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Wired News reporter Ryan Singel set out to write a story on wikis, the technology that allows people to collaborate on projects. The best known use of wikis is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Singel's first draft is now being given the wiki treatment. Internet users are making changes to the story, reworking the headline, rewriting the lead, posting Web links and suggesting more sources for Singel to interview. An earlier experiment by the Los Angeles times, which allowed readers to help write an editorial, failed when malicious readers flooded the site with pornography.

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New online music service SpiralFrog says it's reached an agreement with the largest record label, Universal Music Group, to offer free downloads of its songs and is trying to reach similar deals with other record labels. U2, Jack Johnson, Gwen Stefani and Elvis Costello are among artists on the Universal label.

The service, to be launched in December, will be funded by advertising, rather than the pay-per-song model of the market leader, Apple's iTunes. SpiralFrog downloads will not be compatible with iPod players.

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Michael Bolcerek is anxious about the future of online poker.

Bolcerek, a former Silicon Valley businessman, is executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, a fast-growing political group that claims more than 100,000 members. Millions of Americans play online poker, but despite its popularity there's a growing movement to restrict wagering on the game.

In June, Washington state banned online gambling, including poker. Last month the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Federal Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act, which would prevent banks and credit card companies from processing electronic payments to Internet gambling sites. The Senate is scheduled to vote on that bill next month.

Bolcerek says the Alliance is working to sway the Senate on the proposed Internet gambling measure.

In his new book Convergence Culture, MIT's Henry Jenkins explores the cultural transformations caused by the collision of the old media with the new. The director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program argues that in order for students to become more conversant in this new culture of blogs, viral video and podcasts, they must circulate their writing and other work on the Internet so it can be shared with and evaluated by others.

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A leading anti-spyware vendor, Webroot, claims the spyware problem is getting worse. Webroot tracks spyware in order to keep its anti-spyware program, Spy Sweeper, up to date. In its quarterly State of Spyware Report, Webroot says 89 percent of consumer PCs are infected with some kind of spyware. Webroot CEO Dave Moll says that's the highest rate in a year.

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TrackMeNot is a small program that works on top of the Firefox web browser that obscures what users look for on Google and other search engines. It works by generating lots of fake searches, thereby hiding the real thing in plain view.

Also today: The ProBlogger Job Board

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In just two years time, podcasting has gone from obscure to quasi-mainstream. A recent report from measurement firm Nielsen Analytics says about six percent of the U.S. population listens to podcasts regularly. Nielsen's Larry Gerbrandt says two things are holding back podcasts from becoming even more popular. One is the very word, podcast. The other is the lack of a clear business model.

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Today, we have more of our conversation with Hossein Derahkshan, a popular Iranian-born blogger now living in Toronto. He describes the blogging scene in Iran and shares his opinions on the future of Iranian bloggers and their chances of producing meaningful cultural or political change.

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Iranian authorities are stepping up arrests and pressure on popular bloggers as part of a wider Internet clampdown launched after hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president last year.

Thousands of websites have been blocked, and a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer says at least 50 bloggers have been detained since last year.

At the same time, Iran's president has started his own blog.

Guest: Hossein Derakhshan, a popular Iranian-born blogger now living in Toronto

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The Internet has given birth to an unlikely new grassroots campaign to eliminate a key on computer keyboards.

Thousands of people are backing an idea to get rid of "caps lock" or exiling it to the keyboard countryside. The blogosphere is suddenly filled with strong opinons about the key that lets users type in all capital letters without having to hit "shift" first.

Some people are saying the caps lock key is seldom used and takes up valuable real estate; that it encourages people to type in obnoxious all capital letters; and can mess up password entries when it's accidentally depressed. Others are defending caps lock.

It all started just two days ago, when Pieter Hintjens of Brussells created a discussion group and blog calling for an end to "caps lock."

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The movie Snakes on a Plane opens in theaters tomorrow, but it's been playing on the Internet for months. Not the movie itself, mind you. But for about a year now video parodies, blog entries, and self-made trailers have been showing up on sites like YouTube and MySpace. The movie's distributor, New Line Cinema, has embraced the hype, but has not allowed advanced showings of the 30 million dollar movie.

David Waldon, author of Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Sensation, says people who've been hyping the movie on the Internet are actually hoping for a but of a stinker.

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News stories about the dangers of the popular social networking site MySpace often focus on sexual predators. The risks are real.
This week, police accused three people - an 18 year old man and 17 and 15 year old boys - of raping a 14-year-old girl they contacted on MySpace.

The co-author of a new book on MySpace says the most extreme risks are also the least likely to happen. Larry Magid's book is MySpace Unravelled: A Parent's Guide to Teen Social Networking.

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Most consumers don't know it, but they don't have to buy popular software packages to protect their computers from viruses, spyware and other threats. They can security software for free. Grisoft offers free antivirus protection, as does AOL. Lavasoft's free Ad Aware protects against spyware. Zone Alarm has a no-cost version of its firewall software.

Does the free security software do the job? Robert Vamosi, a senior editor for technology review site CNET, says the free stuff is good, but the software you pay for is better.

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We woke up Thursday to the new realization that many of the items that get us through long flights--laptops, iPods, portable DVD players and even toothpaste and water--are suddenly suspect. Shouldn't there be a better test to separate the millions of people carrying nothing more potent than rasberry Capri Sun from a suicidal shadow armed with explosive hydrazine?Bruce Schneier is a security expert and one of the people who worked on the Secure Flight Working Group to determine the effectiveness of an airplane passenger screening program. His most recent book is titled "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World." He has trouble tolerating pointless security measures. For the moment, however, he thinks leaving the water bottles behind is the best we can hope for.

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The University of California library system is the latest to sign on to the Google Library project. The UC system is the largest of six institutions that have given Google the green light. The agreement doesn't change the fact that Google is fighting a copyright infringement challenge from authors, publishers and independent presses.

Jennifer Colvin, Communications Manager for UC's California Digital Library says Google's project puts important works within people's reach.

Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, however, sees UC's decision as an affront to established intellectual property laws and practices. The association is one of the groups suing Google. Schroeder, the former U.S. Representative from Colorado, says copyright law has never allowed someone to copy published work without the express permission of the person who created it.

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America Online has apologized for releasing the search queries of more than 650,000 of its subscribers. The company admitted it breached the privacy of its users. In the data AOL made public on an AOL Web site, users were identified by numbers, not screen names, but the search terms themselves revealed enough information to identify some users personally. A little sleuthing could reveal sensitive information about users, including where they live, medical conditions, social security numbers, and more.

Future Tense news analyst Dwight Silverman says AOL's mistake is a doozy.

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The blogoshpere is buzzing with news of the Popularity Dialer. It's a Web-based service created by two NYU graduate students that's designed to make yourself look important or popular, or give you an excuse to ditch a meeting or a bad date. A slogan on the Popularity Dialer Web site says "Fake a phone call easily and credibly." The creators say they're only half serious.

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Singshot is a new Silicon Valley startup that allows users to record Karaoke songs and post them for the world to hear. Users can add their voices to 2,500 different tracks, from Sinatra to Fall Out Boy. All that's required is a computer, Internet connection and a cheap microphone.

Singshot works inside your browser and on both PCs and Macs. It's competing with KSolo, an older service owned by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Interactive that requires a software download. KSolo works on Windows machines only. Singhsot users can save their favorite karaoke recordings and embed them inside their blogs and MySpace pages.

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MuniWireless.com says wireless Internet networks have been built in 60 American cities and counties, and are being planned in at least 130 more. Among the cities that have implemented pilot projects or are working to build full-scale networks are Philadelphia, San Francisco, Anaheim, Houston, Minneapolis and Silicon Valley.

Many of the networks, including those in Portland, San Francisco and Mountain View, California, will rely in part on local businesses buying ads to generate the revenue that will help build and sustain the networks.

A survey of businesses and Chambers of Commerce in several U.S. cities by wireless consultant Craig Settles finds lukewarm interest in placing ads on municipal wi-fi systems.

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Windows Vista, the replacement for the aging Windows XP, is scheduled to be released to big businesses in November, and to consumers in January. More than five years in the making, Vista has already been scaled back and delayed. Microsoft wanted Vista in consumers' hands this year. Now some prominent Vista beta testers are urging Microsoft to delay it again because it's still too buggy and unstable.

Guest: Ed Bott, author of the best-selling book on Windows XP

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Beset by falling circulation and profits, newspapers have been struggling to stop the flow of readers to the Internet, where companies like Google, Yahoo and MSN provide news for free.

This week, the San Jose Mercury News reported on a new trend that could help newspapers and wire services slow the bleeding. The Mercury News says top Internet companies including Google and Yahoo have been signing deals to compensate news organizations for content and send more readers to their Web sites. For example, Google has signed a deal with the Associated Press which is said to include the sharing of revenue from ads that appear next to AP stories on the Google News site. By contrast, Google is currently defending itself from a lawsuit by Agence France-Presse over copyright violations. AFP sued Google for using its stories and photographs without permission.

Guest: Internet industry analyst Greg Sterling

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The downloadable audio and video shows known as podcasts are edging toward the mainstream. New data from media tracking firm Nielsen Analytics says about nine million Internet users have downloaded podcasts in the last month.

Many podcast listeners find shows through Apple's iTunes store, but quality, small-time podcasters often have a hard time getting noticed on iTunes. That's where the Podcast Peer Awards come in.