Google and power of Blogging
This is thanks to Vivek who sent me the story. NYT story

Some issues that provide food for thought

1. This makes it possible for anyone out there to make manipulate the Google page Rank, of course provided that there are enough people out there willing to support that particular idea of cross linking. The most common hates would not be a problem to garner blog support. Anything like maybe Greatest Cricket Team linking to India for example would be hard. (Takes you to A Windies site using I am Feeling Lucky.. wonder of wonders ..) An easy target would be Britney Spears. "Worst popstar" (Thats my contribution. Will it catch on? Guys?)

2. Really interesting to see how blogging is rapidly becoming a the New Free Press. Of course you have maybe hugely misreported facts, titled opinons, personal idiosyncrasies and yet it is becoming quite a community of people. The Internet is a great thing but it also means Real people out there can make a difference to public opinion. They called the Fourth Estate the Press but now even the Press can be relied on really accurate news. There is another Estate the Fifth Estate of bloggers.

3. I was tempted to call this blog the Dead End of the Blog because it does not link to another blogs. In the vein of that one smart alec who put up a site saying "This is the end of the Internet. You will have to go back". Adding a sidebar is one of my other facelift plans for this blog. Gimme two more weeks. Atleast it will save me the trouble of typing in all the address of the blogs i regularly read. (Also I would be improving their Page Rank)

3. Currently typing 'hirak' on Google gets you here. Though Hirak Parikh takes you to my personal webpage. This is because most people link me with my first name. So another frightening fact is that all the people who have linked me decide to associate some phrase like "Hirak: Jerk of the century" or something...?