Pascal Van Hecke - Daily Links

Dipity timeline with the "history of Internet Memes".
Some 100 users seem to have contributed! (via bnox.be)

"Advanced version" of Google Trends:
"With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames."

Marketing gimmick by a "web globalization" consulting firm. Countries are represented by their TLD's, sizes are relative to population (via bnox).
"Although .com is the world’s most popular TLD, it is far from alone. There are more than 260 TLDs in use around the world, most of which are country code top-level domains (ccTLDs)… Each ccTLD is sized relative to the population of the country or territory, with the exception of China and India, which were restrained by 30% to fit the layout. At the other end of the spectrum, the smallest type size used reflects those countries with fewer than 10 million residents. "

But there are exceptions:
"Permission in advance is not necessary if the main content of communication is the exchange of opinions between private persons. If a company prepares a message and then an individual forwards this message to friends, permission must always be obtained. Information concerning the sender and the subject must also be such that a message is identifiable as communication between two private persons.
In order for a company not to have to ask for permission in advance, it cannot offer any kind of prize or benefit for sending a message, such as the opportunity to participate in a drawing or improve chances of winning. In general there should be no consequences to a consumer for sending or not sending a message. The person sending the message should know the content of the message he sends."

It looks like there's a chinese Wall between MS the software company and MS the media company after all… much more user control over privacy, including 3d party scripts/cookies:
"InPrivate™ Browsing lets you control whether or not IE saves your browsing history, cookies, and other data
Delete Browsing History helps you control your browsing history after you’ve visited websites.
InPrivate™ Blocking informs you about content that is in a position to observe your browsing history, and allows you to block it
InPrivate Subscriptions allow you to augment the capability of InPrivate Blocking by subscribing to lists of websites to block or allow."