I am sure many readers might have heard that Google is busily scanning printed documents around the world for Google Scholar.

Whether you are a "scholar" or not you owe it to yourself to check out this amazing resource. I tested the beta version and was positively shocked by how easy it was to use and the amount of information a user can readily find.

I searched topics like Abraham Lincoln and even a book or two that I authored. It is amazing to see the full text appearing and then to see the links and articles that Google Search offers in tandem with the full text.

The number of uses that the public will derive from this service is enough to want one to run out and buy Google stock (by the way I am not a stockholder).

Many readers are by now aware that Jupitermedia could be sold. Yesterday we issued a press release describing the possible transaction.

This type of news creates many questions. However security law regulations prevent me from commenting beyond our press release of yesterday. Therefore this blog will confine itself for the time being to general Internet commentary and highlights of Jupitermedia divisional insights.

Interesting bit of blog history from ceoblogwatch.

Some background. If one checks the history of this blog, indeed the first entry is about the failure of our attempt at running cdXpo. However this blog did start several months earlier. Those earlier entries were erased by me. These posts were directed at the management of the Comdex tradeshow that cdXpo was competing against. Regrettably I succumbed to pressure by certain industry individuals to remove my entries. I regret having done this, but wanted to mention this for historical accuracy (I doubt anyone cares, but I feel better about having admitted to this mistake).

I came across yet another interesting stock photo industry blog written by Paul Melcher. Melcher takes a negative shot at Corbis' recently reported "selected" financials for 2006. As an aside, it is interesting to see that a private company can "selectively" brag about results --but why brag if the profit and or loss numbers are not included? Growth is great to have, but if you do not make money then what good is growth? And this is the case made by Melcher.

I recently came across a blogger named Dan Heller. Any reader interested in the stock photo industry should take a look at Heller's posts. Some of his financial analysis is off base, but he is definitely an original thinker.

His recent posts on the threat of user generated photo content and Corbis are quite interesting.

We launched the latest version of our RoyaltyFreeMusic.com. Now included with perhaps the largest downloadable library of RF music in the world is a new subscription offering.

We got into RF music 13 months ago. We are now a power in the field. And with this new subscription offering we have added an important evolutionary dimension in the vertical musical field of RF music.

In an age where digital rights management issues and royalty wars rage, we have created a calm backwater where any organization can obtain afforable RF music without the nuisance of DRM issues and royalty payments.

It is our hope that any Web site or bricks and mortar organization that needs background music will soon turn to Jupitermedia for such musical needs. This goes for the entertainment industry as well.

Once again Jupitermedia is proving that it is far broader in its thinking and in its offerings than any of its competitors.

Blogger Krantz wrote an interesting piece about my return to the tradeshow business.

I think the most interesting point is how and when my blog started. It is correct that I started this blog in Feburary of 2003 to comment on the attempt to unseat the erstwhile Comdex event. And of course the blog evolved into general Internet thoughts as well as comments about our company.

I do hope the thoughts about my ability to be prescient on trends holds true. We like the topics we are covering with our new trade shows. I have some more ideas too but that will be for another post.

Today we announced another new tradeshow - Web Video Summit slated for San Jose, California in June.

This should be a terrific new event. While one can never be sure of attendance, based on the strength of the program created by Dave Burstein, we are feeling good that the show will be well attended. We certainly have a good topic and I believe we are first to market with a tradeshow of this type. One can check out the preliminary program at our events page.

We will shortly be launching a new Web site called WebVideoUniverse.com to cover breaking news in the Web Video arena. I have mentioned before that it is exciting for me to be back in the tradeshow business. And tradeshows are just part of the changes we are making with our online media division. Soon readers will see a wide ranging redesign of our sites, new search features, a new version of our recently purchased JustTechJobs.com, and a new overall name for online media division - Internet.Com.

The Super Bowl is over. The Colts won. Lots of gamblers won and of course many lost. Certainly less money was bet online this year than in previous years thanks to the ridiculous crackdown on the part of the United States Department of Justice. The amount of money bet on the Super Bowl will never be known, but one can "bet" that hundreds of millions was wagered in office pools, bookie bets, and many other means of illegal sports betting.

A good roundup of the issues for online gambling was written the other day by our Washington, DC based bureau chief, Roy Mark.

One has to applaud our Department of Justice and zealous national legislators. They have cracked down hard on online gambling while billions are wasted everyday on hundreds of legislative endeavors that Congressman and Senators endorse to enable themselves to get re-elected to the detriment of the better good of the United States.

These same hard-working legislators and Executive Branch officials forgot to make sure that American soldiers had the right body armour, and armoured Humvees and other necessary supplies for combat operations. Washington really knows how to beat up on online gambling operators. They should only be so tough on themselves.

Viacom's demand that YouTube remove 100,000 clips owned by Viacom has been widely covered the last few days.

The real story, however, is that "content is king." This has always been true and it will continue to be true. Recent months have provided us with countless stories about social networking and Web 2.0 sites that thrive from user created content. This has led many pundits to suggest that "owned content" might not be valuable in years to come. Such suggestions are off the mark.

There will always be a place for "owned content." And those that create such content will continue to have a significant place in ecommerce.

YouTube will always have lots of traffic but apparently it is going to have start paying for "owned content" or it will have to rely on social networked content in order to grow and thrive. In the end the good stuff, the stuff owned by the Viacom's of the world, is what people really want to see over and over again.

Today I learned that SarbanesOxley has invaded my computer. The geniuses that were hired to create this red tape and capital eating monster even decided how email passwords should operate. Therefore as of early next week all of our employees and presumably all employees of USA public companies will all have to use the same "password system" to access email.

Our company had a perfectly fine plan to systematically change passwords every 30 days. But the Sarbox team decided that they had to mess with email passwords.

And another thing: these inane regulations even require that I can only get my pay check from our Chief Financial Officer. No other person in the company can give me a check.

It must have been amazing to have viewed the design of SarbanesOxley regulations. I presume there must have been a large contingent of career government types who sat in a large room for weeks (who had never run a business) and thought up byzantine regulations designed to suck working capital out of business development and into red tape operations.

SarbanesOxley is a crime. It is destroying business development in the USA. It might have some role in deterring financial crime, but I doubt that this concept will ever be conclusively proved. In the meantime our company is wasting several millions of dollars annually on red tape and inane measures.

Now that I am spending a bit more of my time working the tech media side of our business I am coming across some terrific new applications. Today our editor Eric Griffith reports on our WiFiPlanet Web site a coming service from iPass that should appeal to travelers that go to remote areas and want steady connectivity to the Net.

Historically I find this fascinating. As I remember it was only 5 years ago that most people never heard of WiFi. We launched the above referenced site in early 2001 and started a trade show by the same name in the fall of that year.

And this gets me to thinking of what is the next Internet wave that will be part of our dialy life in a few years? Part of my job is to figure this out - whether in images or tech. Fortunately I am surrounded with many talented colleagues who feed me ideas and who can also execute on making new ideas come to life.