TUESDAY'S LINKS: Google Unveils Ad Features, 'NYT' Launches Blog, CIA Agents to Testify That Libby Lied

By: E&P Staff In today's edition, Google is unveiling some innovative new concepts to expand its business, the New York Times finally launches its new "Empire State" blog, and web companies are seeing the benefits of advertising offline.


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Two in CIA to Testify That Libby Lied
Two top CIA officials will bolster prosecutors' charge that Vice President Cheney's chief aide lied to them, court papers show. Prosecutors say disgraced Cheney chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby learned CIA spy Valerie Plame's identity from, among others, agency officials who will be called to testify at his trial for perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice.


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Google Unveiling the 'Ultimate' Search Engine
A search engine that knows exactly what you are looking for, that can understand the question you are asking even better than you do, and find exactly the right information for you, instantly -- that was the future predicted by Google yesterday. Speaking at a conference for Google's European partners, entitled Zeitgeist '06, on the outskirts of London last night Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and co-founder Larry Page gave an insight into perhaps the most ambitious project the Californian business is undertaking -- artificial intelligence.


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Libby Prosecutor Focuses on CIA Officer's Status
The classified status of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame will be a key element in any trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, according to special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald has said that at trial he plans to show that Libby knew Plame's employment at the CIA was classified and that he lied to the grand jury when he said he had learned from NBC News's Tim Russert that Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked for the agency.


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'NYT' Launches 'Empire Zone' Blog
"Thus far it's only metro political reporter Patrick Healy's byline we see, but the blog is said to be a notepad for the entire Times political staff," reports Jossip. "We also hear a few weeks ago, it was also Healy who was shipped upstate to Albany to film a video intro snippet. That footage isn't yet online, but we're sure parading in front of the capitol building will make a nice YouTube clip to pass around."


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Colleges Increasingly Using Anti-Plagiarism Software
Digital plagiarizing calls for digital policing. Such is the philosophy behind a wave of anti-plagiarism digital software that colleges are using to deal with the widespread use of essay-writing websites and online databases of pre-written papers, and to uncover writing copied from other students' work. Makers of programs called TurnItIn and MyDropBox.com have extended their reach through contracts with universities, and in some cases with textbook companies that include the software with the book so students can check their work for proper sourcing before turning it in.


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Google Will Offer Video Ad Service
The Internet search giant today plans to introduce a system for running TV-style commercials as it tries to capitalize on a fast-growing segment of online advertising. Entertainment companies such as 20th Century Fox and Paramount Classics have been testing the service with trailers for TV show DVDs and film releases, and General Motors Corp. has been promoting its Pontiac G6. But Google executives said they also hoped small businesses such as bed-and-breakfast inns would use video ads to attract customers.


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The Ongoing PR Makeover of 'Evil Press Mogul' Annenberg
Walter H. Annenberg sought to rehabilitate his thuggish image before he died in 2002, "grubstaking the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and another Annenberg outpost at the University of Southern California," writes Jack Shafer. "To the Corporation for Public Broadcasting went a 1980 pledge of $150 million. In 1993, he promised $365 million to education and continued to make one publicity-seeking act of philanthropy after another -- did I mention the $1 billion worth of art masterpieces pledged to the Metropolitan Museum of Art?"


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VOA's Baghdad Bureau Still Closed After Six Months
The Voice of America's bureau in Baghdad has been closed for the past six months, ever since the government-funded agency withdrew its only reporter in Iraq after she was fired upon in an ambush and her security guard was later killed. All Western news organizations have struggled with the dangerous conditions in Iraq, which have led to such high-profile incidents as the kidnapping of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll and the wounding of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff. But for a federally funded information service to pull out of Baghdad for such a prolonged period raises questions about the Bush administration's insistence that conditions there are gradually improving.


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Web Companies Also Advertising Offline
With its latest campaign -- billboards and posters promoting its Happy Hour bouquets of flower-filled margarita glasses -- Internet ad pioneer 1-800-FLOWERS is helping to define another advertising trend.


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Adapt or Die
For years, newspapers have treated innovation like a trip to the dentist -- a torture to be endured, not encouraged. True, newspapers finally got around to adding color. They shrank stories, hoping that pithier, flashier fare would help attract young people who don't like to read. They spruced up the front page by sprinkling uplifting, maudlin or otherwise titillating features amid the news. But bold new thinking about the newspaper and a world of opportunities beyond it? Please. Tell the dentist to add a veneer and leave the rotting core alone. Now that's all changing, of necessity. Circulation is falling; newsprint costs are rising; retail, auto and movie advertising is slumping; classified advertising is available free on craigslist and other online venues. Wall Street's dissatisfaction with newspapers boiled over in November, when money manager and Knight Ridder shareholder Bruce S. Sherman forced the company to put itself up for sale.


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Journos Had Pool on Hoffa's Body
"I picked Saturday and tossed in my $5," writes william Barrett. "Following the time-honored tradition of cruelly cynical journalists, during the summer of 1975, my fellow workers in the Philadelphia bureau of The Associated Press created an office pool. The bet: What day of the week would authorities finally discover the remains of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa, who had suddenly disappeared around Detroit and was widely presumed to have been murdered? Six of us -- at least, I think that was the number--anted up a total of $30. The stakeholder was one of the staid news agency's supervisors. I can't remember which day went unchosen."