Announcing Tech.NewsJunk.Com 

There's a new site on the net today:

http://tech.newsjunk.com/

It's the counterpart to the political NewsJunk, which is focused on news of the 2008 presidential campaign. The Tech site is focused on technology product news.

I created the site because I wasn't getting enough news about products. It's that simple. I'm interested in the other stuff too, the finance, trends, parties, puppets -- but that's adequately covered on TechMeme. What wasn't getting through is the stuff I, as a product developer, care the most about -- news about products. And the interesting new products I'd find wouldn't make it onto the bus. If it got bought by Google or Microsoft, that would likely show up on TM, or if a VC invested a lot of money in it. But I like to find out when things are small, before other people invest.

It's important to note that the Tech NewsJunk, like the political one, does not have original content, it just points to the sites that are producing the relevant stories.

I did it so I could learn, and in the spirit of the web of course I wanted to share and hopefully people will forward me links to product news that isn't already on TechJunk (please, no press releases) and even better, pointers to feeds of sites that regularly review products.

A couple of notes. I'm not just interested in new products, I'm also interested in how the products evolve. So if Flickr were to (for example) add a bunch of new features tomorrow, we would defintely link to that.

I also want to hear about products from the people who design and implement them. Their point of view is very important to not only understanding their work, but to understanding the market.

I expect and hope other people will compete with this site, so we can focus more attention on products, so maybe there will be more products that fit user's needs better.

Now, as with the political "junk" site, there are many ways to consume the flow.

1. The old-fashioned way -- you can refresh the site manually.

2. There's a feed, of course, for your reader, or aggregator, or whatever.

3. You can follow it on FriendFeed.

4. Or on Twitter.

5. Or read the mobile version on your iPhone or Blackberry.

And soon you will be able to follow it on identi.ca (as soon as we figure out how to do it). And there will also be an email interface.

PS: One of the great things about this site is that I learn which sites are providing the best product coverage. So far they are (in no special order): ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat and Webware. This is just my opinion of course, and it could change. I wish some of the sites would cut down on the cuteness and add more hard info.

PPS: The counts page is getting interesting.

Independence Day 

It's the day when we say we're not dependent on Great Britain.

Of course that part of the holiday long ago lost its meaning. But maybe the whole thing, maybe the concept of America has lost its meaning. Matthew Yglesias, a surprisingly young blogger with a lot of influence yesterday wondered if the US really had more integrity in 1974 when our outrage forced Richard Nixon from office. Not just Democratic outrage, but Republican outrage too. I was alive then, Yglesias says he was not, and I remember, as a college student, how remarkable it was. But it's sad if it's true that today's America cares less about its ideals than that one did, because that one didn't care enough to stop the outrage from happening, we only cared when it was too late.

As we learn more about our current President and Vice-President, it's never been more clear that we sold ourselves out -- for nothing -- to a handful of people who are raping not only Iraq for its oil, but our own country's treasury and integrity. They say they're not raising taxes, instead the dollar keeps declining relative to a barrel of oil. In just one week the price of gas at the pump has gone up 10 percent at the local station where I took the picture last Sunday. 10 percent! This is an unbelievable tax that hits everyone equally, which is to say it hits people just barely making it the hardest. And it's going to effect the cost of everything as the increase ripples through the economy, the cost of food, clothing, medicine, keeping our houses warm.

Then comes the amazing story that we may be about to provoke a war with Iran so the oil industry can take Iran's oil, after taking Iraq's. How many more hundreds of thousands of people will die, how many millions will be displaced, and how much more of what's left of our leadership will be foreclosed so the oil and defense barons can make a few more euros (they're surely not taking their loot in dollars).

When we look for someone to blame, we should look in the mirror -- we did this to ourselves, first by electing Bush, and then amazingly, re-electing him. But it would feel much better if I believed we were about to start undoing the mess, but I've been walking around with an undercurrent of depression this week, and I haven't been able to pinpoint the source, yet, but I have an inkling it has something to do with the evaporating hope that we're about to turn the corner. We may have created an unprecedented mess in the 8 years of Bush, we may have wrecked our economy and reputation, but at least we're about to start heading in the right direction. It seems perhaps not.

From gun control to abortion, to illegal wire-tapping and funneling government money to religious organizations, the man who sold us Change You Can Believe In, it's sad to say, appears not to have believed in it himself. To find out it was just a marketing slogan is too much to bear. It's so hard to accept that Ted and Caroline Kennedy stood up for him and said he represented the same hope as JFK, well, maybe we misunderstood what they meant. Or maybe it's time for them to take him aside and ask "What did you mean again?"

I'd like to get Aaron Brown back on the air. I'd like Keith Olbermann to be tougher. And if this is just a case of Obama getting comfortable in his new skin, with his new stature as presumptive nominee then I look forward to him re-finding himself, because we need leadership now more than we need a new president. A humbled Obama is worse than a proud McCain.