• Another blog search engine will release a list of top 100 bloggers. Every blogger on the list will blog the news in the form of: “Wow, I’m honored to have made it onto the top 100 list” with a link back to the list maintainer’s blog. The list maintainer will in return blog: “I’m honored to see that the list has been covered by such a high-profile blogger” with a link back to the winner’s blog. The link incest will continue for weeks until it has propelled the list maintainer himself into the top 100, at which point the list will be declared a sham and the blogosphere will erupt in outrage.
• The RIAA will be granted its long-awaited patent on the concept of suing your own customers and promptly sue the MPAA for violating it. Buoyed by this success, the RIAA announces its intentions to patent the act of granting patents and threatens to “sue the patent office out of existence” if it is granted.
• Citing a tip in a confidential e-mail dossier entitled “Fwd: Lol guyz check this out!1″, Rupert Murdoch will acquire acclaimed Internet inventor Al Gore.
• AOL, after months of extensive market research on the effects of the walled garden model on the distribution and consumption of interactive media, will rotate its logo by another 90 degrees. Chairman Dick Parsons will boast that the new logo “reflects the new direction of our company,” but founder Steve Case will make an impassioned plea in the New York Times to break up the logo into a circle and three triangles.
• Although 37 venture capital firms will invest in AOL following the announcement, the blogosphere will scoff that AOL is “only for people who know nothing about the Internet.” Rupert Murdoch will thus acquire the company immediately, then merge it with his other recent acquisition to create online powerhouse AOL Gore.
• Yahoo, acclerating its bid to dominate the social space, will announce that it is buying the actual societies of 32 cash-strapped governments. Citizens will be allowed to link their existing names to their Yahoo accounts.
• Pursuant to its recent deal with AOL Gore, Google’s famed “onebox” feature will become a lockbox and every third search result will be replaced by an ad for Gore in ‘08. After a lukewarm response from the blogosphere, an indignant Google blog post will assert that the deal is completely in line with Google’s principles, noting that “Gore is a Democrat; democracy means freedom; freedom is a cornerstone of Google; and….look, draggable maps!”
• In retaliation for Gore’s bold foray onto the Internet, George W. Bush will be the latest to come under fire for editing his own Wikipedia biography. Although Wikipedia will have implemented the most sophisticated algorithms to deter this kind of behavior, Bush will be caught because he will change all instances of “George” to “I”.
• 900,000 more websites will add RSS feeds. Bloggers will cover all of them. One of the sites will be the blog of an obscure profession, such as shoe cobbling. This will be groundbreaking news, because now shoe cobblees will be able to participate in a Conversation with their shoe cobbler. Thirty-seven VC firms will invest in the cobbler.
• Due to a glitch in Windows Vista, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will mix up his notes at PDC ‘06 and declare: “Developers, developers, developers….We’re going to f*%ing bury those guys!” Nineteen will leave on stretchers with furniture-related injuries.

OSLO, NORWAY– Amidst mounting speculation of an all-out bidding war between Microsoft, Google and the Korean bakery down on 3rd, Opera Software announced today that it inadvertently purchased itself in a $0 million recursive merger set to complete on Monday.

“I’m as surprised as everyone else,” said Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. “I read the news on http://www.geocities.com/~MiltonsTechWorld192/index.html when I woke up this morning.”

“Buying Opera is very Web 2.0,” said Milton, who was studying for a social studies test and could only comment briefly. “It’s like tagging. More companies should try it.”

Analysts value the deal at 42 liters of hot air, the estimated net worth of the blogosphere’s journalistic abilities.

———-

About Opera Software ASA

Opera Software ASA is an industry leader in the development of Web browser technology, targeting the desktop, mobile, PDA, home media and vertical markets. Partners include companies such as IBM, Nokia, Sony, Motorola, Adobe, Macromedia, Symbian, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Sharp, Motorola Metroworks, MontaVista Software, BenQ, Sendo and AMD. The Opera browser has received international recognition from users, industry experts and media for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers.

About Opera Software ASA

Opera Software ASA is an industry leader in the development of Web browser technology, targeting the desktop, mobile, PDA, home media and vertical markets. Partners include companies such as IBM, Nokia, Sony, Motorola, Adobe, Macromedia, Symbian, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Sharp, Motorola Metroworks, MontaVista Software, BenQ, Sendo and AMD. The Opera browser has received international recognition from users, industry experts and media for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers.

About Opera Softw…STACK OVERFLOW

Last year, ten thousand of you introduced an old-school medium to the new rules of advertising.

New year. New medium.

One year after our New York Times success, we’re pleased to unveil the Firefox Flicks advertising contest to anyone with a video camera and a healthy disgust for traditional film advertising. The contest begins today and runs through March 21, 2006.

Contest finalists will have their work judged by some of our era’s most distinguished film and advertising talents. The winner will see his or her work incorporated into our global marketing campaigns and take home a $5000 B&H gift certificate. The second and third place prizes aren’t so bad either.

The New York Times ad gave a lot of people very tiny names. Now we want to make a very big name for one aspiring director by exposing her work to millions of people worldwide. Stop polishing the resume and fishing for contacts. Just give us 30 seconds and let us give you a career.

(reposted from my blog at SpreadFirefox)