This just in from the TechCrunch news desk… Facebook access banned on Telstra corporate computers. The horror, the shock, the atrocity of it all. Two employees are reported to resist eating lunch until the access is restored and the Web team have chained themselves to an old AS/400 server just to show how important Facebook is!

We will have reporters on the scene in 24 hours (it's a long trip!) and hope that all heck has not broken loose.

Now, let's get serious for a minute. Companies have the right to do whatever they see fit with their network. You signed an agreement when you started working there. If the company decides to block x site or y use, that's the choice. It's your choice to remain employed with said company or not.

They have reportedly turned Facebook back on, so I have gone ahead and cancelled the charter plane to cover the story from the ground. Cameron Reilly says, "I explained that any half-intelligent employer in the 21st century should be measuring their employees by their OUTPUT, not by what time they punch the clock or what they are doing each minute of the day."

I agree and disagree. I agree that companies need to change their ways of tracking an employee's results, but at the same time, not all employees can deal without precise monitoring. As more of the older generations move out of the workforce, more "open tracking" will be used, but for now, limiting an employee's Internet usage doesn't appear half-bad.

With the launch of the GigaOM television show last night, I thought I would give you a brief overview of the video shows I either watch or are popular. My suggestion is to give all of them at least one try and draw your own conclusions as tastes differ. If you know of other great video shows, please leave them in the comments!

Om Malik – GigaOM Television

Om Malik from GigaOM has launched his own television show on the fanboy Digg TV network, Revision3. I wrote my commentary on the first episode this morning and my hope is that episode #2 shows a good deal of improvement. Overall I found the show boring and using catchphrases out of place is poor form. Perhaps Om is going after the digg fanboys with his show and not the business professionals he targets on his content network? I wish Om good luck with his show and look forward to the next episode to see if he has listened to the various reviews of his show.

• Host Rating – 3/10
• Content Rating – 6.5/10
• Production Rating – 8/10

Natali Del Conte – Textra

Many bashed Natali when she wrote for TechCrunch. Now Natali is the host of a "technology news upload" called Textra which runs daily. Honestly, she wasn't watchable when she started but lately she has really developed a nice video personality. I can't believe I am going to say this but I actually think her show is pretty decent! The quality of the production is very high as they have a large team working on the show.

• Host Rating – 7/10
• Content Rating – 7/10
• Production Rating – 8/10

Loren Feldman – 1938 Media

Loren is the most "real" of the video hosts listed. His videos sometimes show him naked or in bed and are typically short 2-4 minute pieces. Loren talks tech most times and will tell you exactly how it is. He throws in a good bit of entertainment with his video family. He is also the genius behind the "Jason's Place" which is a pick on Jason Calacanis. I wish he would do more of those episodes.

• Host Rating – 8.5/10
• Content Rating – 8/10
• Production Rating – 3/10

Amanda Congdon – ABC

Amanda is best known for her bitch-fest with Rocketboom last year. Today she hosts a weekly show on ABCNews.com. When I watch her show, I get the sense more that she is a reporter rather than she is a diehard fan of the category and understands it. Her maneurisms get old quick. Amanda has a lot of talent but it seems her show is an exact replica week after week. Amanda gets to do many things that the other video hosts listed here don't due to her ABC badge. On a side note, I get at least 2 visitors a day coming from a search for, "Amanda Boobs". No idea what Amanda they are looking for, but they visit CN which is a good thing.

• Host Rating – 5.5/10
• Content Rating – 6/10
• Production Rating – 9/10

Robert Scoble – Scoble Show

Robert is one of the longest running show hosts. The Scoble Show mainly focuses on interviewing companies. Robert has said that he likes to stay behind the camera. His shows mainly focus on Silicon Valley which I think limits his ability to show a wide variety of companies and ideas.

• Host Rating – n/a
• Content Rating – 7.5/10
• Production Rating – 6/10

Amber MacArthur – commandN

I must admit, Amber is my favorite even though she won't reply to my email. I think she is a great blend of knowledge and host talent. Amber hosts a show called commandN which seems to offer multiple episodes each week. Amber does a good job of explaining the story without boring me and while giving just enough information to keep the story moving. Amber is what I would envision a good online video host to be.

• Host Rating – 9/10
• Content Rating – 8/10
• Production Rating – 8/10

Agree or disagree with me? Have any video shows to highlight? Again, please leave them in the comments, thanks!

Twitter, the company that hasn't made a dime since their explosion at SXSW earlier this year, just secured a round of cash (and cats) from the likes of Union Square Ventures (led round), Charles River Ventures, Marc Andreessen, Dick Costolo, Ron Conway, and Naval Ravikant. More info on TechCrunch and Mashable.

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures notes on his blog:

As we stated when we made our investment in Delicious, The question everyone asks is "What is the business model?" To be completely and totally honest, we don't yet know.

The capital we are investing will go to making Twitter a better, more reliable and robust service. That's what the focus needs to be right now. We'll have plenty of time to figure out the business model and there are many options to choose from.

I struggle with the "biz plan or no biz plan" argument. Upon thinking harder about it, it might actually be easier to get VC funding without a biz plan because then there is nothing to pick apart or disagree on. Of course having a biz plan means that you know what profitability looks like. Which do you think is the better option when seeking VC funding?

Congrats to Twitter on the funding. I am sure the cats who handle the servers are eating some fine Kibbles 'n Bits tonight!

Nielsen has published a report today which states that Meebo is the "fastest growing instant messaging destination in the last 10 months".  From the report:

Meebo’s unique audience increased 354 percent, from 434,000 in August 2006 when it first fell above reporting cutoff to 2.0 million in June 2007 (see Table 1). Google Talk also saw triple digit growth in this time period, increasing 149 percent, from 904,000 to 2.3 million unique visitors.

“Now that instant messaging has become an established form of communication, providers are seeking to distinguish themselves with expanded access and additional functionalities. These recent trends in traffic indicate that users are excited about seeing where the technology is going next,” said Jason Lee, media analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings.

Oddly missing from the report is eBuddy. Companies such as Meebo and eBuddy are kickstarting the IM app market and bringing it to life. Both offer great services and have launched iPhone apps as well. Check out our previous Meebo and eBuddy coverage.

Below are five of the hottest startups according to Killer Startups for the period ending July 26, 2007. Check out previous Killer Startups posts.

SezWho.com – Leverage Your Community

Social media site SezWho is a platform for connecting blogs and social networks. Plug-ins allow users to rate contributions and provide profile views within an AJAX interface. The SezWho server calculates and provides scores for user interactions. The SezWho web portal lets users register and manage their public profile while displaying user stats for bloggers and contributers. SezWho is meant to increase traffic and community interaction. read more »

Viewbook.com – Beautiful Portfolio Creation

Viewbook is an online service to create and share albums, portfolios and presentations on your viewbook domain (yourname.viewbook.com). The focus of Viewbook is on presentation of images. They aim to make presentations as clean, crisp and clutter-free as possible, and they pride themselves on not having fancy designs, advertisements or anything of that nature. The key word for this site is minimalism. They also aim to make the process of making your presentation simple and intuitive. read more »

BusinessITOnline.com – Free Help Managing Small Biz

Focused on start up businesses with small budgets, Business IT Online is a internet-based program to help manage your small business. It has five modules that focus on managing the main pillars of any new busines – calendar, cash flow, contacts, marketing, and documents. Each are independently explained and operated, which only adds to the ease of using this site. read more »

Iconfinder.net – Search Engine for Icons

In the market for icons? Iconfinder is a search engine for…you guessed it…icons. You simply enter in a search term (or use the search clouds for key words), or enter tags and see what comes up. The site is new and the content is minimal. The icons that do exist on the site are labeled by the type of protection they have — whether they are part of the creative commons and can be shared or if they have copyright protection and cannot be shared without legal permission. read more »

AideRSS.com – Find the Most Popular Posts

With AideRSS you can filter through RSS feeds by what you are interested in first and then by how popular the blog is. The site uses technology to scan through and find out how many posts have been linked to one blog, and the blogs with the most posts that fit your category will rank the highest of your feeds to read so you know which are the most important to read and which ones you don't. Use AideRSS and stop reading unpopular posts instantly. read more »

Let me start by saying that I think Om Malik is one of the best true "writers" of the web tech scene. I enjoy reading his articles in Business 2.0 as well. "The GigaOM show," which is a television show on the Revision3 network launched last night. While eating my Rice Chex this morning, I decided to watch. This is the first day in a long time that I didn't enjoy my Rice Chex.

The show is hosted by Om and Joyce Kim (lawyer and sis-in-law to Calacanis) and is produced by Revision3. Jangl, the phone service,  sponsored tonight's episode. The production value of the intro (and overall show) is pretty high and well done. The intro led me to believe this would be a great show. I was wrong. The show begins with a run down of the latest news where Om says catchphrases such as, "Why are you such a hater?" and "That's how we roll".

When I met with Loren Feldman last week, the first thing he said is that video is about entertainment. Om and Joyce need to realize this as well. The GigaOM show is 30 minutes of boring. In fact a buddy of mine says he stopped watching at minute three. I will give the show another week but then I will ask for my time back.

The first guest is the very well loved in the SV tech scene James Hong. James started HotorNot, which allows you to rate whether a girl or guy is hot or not based on looks only. Arrington podcasted with James, now Om gets him on the first show, this guy is hot. James wouldn't tell Om if he is hot or not and discussed their new advertising service in which members can add brand logos to their personal page.

Next up is the CEO from Seagate, Bill Watkins. Seagate is pretty big into video as they sponsor Scoble as well. This man likes to flap his arms around. He is clearly very intelligent about the hard drive market. Om asked about porn on people's hard drives. Bill says we are using the Internet for information and porn is part of that.

The final segment is an open Q&A from site visitors. The first was about Om Malik being an Apple fanboy. He said, "I can't be a hater all the time," and then went on to say that he is not a fan currently but loves Apple design. His dream is to get Paris Hilton on the show and he spoke briefly about Lindsay Lohan, even displaying her jail picture.

In summary, the show could have some potential if there was a higher level of gripping entertainment. Om needs to display why he is a talented and intelligent writer. They need to make me want to watch the next episode. I wish Om luck and success with the future of his new television show. I might vote for Natali Del Conte to replace Joyce as Natali is learning that entertainment is important on her Textra show.

Last weekend the big story was whether Google favors Google within it's own tools. Dave Winer believes that Google might force Google Reader to favor blogs that use their newly acquired FeedBurner service. Discussion arose across the Web around the topic. On Jeremiah's blog, Adam Lasnik, a Google Search employee responded with:

I work in Search at Google, and I wanted to help debunk a current myth which you’ve spread above: We don’t elevante Google-hosted/created content in our search results above like content. That means we don’t push Blogger blogs about WordPress blogs. YouTube videos above Metacafe videos. We aim to show the most relevant and important results for every query… regardless of which results are affiliated with Google properties.

Alright so let's assume that Google isn't evil and does put all sites on the same, fair, playing field. What about Digg? Should the same be expected of them? Is it ok for stories submitted by Digg team members about Digg (and the associated properties) to reach the home page?

Today Digg announced that they are changing ad partners from Google to Microsoft. A big story? Maybe. (it seems bigger than I anticipated based on the number of posts on TechMeme, of course some of them want to be listed on Digg front page!) Worth a Digg home page? Maybe. Kevin Rose posted the story to Digg and within mere minutes, the story hit the home page. It's a well known fact that any "kevinrose" submitted story will go home page. Should Kevin have submitted this? I suggest no. Should they have allowed anyone to submit this? I suggest no again. First, Digg'ers will always check the Digg blog. Second, I think its a misuse of Digg to continually promote their own interests. The Digg blog would be a great widget within the Digg site. Let users find out about it that way. Let other stories enjoy the benefits of Digg.

If we look at Revision3, it is almost a given that much of the content will go to the home page. And then we have Pownce. When Pownce launched, story after story went to the home page. Is this ok? It just doesn't sit well with me to see the Digg team use Digg to promote not only Digg but their own properties.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that the Digg algorithm is set to help boost internal Digg (and their affiliated sites) in any way. What I am suggesting is that Digg should not be used to promote Digg by Digg. The one element I am not 100% sure about is how far should this go. Would sites that write about Digg news events be allowed? I would think yes. Talking about Digg from outsiders is fine, internal promotion is not.

All sites should be held to the same standards, not just Google. What do you think? Is it ok for Digg to engage in behavior that we seem to agree Google should never engage in?