The Google software that Burson was targeting is called Social Circle. Supposedly Social Circle allows people with Gmail accounts see information about friends and their “secondary connection” friends. Burson made a pitch to journalists that Social Circle was “designed to scrape private data and build deeply personal dossiers on millions of users—in a direct and flagrant violation of [Google's] agreement with the FTC.”

“The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day—without their permission,” said Burson.

Blogger Chris Soghoian offered to help write an op-ed and asked Burson which company would pay an agency to spread this information around. Burson refused to give up that information so Soghoian published their e-mail exchange on his website. Then the story gained even more publicity when it was revealed that former CNBC tech reporter Jim Goldman and former political reporter John Mercurio were the two working for Burson that was pushing USA Today to write negative things about Google.

“After Goldman’s pitch proved largely untrue, he subsequently declined USA Today’s requests for comments,” said USA Today after they looked into Social Circle. Facebook, Goldman, and Mercurio should be embarrassed.

In 2009, Shan wrote an article about how Jim Goldman put together phony numbers in a slide called “True Cost of Owning A PC” while reporting on CNBC. Goldman said that it would cost you $1,500 to get a $699 PC to perform like a Mac. The numbers Goldman used broke down like this:

Norton Anti-Virus: $50/year
Multimedia Software: $80-$104
Photoshop: $104
Video Editing: $100
Music Software: $100
Geek Squad Visit: $129

When I owned a PC, I never visited the Geek Squad. Photoshop is not that cheap unless you buy an old version on eBay. AVG anti-virus is free so you don’t exactly need Norton. Windows has free video editing software built in to their operating system. Music software is free. This now makes Goldman an unethical journalist and an idiot when it comes breaking down the numbers around owning a computer.

[The Daily Beast]

Gannett Company’s USA Today is planning to start an electronic edition of their newspaper.  USA Today has the widest circulation of any other newspaper around the nation with 2.11 million copies delivered every weekday.  The newspaper started in 1982.

The electronic version of the newspaper will be available for a monthly fee and will be delivered through e-mail starting August 3.  USA Today publisher David Hunke said that the company is currently seeking alternative ways to make money as the media is dealing with declines in advertising.

Access to the main website will most likely not have a charge anytime in the near future.  The company may even charge for a USA Today iPhone application.

[via Associated Press]

As of right now, The Politico is staffed by authors who have previously worked for Time Magazine, The Associated Press, and The Wall Street Journal. The Politico will provide 15 articles per week for USA Today.

Quotes about the partnership from those involved:
“I think it’s a plus for the paper. This is a time when a lot of publications are cutting back on their reporting resources, so the idea that we would be adding resources, even indirectly, is a wonderful thing.”
-Kathy Kiely, author of Congress for USA Today

“We need to deepen our coverage online, where there is an expectation of 24-hour timeliness.”
-Kinsey Wilson, Co-Executive Editor of USA Today in response to the new initiative not being a cost-cutting effort, but more of a circulation effort.

[Information Source: NY Times]

Called MySpace News, the service will launch in the 2nd quarter and would harvest real-time news/blog posts from around the web.  Users would be able to rate, comment, and submit stories through MySpace blogs.

This effort is also an initiative to compete with the revamped USA Today website.  USA Today’s website now features RSS and has an integrated social network that allows users to interact with each other and about different news articles as well.

More of this news to come when MySpace News launches.