I’ve found two decent tools for archiving pages from the Web. Page archival can be very useful in at least two cases:

1. You want to backup a page of your own content and you want to preserve it as is. Dan discussed the need for this in When Others Delete Your Past. While a personal backup is best, the following tools may come in handy when you don’t have access to a website’s backup system.
2. You want to capture a page that may change soon. For example, a public official says something controversial on her campaign site and takes the page down after complaints.

Diigo – Diigo is designed around Internet research and does many interesting things. One can save and tag pages, highlight text, annotate and send the page off to collaborators. The most interesting new thing Diigo does is save a “snapshot” of a page. What Diigo calls a screenshot though is a cached version of the page. This means the user can still search and highlight the text involved. I tested flash videos embedded in pages and found these preserved in the cached version of the page as well.

PositivePress by Iterasi – Positive Press may be priced high for those only interested in page archival, but it’s an impressive product worth mentioning. The archival tool is a one-button approach and also saves pages as a searchable, cached copy of the original.

Moomeo is an interesting option for whistleblowers. An email that seems important can be sent to post@moomeo.com and it will be promptly turned into a web page of its own. The sender receives a link to the page via email. Visitors to the page can comment and share the email through facebook, Twitter and a handful of other social media venues.

Moomeo is also a way to create a fast, one-page site based on an email. It’s something worth keeping in the toolbox when setting up a new blog is too slow for a more urgent message.

(Note: These are first impressions, and I’ll be updating this posting.)

The Federal Trade Commission noticed a while back that marketers of brands, products and ideas have used new media in some incredibly dishonest ways. These include paying people or giving them freebies in return for positive mentions and not requiring (or even encouraging) them to disclose that they’re being compensated.

So with laudable goals, the commission issued a document (390k pdf) aimed at better disclosure — with penalties of up to $11,000 in fines for violations. Basically, the FTC is saying that if you have a “material connection” to a product or service you’re praising, you are an endorser who must disclose that connection.

Sounds good, doesn’t it. But when you read the FTC’s ruling, published today, you get the sense of a government-gone-wild travesty. Why?

First, the new system is unworkable in practice, which is bad enough. Worse, the rules are worryingly vague and wide-ranging. Worse yet, they appear to give traditional print and broadcast journalists a pass while applying harsh regulations to bloggers (and others using conversational media of various kinds). Worst and most important, they are, in the end, an attack on markets and free speech, based on a 20th Century notion of media and advertising that simply doesn’t map to the new era.

The advertising of the past was a one-to-many system. Call it broadcasting. The Internet is a many-to-many system. Call that conversation. They are not the same.

The FTC would deal with this essentially by throwing sand into the gears of online conversations. The rules are explained through examples — which means that almost no one can be sure that what he or she is doing, at least at the margins, is allowed or forbidden.

Here’s an example of the practical unworkability of what the FTC demands.

I disclose my various affiliations with companies when I do blog posts relating to them (or at least I try; I don’t doubt that I’ve forgotten to do this from time to time). And I have a long “About” page that includes my various financial and other interests. That page notes, among other things, that Google has loaned me a bunch of Android phones to use with students for experiments.

I’ve posted a number of Twitter tweets about Android, including my preference for that environment than Apple’s restricted system. Where, exactly — in a post with a total length of 140 characters — should the disclosure go? Has the FTC, for all practical purposes, just forbidden all positive comments about products and services on Twitter when the person doing the posting has a relationship of any kind with the company? Do I want to be the FTC’s guinea pig in a lawsuit where the world works this out?

And what about the extremely common practices of traditional media? Every news organization covering technology gets freebies by the container-load. Book reviewers’ offices overflow with volumes sent by publishers. Subsidized or even complimentary travel, food and other things of this sort are common but too-rarely disclosed.

The answer is transparency. But do I want the feds enforcing it, especially when their rules can be interpreted narrowly or widely, depending on the circumstance?

Again, let’s be clear that the motives behind the FTC’s rules seem to be well-intentioned. I also loathe the odious practice of using bloggers and other online conversationalists as commercial sock puppets in a sleazy online word-of-mouth operation. Let’s also agree that disclosures are always better than hiding one’s affiliation with a company.

We already have laws against fraud. Let’s enforce those — first against the serious fraudsters, who keep getting away with it — before we even consider harsh regulations on speech.

We all want more transparency. I don’t see this as the right way to get it.

But I do predict one outcome of this FTC action: a slew of court cases. This is a full employment act for First Amendment lawyers, who have better things to do.

Note: Sam Bayard, assistant director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society (disclosure: I’m a co-founder of the project), corrected me on my initial language, in which I called today’s document “revised rules” from the FTC. He writes:

They are non-binding guidelines meant to help advertisers, bloggers etc comply with the FTC Act:

“The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.” (from FTC press release today).

As a matter of substance, you’re right that they will have much the same effect as rules because one would have to face an enforcement action by the FTC to challenge them — not a pretty prospect at all. And their status as guidelines doesn’t lessen your concerns with practical workability, vagueness, and lopsidedness because the FTC will use them itself as guidelines for when to pursue investigations and bring enforcement actions.

I’ll be updating as I learn more. Meanwhile, for more reactions, take a look at some of these postings:

• Jeff Jarvis: FTC Regulates Our Speech

• ReadWriteWeb: FTC to Bloggers: Disclose Freebies or Face $11,000 Fine
• MediaBistro: Transparency is Key
• Edward Champion interviews FTC official in charge of this. One word: Wow (and not in a good way).

TweepML is like OPML for Twitter. Like the way OPML simplifies grouping RSS feeds, TweepML attempts to simplify groups of Twitter feeds. The process is cut and dry. A user creates a name for a feed, enters a list of Twitter usernames and hits create. This produces a public page with a list of Twitter feeds. Visitors can quickly follow the entire list or select only specific feeds from the list via check boxes.

Twitter has announced its own forthcoming lists feature, but the TweepML blog offers worthwhile differences between the two. Twitter’s lists feature (at least in this iteration) may not be as customizable (e.g. The list follower cannot choose feeds a la carte from a list) and may lock the list follower into the whims of the list creator (e.g. If the list creator adds or removes feeds, these are automatically added and removed for the list follower). I’m sure Twitter’s lists will develop quickly, but I can see value in multiple approaches to how lists are done.

Lists showing up on TweepML so far tend to be groupings based on industries and interests. However, I see potential in creating lists that would be useful for temporary situations. For example, one could create a list of local fire, police, government and news feeds that could be useful in an emergency situation. Community blogs could keep a link to this list in their sidebar and raise its prominence when the need arises.

I just approved and, on further consideration, unapproved a comment about the posting below. It was written by someone who was looking at the ProPublica board of directors and learned that Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates is a member of the board. From this discovery the writer made several truly ridiculous inferences (framed as leading questions) straight out of the  right-wing conspiracy-theory playbook.

The commenter may or may not have used his real name. I doubt that he (or she) did, because the email address (which is not made public when you comment in any case) was phony.

We will have one fundamental rule here in the conversation: civility. Even when we disagree, and we can do so in a strenuous way, we’ll treat each other with respect. That comment didn’t pass the test.

This reminds me that I need to create a semi-formal “rules of engagement” for this project. I’ll be borrowing liberally from the brilliant “Community Guidelines” at BlogHer, which state, in part, “(W)e agree to agree and to disagree — as strongly as need be — without crossing the boundaries into unacceptable content…”

I invite the commenter whose posting I’ve rejected to try again. Or, better, I urge him to create his own blog and post it there, where he can be more accountable.

UPDATED

I’m a big fan of ProPublica, the not-for-profit organization that in the past year has become an important source of excellent journalism. I’m not a fan of the pay that’s going to the top people.

As Alan Mutter first reported this week, a fair chunk of the money ProPublica has raised is going toward some breathtaking paychecks. Paul Steiger, the editor in chief, took home a 2008 salary of $570,000, Mutter noted.

Steiger isn’t the only person there who’s doing well by doing good, according to ProPublica’s IRS disclosure (PDF, 2.7 MB). Steven Stephen Engelberg, the managing editor, pulled down more than $450,000 in salary total compensation, which includes $325,000 salary and (see comment below) almost $120,000 in relocation expenses. (Note: my apology to Engelberg for my original misstatement of his compensation as all salary.)

Both of these men are terrific journalists and leaders. That’s not in dispute. But their princely salaries, while entirely legal, send a message that ultimately detracts from the mission.

Richard Tofel is ProPublica’s general manager (he holds official posts of treasurer and secretary; he made just under $300,000 in 2008), and former Steiger colleague at the Journal.He justified Steiger’s pay in a comment on a Reuters blog, noting that Steiger had made more, including money from stock options, at the Journal. So what? The Journal was a huge organization by comparison to ProPublica, and it was part of a for-profit enterprise.

The salaries aren’t in the ballpark of what some of the biggest nonprofits pay — including stunning compensation at a few hospitals, megabucks arts institutions and big universities. But for the size of the operation, the ProPublica top-gun salaries are mind-boggling.

They can spin it any way they want, but they can’t really justify this kind of pay for people at a relatively small non-profit. In the end, this will hurt ProPublica, not help.

UPDATE

Tofel responds:

Dan, you’re more than entitled to your view, of course, and I have great respect for your work.  But this post is yet another indication of why people should make phone calls or emails before they finish reporting a story.  Three quick points: 1) Steve Engelberg’s salary at the end of 2008 was $325,000, not $450,000.  The “reportable compensation” on our Form 990 included relocation expenses, which we would have told you if you had checked.  2) My only point in the Reuters blog comment was to refute the point of that original post.  It alleged that Paul Steiger’s comp had increased 4% from 2006 at the Journal to 2008 at ProPublica  when in fact it fell 59%.  The difference seemed worth noting– and was again the consequence of publishing without checking.  3) While I do hold the corporate offices of treasurer and secretary, I’m employed as the general manager of ProPublica.

My response:

As noted in the corrected post, I got Engelberg’s money wrong, and major apologies on that. I should have read the IRS form more closely and/or called Tofel, as he rightly says.

What Steiger made as head of an enormous news operation at a for-profit company still doesn’t seem relevant to me. I was very well-compensated (more than I ever imagined I’d make as a writer when I started my print newspaper career) when I was a columnist at Knight Ridder. Since leaving in 2005, my employment compensation hasn’t reached half of what I got in salary and benefits during the apex of my time at the company.

So I believe the issue I raised is valid. According to Charity Navigator’s 2009 survey of CEO compensation at medium to large charities, the average CEO pay (including bonuses and expenses) in New York (the highest regionally), where ProPublica is based, was about $220,000 — which is less than half of what Steiger makes and a lot lower than Engelberg’s salary.

Again, I have the highest respect for what ProPublica and its leaders are doing. But I continue to believe that these salary levels are inappropriate, and damaging to this otherwise great enterprise in the long run.