-22

Cuts straight to the chase: "Q: Seems like lots of people might start viewing SearchWiki notes pages for a particular search. Does that mean I should be voting for my own site, to try and place them in the notes. A: I would. And will."

"We cannot simply write off Dubai though. It's already too well established for that and it's still in a very strong position to emerge as a dominant global financial centre, having taken less of a battering than, say, London or New York in the past year. The Burj Dubai is likely to remain the tallest building in the world for quite some time (surely nobody in the world has the appetite to challenge it?), but for the time being, the elaborate man-made coastline of the future that has become Dubai's abiding image is likely to remain just that – an image."

"A new digital library launched by the European Union has crashed within hours of opening - forcing its closure. The Europeana website was attracting more than 10 million hits an hour - more than double the number which had been anticipated". I mean, with all the experience we've had all over Europe with things like turn of the century online census data and tax returns, who could have predicted you needed to make a plan to roll-over to Akamai or S3 or something? I mean, who could imagine such a thing?

Their new album is bypassing the standard music industry route - "Idlewild are pleased to announce plans for our forthcoming new studio album with an opportunity for our fans to be involved from an early stage. By pre-ordering now for £15 you will receive: A limited edition CD album (with free download version) including at least one bonus track not available on the general release, your name will appear in a booklet with the album, you will be given access to download 15 free tracks of your choosing from live recordings, you will also have access to a members only section of the website with album progress updates, exclusive photo and video content from the recording and pre production process, diaries/blogs by individual band members, and lots more good stuff...."

I *heart* links from foreign language media blogs I can't understand. Thank you.

My favourite bit:"What could possibly give more insight to a user about a page than the following url: www.mybadasswebsite.com/[very long meaningless URL] (BTW: Don’t bother, I just purchased that domain name.)"

"As promised here's a bit more detail about what happened this week on the Strictly Come Dancing message boards". Nick with more numbers and a decision tree...

"They had the option of ordering each BBC Local site to syndicate their videos to online papers in their local market, for free - thereby absolving the publishers of multimedia investment costs, benefiting from the broadcaster’s core competency in audiovisual and making Auntie in to a production engine that enriches not just her viewers directly but also the commercial operators which the trust seeks to protect".

"Mr Biggs then posted his suicide note, where he said he had hurt other people and hated himself for being a failure. As he lay motionless on the bed after taking the pills, many forum members continued to insult him, believing that it was staged."

"If I was a major record label exec, I’d now be complaining that I’ve lost 500 potential sales here. But that’s obviously nonsense: the people who grabbed it off Mininova would never have bought it in the first place."