</p> <p>While blogging is not the hot topic it once was, statistics show that for the general public, interest in personal blogging is waning, that does not mean that, for a business, the importance of blogging should be discounted.</p> <p>When it comes to SEO and marketing strategies, blogging still ranks right up there.</p> <p>For one thing, blogging is the new way that many successful companies get information out there.</p>

Huffington Post, which was recently acquired by AOL, has been a target of criticism since its beginnings in 2005 and with the new acquisition, criticism has only gotten louder.</p> <p>The main concerns with HuffPo?s practices fall into two areas: 1) the amount of aggregation on its sites (news that has been originally reported elsewhere) and 2) the number of bloggers who write for exposure rather than pay.</p> <p>The first issue was addressed at a recently held AOL staff meeting, where she said that even if she had $10 billion to invest in original reporting, the site would still use aggregation as part of its three-pronged strategy (unpaid bloggers, paid reports, aggregation).</p> <p>?I would not claim that we are the only source of good reports and good writing,? she said.</p> <p>However, this is not good enough for many.</p>

Three bloggers from Bangladesh have been awarded prizes in a global blogging contest held by German news broadcasting company Deutsche Welle.</p> <p>The awards, which included six multilingual categories, will be awarded in a ceremony held at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn on 20th June 2011.</p> <p>Winners included the blog entitled ?A Tunisian Girl? written by Lina Ben Mhenni, a 27-year-old assistant professor at the University of Tunis.</p>

New Zealand?s new legislation surrounding internet piracy is highly controversial; therefore, the news that the government planned to sneak it through today hidden behind Christchurch quake emergency legislation came as quite a surprise.</p> <p>The new Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill proposes a three strike system which can result in those found repeatedly guilty being disconnected from the internet for as long as six months, with fines of up to $15,000 New Zealand Dollars.</p> <p>According to MP Gareth Hughes, the fact that the legislation was even being discussed came as a surprise.</p>

In a news report coming out of China yesterday, it was announced that Facebook has made a deal with Baidu, a popular Chinese search engine, to provide the country with a stand-alone social networking site.</p>

On Friday, the US House of representatives passed an action that will prevent the Federal Communications Commission from regulating the way ISPs handle their broadband traffic.</p>

</p> <p>Larry Page took over as Google?s CEO a few days ago; however, Eric Schmidt won?t be fading into the sunset, he?ll be sticking around to serve as a Google representative and interacting with the public.</p>

Reports from various sources say that Google, who owns the popular social media content site YouTube, has decided to invest over $100 million USD in new programming for the site?s television service.</p> <p>Google TV, which was launched in 2010, is part of the company?s attempt to bring the site closer to a full service site in order to better compete with cable and other television broadcasting services.</p> <p>While YouTube has long played host to a wide-variety of programming produced by and for some of our best-loved names, until now, most of that programming has been user generated.</p>

In an effort to promote and attract content creators and journalists, popular social networking site Facebook has revealed a new Facebook Page specifically designed for journalists.</p> <p>The page, which is entitled Journalists on Facebook, serves as a source for those journalists and new content writers who wish to incorporate the social media aspect into their networking, storytelling, and reporting.</p> <p>?The page will provide journalists with best practices for integrating the latest Facebook products with their work and connecting with the Facebook audience,? says Justin Osofsky, Facebook?s director of media partnerships.</p> <p>According to Osofsky?s blog, Facebook serves as a valuable tool for reporting, citing examples which include NPR, which uses Facebook to find stories and Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, who used Facebook to report events from Cairo.</p> <p>This wooing of the journalistic crowd is not a new one.</p>

Former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt will be teaming up with Jonathan Rosenberg, soon to be Google?s former product chief to write a book about Google ? its values, its culture, and its rules.</p> <p>Speaking with the San Jose Mercury News, Mr Rosenberg told the press that he was leaving Google two years before planned because he is unable to meet new CEO Larry Page?s demand for a long-term commitment.</p>