Critical thinker George Rebane has an insightful post about the fact that the Stimulus Package “isn’t denominated in real money.”  He goes on to propose, in lieu of a more-radical return to asset-backed currency, a business practice to simulate the same:

I propose that we start writing into our contracts, loan agreements, purchase agreements, etc. that the accounts will be cleared in dollar amounts based on the spot price of, say, gold (or another suitable commodity) on the date the account is due.

This is the second time in a week that smart people I know have been discussing alternative currencies….

via Rebane’s Ruminations

The New York Times announced today the release of an article search API that will make the paper’s 2.8 million articles written since 1981 searchable across 35 fields in each article.  Looking forward to using the great tools that will leverage this API…

via http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/announcing-the-article-search-api/

The New York Times has a very cool animated Twitter cloud that shows what folks around the nation were tweeting during the Super Bowl:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/02/sports/20090202_superbowl_twitter.html

Very nice article by Ravit Lichtenberg on ReadWriteWeb.

Companies that deliver beautifully designed, easy-to-use, searchable, flexible, aggregating platforms will become more important than any social media tool by itself.

via 10 Ways Social Media Will Change in 2009 – ReadWriteWeb.