Can anyone give me a single, good reason for the existence of Valentine’s day? Other than commemorating St. Valentine, that is.

According to Reuters, it is rumored that Google will buy CNET. I find this almost impossible to believe, since Google has never shown any interest in content companies, but it was good enough to lift the stock seven percent.

Google has announced a new local news option on Google News that allows you to type in a zip code or city name and get news from that locality. So, let’s compare the coverage! On TechCrunch, we have a restatement of the press release, accompanied by a prediction that Topix is all done. While on Between the Lines, Larry actually tries the new service, and find that it doesn’t work worth a damn. Which do you think will get more play? Sometimes, I have to ask why we even bother doing analysis?

Today is Trent Lott Appreciation Day. According to The Mississippi Press, it’s a “well-deserved honor.” They also note:

Today’s honors may not be as fancy as receptions held in Washington, D.C., but it is very likely Lott is among more friends here.

It’s hard to argue with that. On a related note, January 24th was National Compliment Day.

As always, I urge a write-in vote for William Howard Taft. A policy of trust-busting, dollar diplomacy, an increase in the corporate income tax, and strong tariffs is just what the times demand! It was right in 1908, and it’s right in 2008. So, get out and vote!

I finished reading Taj Mahal: Passion and Genius at the Heart of the Moghul Empire last night. It’s a engrossing look at the building of the Taj Mahal and the events that led to it. The description of how the Taj and the gardens around it were built is the best part of the book. The account of Moghul history that surrounds it, though, is a bit superficial. If you are really interested in the history of the Moghuls, I would still recommend Waldemar Hansens’s The Peacock Throne: The Drama of Mogul India. Although an older work (it was published in 1972), it is still the most approachable general history of the empire.

This has been coming for a while. Jerry Yang had close to a year to put Yahoo back on the right path. He never seemed to get started. His hundred days came and went, and nothing happened. Losing products weren’t cut. Nothing was rationalized. Hard decisions weren’t made. Now, Yahoo will pay for his lack of urgency. You want to know why it happened, then read The Peanut Butter Jar is Empty by Rich Skrenta.

In this post, Matt Mullenweg has announced a WordPress theme, called Prologue, that provides a Twitter like feed for all registered posters on a blog. Like all wordpress.com blogs it can be password protected, so the stream can be limited to a small group. While a cute idea, I don’t think it really has anything to do with Twitter. In my view, the most important part of Twitter (in my view) is the wide-spread social network it creates. It’s that voyeuristic element that has been key to Twitter’s success. And, if you do want Prologue like capability from Twitter, just protect your updates, and form a small group.

I have a guest post up on Between the Lines about Facebook’s recent release of a JavaScript API. It’s entitled Facebook unleashes wave of new development with JavaScript client library. I think it’s pretty good, but let’s see what the talkbackers say.

UPDATE: The post is on TechMeme. Since this is probably going to be the only time my name appears there, I have grabbed a screenshot:

In a post entitled Belt-Tightening in Corporate IT Will be Good For Web 2.0, Eric Schonfeld argues that the projected recession in IT spending will be good for Web 2.0 companies. He claims this, because he thinks companies will increasingly switch from expensive enterprise applications to web-hosted, web 2.0 applications to save money. I think there are two main problems with this argument:

1. Most web 2.0 companies aren’t application companies.
2. Most web 2.0 are highly reliant on advertising revenue.

So, when I see a good argument why the coming recession in advertising won’t hurt web 2.0 companies I’ll listen. Right now, though, I expect a shake-out in 2008. Of course, none of this applies to Google who everyone agrees will grow revenue forever.

UPDATE: For Dan Farber’s much more polished and reasoned take on this issue, see Tech Spending Taking a Dip (Naturally) in 2008.