MDG Computers, which makes PCs and laptops, has suddenly become cool after signing a deal with Phoenix Suns' guard and NBA MVP Steve Nash. Nash (otherwise known as Captain Canada for his exploits with the Canadian Olympic basketball team) will appear in TV, radio and print ads, while MDG will support Nash's foundation and work with it to provide some Canadian schools with computer labs featuring MDG computers. Give MDG credit for stealing Nash right from under the noses of the big boys - HP and Dell - but it seems a little strange Nash would align himself with a white-label computer maker rather than a multi-national brand.

Now, here's a shocker for a quiet Friday afternoon. According to CNet, Hewlett-Packard has decided to stop reselling Apple's iPod just 18 months after the deal was unveiled. HP is still interested in the "digital-entertainment" market but not with the iPod - even though it just announced a new line-up of HP iPods. Not sure what to make of the move but it may be part of new HP CEO Mark Hurd's plan to sharpen the company's focus. It seems somewhat ironic that HP is severing its iPod ties given Apple has historically been reluctant to license its technology. That's what made the HP deal so intriguing because it suggested Apple was changing its stripes.

If anything, the appeal of the CRTC's VOIP decision by Bell, Telus, Aliant and SaskTel has got tongues wagging with strong views on both sides. Putting aside the regulatory arguments for a minute, what are the ILECs plans when it comes to VOIP? In other words, they're happy to talk the talk - and hold a press conference to do it - but what about walking the walk? The answer from Bell about its Digital Voice service is "no comment". How come? They contend talking about expansion beyond its four-city stronghold in Quebec would tip off the competition. Seems like an odd stance given the competition - otherwise known as the cablecos - have little problem talking about their plans. Telus, by the way, is still holding firm on its plans to launch a VOIP service later this year but there are no details on the table yet.
One way to perhaps think about it is the ILECs are in strategic limbo. On one hand, they've got some annoying - but relatively minor - regulatory hurdles when it comes to moving into the VOIP market. On the other hand, their existing local telephone businesses are cash cows that provide consumers with reliable, low-cost service. So what do they do - get aggressive on VOIP and/or start marketing how traditional local service meets the needs of most consumers? In any event, they've got to do something other than complain to the federal government and CRTC.

After posting about Yahoo's RSS search test site earlier today, I got an e-mail from Greg Gershman, who runs Blogdigger. Here's the scoop: the company is based in Baltimore and has two part-time employees, including Gershman, who has a full-time job as a software developer. If you're a VC looking to invest in the blog/RSS search space, you should send Greg an e-mail or give him a call. Some start-up capital, he said, would let Blogdigger hire people to do business development. In terms of Blogdigger's search methodology, which I think produces superior better results than Technorati, Gershman said two techniques are used: predictive algorithms that spider blogs based on their historial behaviour; and pinging tools such as Pingomatic. A problem with pings, he said, is they have been embraced by spammers.
I also got some feedback from Ice Rocket's Blake Rhodes, who has a habit of sending nice notes to people who mention Ice Rocket in their blogs. Rhodes confirmed that Mark Cuban is an investor, which explains why Cuban refers to Ice Rocket as "we" these days. Rhodes said Ice Rocket's searches for blog content primarily by date to keep the data as fresh as possible. The company is also working on a tool that will look at how many links each site has, and then rank them by importance - which should be an interesting concept.

There are rumbles out there Yahoo is developing a Technorati-like tool. Steve Rubel captured a couple screen images that clearly show Yahoo is working on an RSS search tool. The test site, however, was quickly taken down. You knew it had to be a matter of time before someone (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft) came up with a better blog search engine. Technorati had a perfect Google-like opportunity to come out of nowhere to become the default blog search engine but it is struggling under the weight of its own popularity. Mark Cuban's Ice Rocket looks to be trying to fill the void but it still requires more work (interface, presentation of results) before it can be taken seriously. I'm a bigger fan of Blogdigger, but I don't know too much about them other than it was started in 2003 by Greg Gershman.