An .edu domain selling it’s soul to bloggers has stirred up a lot of conversation this week. The issue revolves around .edu domains having a certain trust, prestige and nobleness that is separate from the rest of the web. Because of a grandfather clause and some legal loopholes an ingenious marketer is attempting to monetize off this valued trust. Personally I don’t believe it’s going to be a problem and not worth all the coverage. It is important to get the knowledge out, but I’m sure Google and others are all over this and if it becomes even the slightest problem they will blacklist the site. For all the inside here are the links:

• The actual pi.edu blog site
• LinkAdage Selling .EDU Blog Space: It’s Evil - the first real blog to pickup the story
• The discussion continues over on the story going popular on Sphinn, a Social Bookmarketing site for Internet Marketers.
• A couple Higher Education Bloggers chime in on the story: Loopholes in the .edu Domain Exploited and Marketing on an .edu domain
• The University Web Developer Discussion on the issue started by Michael Fienen
• Finally The Chronicle chimes in with a story on their Wired Campus blog, Company Defends Selling Blog Space at ‘.edu’ Domain

Just incase it actually slipped through the cracks make sure that you take a look at the Virginia Tech Day of Remembrance Website as reported by Higher Ed Marketing and CollegeWebEditor.

Finally Alexa makes some big changes to their Ranking system this week which cause some sites to really jump, or fall, in the rankings. .eduGuru was plesantly suprised to see it’s rank drop about 100,000 and crack the top 200,000 sites on the internet, go me! Read the official Alexa release on their blog, The Alexa Ranking System Has Changed. There has been a lot of discussion about Alexa not admitting that the way they have been tracking was narrow and schewed, but I’m not going to point any fingers or toss around blame. I’m excited that the new algorithms pull from more sources and going forward their rankings should potentially be much more accurate. This is good and I commend them on the efforts to make their data that they freely share potentially much more accurate. Thanks guys!

And now to the links:

• Scientists Build World’s Smallest Transistor, Gordon Moore Sighs With Relief | Wired Science from Wired.com - Interesting news for a true tech geek.
• Real People Don’t Have Time for Social Media - Interesting post on the time it takes to be involved in social media. Let’s be honest here: we’re all a bunch of social media addicts. We’re junkies. Whether it’s a new Twitter app, a new Facebook feature, or a new social anything service, we’re all over
• 3 Reasons Big Brands are Wary of SMM - An extensive article with lots of statistics and some key points to jumping the hurdle to the new age.
• #CASECMT: social networking for alumni groups - Andrew Careaga reports from CASE CMT about how Caltech is using LinkedIn as part of their alumni network. This is one of those posts that definitely launched a light bulb in my head as a no-brainer to do thing.
• Will Higher Ed Websites Become Irrelevant? - Mark Greenfield presents an argument that Higher Education Websites become irrelevant and the discussion continues into the comments.
• Don’t Think Traffic – Think Demographics - Don’t just go for traffic, look for individuals that actual have the potential to convert. This detailed article offers some great tips to learning your demographics.
• Harvard vs. Yale vs. Princeton: Facebook Fight - Sam Jackson shares with us a new Facebook tool Lexicon with some practical Higher Education data.
• Killer Domains: My First eBook is Available Now - If you use a structured research process with efficient tools and techniques, however, I am sure that you will be able to find dozens of good domains that are still available, or to find registered domains for sale…
• Thank You, February; Top Social Networks Grow in March - Data about Social Networks growth in March.
• Report: YouTube Dominates Video More than Google Dominates Search - The biggest takeaway really does seem, though, to be that though “Googling” is a verb for search - the company’s market share dominance is substantially higher in online video.
• Is Ning The Next Facebook or MySpace? - Ning is an online platform for users to create their own social websites and social networks. It hopes to compete with other social networks like MySpace and Facebook
• Web Video Editing And Production For Dummies - Five easy to follow steps on web video editing
• Landing Page Tutorials and Case Studies - Including case studies of actual critiques done on popular landing pages for internet marketing, SEO, and others…this article and case-study page from Copyblogger is sure to fill your head with ideas for your own landing page.
• Google Now Fills Out Forms & Crawls Results - Wow … this is a big announcement. Previously, Google was not able to get past simple forms, but now it can. Great development.
• Associated Press Makes Urgent Video Distribution More Efficient - The Associated Press Online Video Network (OVN), a joint project between the AP and Microsoft, has implemented a new syndicated video feature that will allow AP affiliates around the world to easily share content with each other’s websites.

Enjoy the weekend!